The Black List - Adopt a Black Greyhound

I was working in a farm store in 1994 when one of our employees put together a Greyhound Meet and Greet with Rainbow's End Greyhound Adoptions representative, Ann Whitney of Harvey's Lake, PA.

I met Ann and some wonderful people who had their Greyhounds there that day, but most impressive were the hounds themselves.

The employee who set the M&G up told me later that she was "going to get one." I already had 6 dogs at home, most of them Dobermans which I had bred myself. I also had a husband at home and a nearly seven year old dughter I had to consider, but......I wanted one too!

When I got home, I started babbling to my husband about how neat the Greyhounds were and how wonderful they all seemed and how beautiful they were and on and on. He looked at me as if I had lost my mind. "You want one, don't you?" he asked, surprised. Then he saw that "look" in my eyes and said, "It doesn't really matter what I say, you're going to get one, aren't you?" I grinned and nodded and he just shook his head (we'd been married by that time for 11 years, so he knew he was in trouble this time).

I literally ran to the phone and dialed the number Ann had given me when she said knowingly, "You're going to get one." (And winked too!) I excitedly told her that I wanted a Greyhound and knew that it would take several weeks before she had anything available, but that I could wait. Ann quietly said to me, "Can you take one on Saturday?" Flabbergasted, I stuttered, "THIS Saturday?" "Yes", replied Ann, "this Saturday. I have two boys available. One white with brindle spots," and hesitantly she added, "and I have one black male". Ann knew that black Greyhounds were hard to place and black males were even harder. She was so sure that I would pick the beautiful white dog, she wasn't sure she heard me at first. "I'll take the black one." "YOU WILL?" "That's wonderful!"

When I got to Ann's house and filled out the adoption papers, I kept looking over at my beautiful new addition to my household. His name was Boligee Sy and he was black as night. The only white hairs he had on him were just a few on his chin. He had broken his hock on the track and they had repaired it with a pin and solitude for six weeks. The trainer, Carl Sarney, had left instructions that he shouldn't run too much until it had healed completely (my vet later told me that that was the best repair job on a hock he had ever seen. "Hocks are hard to fix", he said).

Sy had come in from the track at Raynham, MA wearing a leather collar with a brass plaque on it. It simply read, "Boligee Kennels" and had a phone number on it. Ann told me that he must be a very special dog because that was the first time she had ever seen a collar come in on a dog like that.

Sy was a spook and and stayed that way - always shy around strangers. But I wouldn't have changed a thing about him in any way. We bonded right away and my beautiful black boy was the inspiration for me to join Ann's adoption group as a volunteer and foster mom and to adopt six more Greyhounds after him. I have now fostered over 30 Greyhounds and more than a few were black and beautiful. Black IS beautiful!

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