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Tattooing of Greyhound Pups: by Sam & Shawnie Burdette

© Judy A Tomlinson

This week's article is another of Oklahoma breeders Sam and Shawnie Burdette's stories. When Pete and I first got Whitney, one thing we had to learn was what the ear tattoos meant. So after learning that, it was really interesting to learn HOW the tattooing was done!

"To Tattoo Greyhound Puppies:

Greyhound puppies must be tattooed before they are 3 months old. The actual imprint of the tattoo for each puppy must be on a "Litter Registration" form and returned to the NGA by the end of 3 months (along with a fee); this is step 3 of 4 in the process of registering a greyhound with the NGA. The NGA assigns a new litter registration number with each new litter. The left ear of the puppy is tattooed with it's litter registration number; the right ear is tattooed with a combination of numbers and letters that identifies that particular pup. On the right ear (looking from the rear of the pup to its nose), the first number identifies the month in which the pup was born (2=February, 10= October, etc). The second number is the last digit of the year in which the pup was born ( 8=1988, 0=1990, 4=1994, etc.). An alphabetic letter then follows that is meant only for that pup (if the litter contained 7 puppies then the last alphabetic letter utilized would be "G").

We tattoo puppies when they are about 2+ months old. Wife holds puppy, husband tattoos. The first time we tattooed it was just about divorce time. Wife was nervous, shaking, petting the puppies, talking and consoling, and barking orders to husband to hurry and to be easy. Husband was nervous, unsure, out of position, trying to roll ink onto pup's ear, trying to tattoo before ink dryed, trying to figure out what numbers and letters went where, trying to change numbers and letters in the tongs, fumbling, trying to fill out forms as he tattooed the pups, and trying to hurry. Puppies were jerking, squirming, clawing, pulling, whining, crying, shaking, and looking so pitiful. Oh Lord, what a time! It was at least 3 days before husband and wife spoke to each other again.

We have learned a lot since that first experience. The tattoo instrument itself is structured like a set of tongs. Little blocks of needle-like pins forming numbers or letters are positioned into one side of the tongs; the other side is like a pad of hard rubber. A retainer can be loosened and the numbers/letters can be changed in the set of tongs. Husband now has two sets of tongs (numbers/letters are only changed for the right ear set), all

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