R.I.P. "Stormy the Greyhound" 2002-2009

Stormy passed away Tuesday morning. Over the last month he was slowly deteriorating, and we finally learned he had a form of cancer that couldn't be treated. He was still "functioning", but he was no longer eating, and he didn't have much strength left. So we decided it was best to do the right thing before he experienced a lot of pain, or could no longer stand or walk.

This is one of the recent pictures I took of him with my mobile phone a few weeks ago. He was sick, but his natural easy-going self still did shine through. This is how I want to remember him.

I could write a book about him and Greyhound behavior, but for now, I just want to recount two days in the time he was with us.

The first day we brought Stormy home, the realization of what it meant to have a Greyhound became apparent. Stormy went from the race track, to the Greyhound shelter kennel, to our home. He had never been in a house before! He didn't even understand what it meant to walk up a small set of stairs. It was like he was a dog from another planet. A lot of Greyhounds are like this and need extra help learning the basics when they first come to live with you.

Anyway, we finally got him to come into the front door onto the shoe mat inside our house, but then the next problem. We wouldn't step off the mat onto our hardwood floors. He had never walked inside a house before and didn't understand the texture of a smooth floor and how to place his feet on it. He would try to walk on his "nails", but would just slip. So that first night he stayed on the little carpet by our front door. We put some other blankets down so he had a larger spot to move around on, but he wouldn't venture out into the rest of the house. That night he finally lay down and relaxed near the door mat. And so he wouldn't be alone on the first night in our house, I slept on the floor next him. Hopefully that was the first time he understood I was his friend.

Monday night, August 17th, 2009, Stormy's last night on Earth.

We usually take a quick walk every night around 10-11pm. Since he has been sick, he had to go out even more often so we were out again closer to midnight. He did a quick (number one) and we turned back toward the house. He has been pretty low on energy, so his walking pace is very slow and labored.

When we got back near the front of the house on our lawn, he stopped walking and just stood still. I tried to prompt him to continue but he didn't budge. I gave him a pet on the head to make sure he was OK, and he seemed fine. It was really warm outside, a perfect day/night in Oregon. I got the idea of grabbing an old blanket we keep near the steps of the house and throwing that out on the grass in front of where we was standing to see if he wanted to lay down and rest. As soon as I laid it out he moved forward, did a few "dog spins" and laid down. So I just sat down by him. It was the middle of the night, dark, quiet, warm, we were alone.

At first he just sat there, looking around out into the darkness that surrounds our little neighborhood. There was a slight breeze and I could see he was sniffing the air. I pet him on his head and back. After a few minutes he laid over on his side, took a few deep breaths, and started his process of going to sleep for the night.

I quickly went back into our house, grabbed a few other blankets and my sleeping bag. When I came back out, I put a thicker blanket around him, unrolled my sleeping bag and crawled in. That is where we stayed for the rest of the night, in the grass, under the stars, just me and him. I didn't really sleep, but I just laid there watching him, and looking up at the stars.

Maybe in the way that animals do, he had a sense that his life-energy was draining away and he just wanted to spend some time outside closer to nature, take in the smells, feel the breeze, and be under the stars. I knew it was a special moment, since this is something he never seemed to want to do before. Greyhounds are "inside" dogs, and Stormy definitely liked the big soft sleeping spots he had in our house.

And so the night passed. He slept really well. I could tell because I had my arm laid underneath his blanket and resting on his side. When he dreams, his legs start to "twitch" like he is running in his sleep, and he lets out a low growl in between his breaths. He hadn't been sleeping well the last few nights, so I was glad to see he was relaxed out here in the yard. A couple of times he woke up, looked around and over at me, but then after a few minutes, put his head back down and continued to sleep. When he put his head back down, I lightly scratched behind his ears until I could tell he was asleep again.

The next morning we woke up, my wife and daughter found us outside, and they came out and sat with Stormy while I got everything ready to make the final trip to the Vet's office. When the time came, the girls said a tear filled "good-bye" to him, we loaded up in the car and drove off.

The "process" at the Vet's office went fine. I don't really want to remember those details, but I'll just say it was fast and humane. Within a few minutes he was gone. I wrapped him up in a blanket, had the Vet assistants help me load him up into our car, and I drove back home.

