Chocolate My Story

Chocolate is a nine-month-old dark, dark brown (almost black) little girl, born November 24, 2007. Her sire is Lonesome Cry and her dam is Blue Bayou. Chocolate was owned by a breeder, who is getting out of the business, but planned on keeping Chocolate as his personal pet until she broke her front left leg on August 11.

The story below tells it all from Eric H., a family friend of the breeder.

Hello, I wanted to relay a story that happened yesterday (Monday, August 11, 2008) and today - by Eric H:

David, a friend of my family for many years, had been breeding and raising Greyhounds for racing. He is hopefully getting out of the business, some dogs were lost to Parvo, and the dogs really need families, not racetracks. Anyway, there is one pup named Chocolate, born in November, who nearly died of Parvo a few months ago. Some of her siblings did not survive. She was nursed back to health, and David was considering keeping her as a pet.

Yesterday, he called saying that Chocolate had hurt her foot. Later he called from the vet, and it wasn't a hurt foot, but a broken leg. Greyhounds are apparently prone to such injuries because they are tall and lanky. Unfortunately, they said it would be $2200 to fix the leg, and the money just wasn't available, so it looked like she would have to be euthanized. David spent about $200 for them to wrap the leg and give her a shot and some painkillers, but it looked like she was going to be put to sleep.

David brought Chocolate by the house, and my mother (who really likes Chocolate) and I went out to see her. Heartbroken, David was going to call someone to see about putting Chocolate to sleep, but I suggested that we try to contact a Greyhound rescue group. David was very interested in that option, and said that he would take Chocolate home with him and wait to hear from me.

I did some Google searches and made some phone calls. I talked to a lady in Dallas, who said her group could not help, but she would call a group that she felt for sure could.

Well what seemed like a lot more time went by, and we still had not heard back. It was decided that it was probably too good to be true, and Chocolate was suffering needlessly, so David took Chocolate to Red Bluff Animal Clinic to be put to sleep. Then my phone rang, and it was a lady with Greyhound Adoption League of Texas (GALT). We got disconnected a couple times, (we are still not sure whose phone to blame) but finally we were able to talk. I told her that it was probably too late, and that Chocolate had already been dropped off to be euthanized. She asked for the name of the clinic, which I looked up and provided to her, along with their number. She said she would call them immediately.

I couldn't take the suspense, so I called back, and she said that fortunately, the vet at the clinic was very busy that day, and had not euthanized Chocolate yet. The Clinic needed permission from the owner (David) to turn Chocolate over to GALT, which David was more than happy to provide. A GALT representative in Austin could take Chocolate to foster and GALT would get her leg fixed, so could we meet the GALT foster halfway between Houston and Austin ASAP? Absolutely!

Monday night, David faxed his permission to Red Bluff Animal Hospital, got Chocolate's papers, Xray, etc together, and brought them over, and left his credit card to pay for the road trip to deliver Chocolate to Jo.

Tuesday I left work early, and my mother and I went to Red Bluff Animal Hospital and Chocolate was given over to us.

We left Houston for LaGrange, which is about halfway between Houston and Austin, and gave the pup to the GALT foster mom, who took Chocolate to GALT's orthopedic surgeon in Austin to fix her broken leg. When Chocolate has healed, she will be adopted out to a loving family.

So after almost dying twice before she is even a year old, Chocolate will hopefully have a long and carefree life with a good owner(s).

Thanks so much to The Greyhound Adoption League of Texas, and to God, for coming to the rescue of this beautiful pup!