The Story of Simon, Bleu and the Burstalls
The story I am reprinting this week, with permission of the author, was written by one of GPA/OK's volunteers in 1996. It was this story that convinced me that I could foster. I had been dragging my feet, thinking I had too many pets in my house (at that time I had 2 dogs and 5 cats). After reading Janice's story, I decided if she could do it, I could too! And the rest, as they say, is history!
The Story of Simon, Bleu and the Burstalls
By Janice Burstall
When I was perhaps six or seven years old, I remember watching TV with my Dad on a Sunday afternoon, probably waiting for a Cardinals baseball game to start, when a short documentary about greyhounds came on. I remember that I was completely amazed at how beautiful these creatures were. There, on the TV, was a family sitting out by their pool accompanied by what seemed to be an absolute swarm of perhaps fifteen of these creatures - just "hanging out."
At the time my family had a pack of wonderful and loving Pekinese, but as wonderful as our Peks were, I couldn't help but notice just how incredible these gorgeous, tall, willowy animals were! And they had real dog noses - you know the long kind? Mom refused to let us have anything bigger than a bread box, so I had many years to wait and pine for my first greyhound.
I unfortunately strayed off the beaten path a time or two before striking gold. After graduation from college and marrying Colin, we moved from our hometown of Springfield, Missouri to Tulsa, OK. After building our house in Broken Arrow I waited impatiently for our privacy fence to go up. Now it would finally be time for our first dog!
At the time I had no idea of the plight of the greyhounds. In 1987 we ended up getting our first dog who was quite the bulldozer - a show Doberman pup named Bounder (Breakaway's Forward Bound). We had a lot of fun taking him to dog shows (he was a beauty and he knew it), but after about a year and a half - and being unaltered - he developed an "attitude." We had him neutered, which helped to some degree, but he now lives in the back yard with a heated doghouse.
Well, now it was time for mistake #2 to come along. A Greyhound/Border Collie mix named Nike. No one could have envisioned just how one single dog could manage to destroy so much stuff inside one house. A constant barker and a champion digger, he began to show all of the attributes you do not want to see in a dog. Nike feels that he must act tough in front of every dog he meets - even if the act is totally pointless. After several years of living together he still attacks poor old Bounder in the backyard every chance he gets. Yeah, we still have him, too.
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