The day before, I dug a nice spot for him in our back yard. It is slightly elevated, and it looks out over the area of our yard where he liked to walk and sniff around.

I can't really explain why he didn't want to go back inside on that last night. Somehow "he knew" his time was short and maybe he just wanted to spend it in a way that allowed him to be closer to his wild ancestry. I'm happy I was able to be with him during this time, I'll never forget that night for the rest of my life. Stormy was my friend.

Perfect :: Oregon Coast

This picture about sums it all up. Taken from the top of Cape Kiwanda in Pacific City, Oregon. Nothing more needs to be said.

Silver Hair in a Black Coat

"Stormy" (retired Greyhound) is middle aged in dog years, but I can see that he is slowing down at little. As a retired Greyhound, he still likes to run and play, but the little things are what I notice. Our main vehicle for carrying the whole family is a SUV, so he has to "jump up" to get in. That part is no problem, but jumping down to get out is several feet. He is a big Greyhound at 85+ pounds, not fat, just tall, but a couple of times recently he seems gimpy after making the jump down from our truck. I think it is too much stress on his front legs and back.

Recently, I've been carrying him out of the truck instead of making him jump. He doesn't seem to mind if I put my arms around his chest and lift him out, but I'm a big guy.

What I really need is like a short "ramp" that can go from the floor of the truck down to the ground. Then he would just have to hop from the top of the seat to the top of the ramp to get out. I've never seen anything like this on the market. I was thinking about making my own by adapting something from a 4-wheeler loading ramp. It can't be heavy and it has to be easy to put away in the bed of the truck. If anyone knows of such a product please let me know.

Living with a Greyhound

We have a retired racing Greyhound. His dog name is "Stormy", his racing name was "Village Luigi".

Even though many Greyhounds are now being adopted, many people still haven't seen them up close. When I have Stormy with me, I get a lot of questions about what it is like to have a Greyhound living in your house. I will attempt to answer some of those questions. Of course there will always be exceptions depending on the individual animal, but these are my experiences.

First Contact:

Almost all Greyhounds that people have in their private homes came from a racing program. Racing is an industry, and the dogs literally drove it. You don't see ads in the local newspaper saying "Greyhound puppies for sale". Greyhounds are pure breed animals and the breeding process is tightly controlled. The ones that people adopt are animals that have left the active racing program. You might get a dog that raced dozens of times, or you might get a dog that only raced a few times, or maybe not at all.

What your new Greyhound will be like will depend upon how recently he came from the racing program. If you get one that was very recently a "racer", then it will be like they were just dropped off onto the planet from a UFO. They are full grown dogs that don't know "anything" about what it is like to be a pet or be part of someone’s family.

When we first got Stormy, he didn't have any experience being inside of a private home. He couldn't even walk up 3 steps. When we finally got him into our house he didn't understand how to walk on hard floors. He would try to walk by putting his nails down, but just ended up slipping and getting even more scared. The first night he would only stand on the floor mat inside our front door but he wouldn't walk on our hard wood floors. He slept on a sleeping bag I laid next to the floor mat. I slept next to him in another sleeping bag on that first night. It took him a coupe of weeks to finally make it around our entire house. The first few days we laid out a bunch of towels and blankets on the floor so he could walk around.

Greyhounds don't sit.

I've been around a lot of Greys that have been trained to sit, but by nature they don't sit in order to rest. They either stand, or they squat down on all four legs. If you go to a Greyhound meeting, there will be a bunch of dogs just "standing" looking around. They don't figit. They will stand still in one place until they have to move.

Greyhounds don't bark.

Though there might be someone who will say theirs does bark, the very "large" majority do not bark. If you go to a local Greyhound meet-up in your area, there will be 20 Greys all "standing" in tight group. The dogs will be totally silent. They will mostly just stand looking around at each other. The only time Stormy barks is when he is sleeping and you happen to startle him while he is asleep. Even then he will emit only one single "bark". Greys are also not naturally aggressive so they won’t instigate fights with other dogs.

You don't need a racetrack in order to exercise one.

