All reports are now in. Life is officially unfair.

For those of you who haven't already seen these, meet Al. He is a big dog! And easy to love.

All racing Greyhounds have two names, their kennel name (official) and their call name (unofficial). Only their kennel name appears in print and it is never used around the dog. They don't want some eager fan standing at the rail at the fourth turn yelling, "Go! Adam's Rib!" only to have Adam's Rib pull up, trot over to the rail and expect to get scratched behind his ears. Because they've never heard their kennel name they won't respond to it.

But most of them also won't respond to their call name. Because these dogs are raised in racing kennels with 30-60 other dogs their handlers don' treat them as pets. Thus, Al (his call name) doesn't recognize or respond to Al, at least not yet.

His kennel name is Al Swearengen. He and his littermates were all named after characters on the HBO series "Deadwood." We don't have HBO; we find too many of their shows inappropriate viewing. So I looked up on Wikipedia to learn about that character and we quickly agreed that we do NOT want to own a dog with those characteristics/history. So we've renamed Al. He is officially, Sir Al Fartsalot of Welk Manor. Trust me, it fits.

He really is making great progress. It's impossible not to feel sorry for the poor guy. Everything in the world he lived in for four years is gone and everything is new and strange. He didn't sleep much last night, so neither did we. He did, however, sneak out to the living room to relieve himself, something we didn't discover until this morning. He didn't eat this morning....but did go into the living room to relieve himself. He started out wandering aimlessly and whining almost non-stop. But he ate well tonight, sleeps easily and follows me if I go from one room to the next. We've also been on two brisk walks. Well, brisk for me. Pam's working today and I left the house on two different occasions. Returned to find him sleeping in our bedroom. So I think he's going to be fine.
I'll feel a lot better when he's learned what is not supposed to happen in the living room.
And I'm sure Tess Vigeland will be appreciative if he learns that before Monday night.

The Greyhound racing industry is very tightly regulated and controlled. This is as far from the world of Michael Vick as you can imagine, and these dogs are treated like the elite athletes that they are. They also keep very detailed records on every dog. If you're interested in seeing Al's racing records they're here. The three tabs on top, Pedigree, 73 Races and Stats give the info.
Note: dogs are graded AA down through D. As they win races they are moved up in grade to compete against other dogs of similar speed. All the dogs in a race will be the same grade or one grade different.

A very wicked flu bug is making the rounds at Pathway. The worst is when it hits the little kids, although some puking parents might disagree. We may be way down tomorrow for the second week because of families getting slammed with this. And the weird thing is that none of them have pigs.

I'm liking the way the Mavericks are playing. But the Lakers are still my pick.

The greater Phoenix area is not under its quota of dim bulbs. For example, consider the case of Steven Kastner, whose brother is on trial for first degree murder. Steven is apparently not happy with the judge presiding over his brother's trial and decided to moon His Honor in the hallway outside the courtroom. He also made threatening gestures and comments to jurors. No word on whether he got a cell close to his brother's.

Or consider Darin Matricia who was upset that his car was being reposessed. The tow truck driver had it loaded on his flatbed when Mr. Matricia came out to discover what was going on, put a knive to the driver's throat and stole the truck with his vehicle still onboard. He led police on a chase that required stop strips to end.

How can people be that dumb?

I didn't go into town to set up for church this afternoon like I usually do. They said it would be best not to leave Al alone this soon for that long. So I've got to leave early in the a.m. to get everything unloaded and set up. Pam will leave as late as possible but Al will still be alone for about five hours. We have a child gate to keep him in the back half of the house (out of the living room) so we'll see how it goes.