My dog Stormy likes to "stretch his legs" every other day. If you have any type of fenced area that they can trot around in, they seem to be happy with that. They do love to run, if you have an area where you can safely let them go, it is an awesome experience to see one running near full speed. We take Stormy to a beach by our house and let him off his leash. He will run 30+ MPH going right next your leg. When you measure the length of his footprints in the sand, the distance between them is over 12+ feet. We worked our way up to letting him off the leash only after making sure he understood his dog name and he understood we were in charge. Some people that I've met report that their dog will take off and just keep running if they get off the leash. This is an important consideration. A dog running at 30+ MPH will be over 100 yards away from you in just a few seconds. A recent racer does not understand cars, streets or other dangers of the real world.

I also have a 50 foot dog rope that I use when I take Stormy into a large open field. He has figured out that he can run in circles with me standing in the middle. I usually use this in a grass field where there isn't anything for the rope to get hooked on.

Greyhounds are also “sprinters” and not endurance runners. If you go on a long hike he might be an energy ball when you start off, but coming back he will be content to just walk along with you.

If you get a younger dog, they might have a lot of energy and so you will have to find a way to let them work it off. If you can find some way to let them safely run, then it is really an awesome experience to watch. We have a fenced area behind our house. It isn't huge, but it is large enough that Stormy can run "laps" around it. He will run about 6 laps at about 3/4 speed, then he is happy to just relax the rest of the day.

A retired Greyhound might not have ever seen any other "type" of dog before.

They have grown up only around other Greys, so an ex-racer will have zero experience being with other types dogs. The first time we took Stormy to a dog park, he didn't know what to do. He just stood there frozen while other dogs came up to sniff him. It took several trips before he got the hang of it. Now when we take him, he runs around and enjoys meeting new friends.

Greyhounds need to be tested for cat compatibility.

Stormy doesn't even acknowledge our cat. He will walk right by it and not even pause. Other dogs might have a different reaction, so you should test them before you bring them into a house with a cat. A big dog running at 20 MPH down your hallway will not create a good outcome.

Greyhounds are pacifists.

By that I mean that almost every one of them that I have seen and spent time with pretty much all have the same personality. They are not aggressive, they are not nervous. They are very calm, low key, and trusting. They won't lash out at you or others standing around you. They don't have a mean bone in their bodies. Being aggressive is not part of their nature.

Greyhounds are not slobbery, licking machines.

They love affection like most house animals, but they can also be a little reserved. They typically won't jump up in your lap and start licking you. An interesting thing they do is "lean" on you. If you are standing next to one, they will often lean their weight against your leg with noticeable pressure. I haven't researched why they do this, but it is a unique Greyhound "thing" that they do.

Greyhounds love to sleep.

Though they have the bodies of athletes, their favorite past-time is sleeping or snoozing. They will sleep a lot if you let them. Because they typically have very little fat on their bodies, they need a really soft bed. We have 3 separate sleeping spots set up for Stormy. He typically doesn't like it when a lot of unknown people are in our house, so he will seek out some quiet place to go when there is a lot of activity going on. He has a bed in our living room and will lay there when we are there. He has a bed in our bedroom, and will sleep there when we go to bed, and he has a bed in our lower house level that he can go to when he doesn't want to be around anyone. Dogs do dream and Stormy will often "run" in his sleep. He will be lying on his side, but all four legs are moving in a running motion. The old saying "leave a sleeping dog alone" applies to Greys, don't bother them while they are sleeping.

Many Greys probably spent most of their early lives in a dog kennel, which is the size of a box not much bigger than their bodies. Stormy is a big Greyhound, near 90 pounds, but when he sleeps he will initially try to curl up into a small ball. When we first got him, we placed a large sized portable dog kennel in the corner of our living room. It has a front door made of a mesh grid, but the sides are closed off except for a little vent/window on each side. He would want to go into that kennel and not want to come out. The kennel was something he understood and was his safety zone. The first few weeks in our house he would curl up his big body into the back of the kennel to sleep. That is probably how he lived and slept for the first few years of his life. Even today when he sleeps he tries to go into a corner and roll up into a ball.

Greyhounds are used to being in their single-dog kennels. When you first get a Grey, if you have to leave them alone in the house, consider putting them in their kennel and locking the door. They will be totally happy in there. We left the big portable kennel in our house for over a year when we first got Stormy. He would want to go into it to sleep almost every night. Eventually we removed it and he would start to sleep on a padded mat in our bedroom. We placed his permanent sleeping spot in a corner where there was a dresser. The corner and the side of the dresser made up a 3 sided box about the size of the kennel. He crawls into that corner and tucks himself in just as if he was in the kennel. Now that he has been in our house for several years, he will flop down just about anywhere that at least has a rug on the floor, but he still favors his “corner-kennel” for sleeping at night.

Potty Training.

If you get a recent racer, he will be a full grown dog, but he probably won't be house broken. Stormy picked it up right away with no problems. Greyhounds have lean bodies and it seems like he needs to go out for a quickie every 3 or 4 hours. When we first got him we would take away his water round 10PM so he wouldn't need to go out in the middle of the night.

Teeth and diet.

Greyhounds that have been in the racing program a long time will often have very bad teeth. I believe this is due to the fact that they are given a high protein, soft meat diet, so they didn't have a lot of crunchy stuff to chew on. On top of that, they probably didn't get many chew bones or other treats to keep their teeth clean. Our Stormy like all dogs loves different types of human food, but he seems to get the runs if we give him anything more than a "taste" of something. It is best to stick to a high quality dog food and resist giving them table scraps. If you look at a active racer, their ribs are clearly visible on their sides. A healthy retired Grey should still have a little hint of ribs showing.

Ear Tattoos.

All Greyhounds that have raced will have tattoos in both of their ears. One has their "litter" number which can be researched at: http://www.greyhound-data.com/. Stormy's is 16364. That number is unique to his brothers and sisters born in the same liter. At this site you can see your dogs entire family tree and previous race performance. You can search by their "race" name. So for Stormy if you enter "Village Luigi" you can see that he only ran 2 races before he was pulled. The tattoo in the other ear has their birth date and delivery order. Like:

110C - 11=Nov, 0=2000, C= 3rd pup tattooed
42A - 4=April, 2=2002, A=1st pup tattooed

Dog Collar.

A special dog collar is recommended for Greyhounds. Their windpipe sticks out right in front of their neck so a traditional thin dog collar can cause damage if they pull against it. Most adopted Greys you see have an extra-wide padded collar that protects their neck area. Most retails pet stores won't have these. Hopefully your new friend will already have one.

Learning to be a “dog”.

It took Stormy months before he really understood things like toys, and how to play. When we first got Stormy, we gave him a dog toy and he would just look at it. Even a chew stick seems to be confusing. During the first week, he didn’t understand how to take something out of my hand. For example, I tried to give him a small piece of cheese. I held it up to his mouth, but he would just stand with his mouth salivating because he didn’t understand how to be hand fed. These are all great experiences that you can share with a retired Greyhound. Many things that dogs learn in puppy life have to be taught to these full grown animals. You can help give him back his puppy years.

Stairs.

Greyhounds have long legs and going down stairs can be problematic. The back of their legs can easily hit the edge of the stairs going down. Also for a recent racer, the whole concept of what stairs are for will be totally foreign to them. In all likelihood they have probably never gone up or down a flight of stairs. Even after several years of exposure, Stormy will still hesitate going down stairs that he is not used to. “Up” is easier, but down can be a problem.

Stretching and leg protection.

Greyhounds are all muscle. If you let one go to run, they might first need to warm up. A couple of times when we first got Stormy he would pull a muscle because we would let him off his rope in a dog park and he would take off at near full speed, but he was not stretched out. We would come limping back and would be sore for a couple of days. Now we trot him around on his rope until he is warmed up before we let him go. Stormy also seems to have a built in mechanism to protect his legs from getting caught up in anything. He won’t jump over even the lowest of obstacles if he thinks his legs will get caught. He will almost always walk around something rather than step over it.

Why get a Greyhound?

There are many sad stories on the internet that detail what happens to many Greyhounds once their racing life if over. Several states now have laws requiring Greys to be given to adoption agencies rather than meet their historical hate. In many ways they where historically treated like livestock with the same outcome.

Greys are graceful, good natured animals, and in many way are like a retired athlete. Many of them make an easy transition into retired life and they just want some love, and a safe place to sleep.

Disclaimer:

These are just my experiences with a Greyhound being an “owner”. We attend Greyhound meet-ups in our area so we have spoken to other owners and have seen many other dogs. It could be that someone who reads this might have had a different experience with their Grey, but in general, the things I’ve written about seem to be consistent with what we have learned from others who have adopted a retired dog.

Contact me at: oregon_tony@yahoo.com or on twitter under “oregon_tony”

Comic Moments

A Holistic Approach To Mobile Testing

Most of us probably have the same "mental image" of what it means to do mobile testing. We envision a person sitting at their workstation holding a mobile phone in their hands and pecking out the sequence of steps needed to exercise some function of a mobile application or service. On their desk we see a whole bunch of different handsets laid out in a row. When you finish all the test cases on one handset, you set it down, pick up the next handset and repeat.

A more advanced variation of this approach is where you "rent time" to access a particular handset in a hosted service model. It is still testing using a real handset, you are just accessing it remotely. Testing with real handsets allows you to verify that what is shown on the LCD of the device "looks cosmetically correct" for each step of the test case. The downside of this approach is that you have limited access to any type of diagnostic information other than what is shown on the LCD of the real handset. If your question is "Why is the page slow to load?", testing with a real handset does not provide detailed root cause analysis information needed to solve this problem.

For testing mobile internet content, a second approach is based on a "virtual device" or emulator. In this approach, the handset under test is mostly based in software. Why would you want to test using this approach? One of the biggest reasons is that a virtual device approach lets you see what is happening "behind" the LCD. Since the virtual device is in control of its own software stack, you can collect important testing information on "each component" of a content page. For example, how long does it take for each image on the page to load? Does the page contain URL redirects that slow down the loading process? Are all the images returned in a size that is compatible with the target device? What is the full URL of a broken link on the page? These questions can all be easily answered using a virtual device testing approach.

Each approach offers answers to certain types of testing questions. Using both techniques offers a holistic approach to mobile internet testing.

For example if the testing goal is to validate that the LCD "looks cosmetically correct", then the right approach is to test with the real device. Any type of virtual device could never mimic the exact behavior of the real handset.

On the other hand, what if you are testing with a real device and you receive the dreaded "Page Cannot Be Displayed" error? If you are testing with a real device, you can not quickly determine the root cause, but with a virtual device you could access the markup code of the returned page, as well as the headers of the content request. For these types of errors the virtual device is superior in finding the root cause of the problem.

There is also the issue of economics. To test with a real device you need physical access to that device. If you have multiple testers, and-or multiple groups doing testing in different geographies, then providing access to physical devices becomes problematic. You could "rent time" on remote devices, but the costs of this activity used for every single test case could quickly add up to huge amounts.

For certain types of test cases where "cosmetic accuracy" is not the goal of the test, a much cheaper testing model based on a virtual device can be used. Many types of content compatibility tests such as verifying image sizes, or identifying broken links can be accurately and quickly performed using the virtual device model. In most cases virtual device testing tools are downloaded and installed on your local PC. There is no hourly rental fee.

Lastly, the virtual device approach solves the "device scarcity" problem. What if you need to test on a device that has not been released? What if you need to test on a device that is brand new in the market place and because of demand, few real devices are available for purchase? These types of problems are also solved using the virtual device approach. The virtual device approach allows you to quickly define and configure new device "profiles". The speed of deployment is much faster than waiting for a scarce physical real device. Multiple testers can also share virtual device definitions so that scalability is achieved within the testing group.

Both approaches should be used in concert to create a testing methodology that is thorough, practical, and economical. In the same way that a mechanic or carpenter uses different tools for different purposes, so should the mobile testing group use a collection of tools in order to produce the highest quality result.

iPhone Screen Capture

1) Hold down "Home" key
2) Press/Release Power button

You will see a the LCD flash white for a moment

3) Look in "Photos" on your iPhone