THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 29, 1995 TAG: 9509290625
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
Greyhounds seldom bark.
They're too refined.
But how those dogs can talk!
With some, it's almost singing, a soft, muffled howl. Two friends, Phyllis and Gene Moor, have one, Vavoom, who yodels.
If you have never heard a greyhound talk or seen one of those elegant creatures up close, there will be a meadow full of them at a picnic Sunday at Woodstock Park on Providence Road in Virginia Beach.
So what would you call a gathering of more than 50 lean, soulful-eyed aristocrats of many shades and hues?
A grace of greyhounds!
Surely, it is the most paradoxical of dogs. It can run, literally, like the wind at 40 miles an hour. Yet it makes a wonderful house dog.
One walk in the late afternoon or evening satisfies Vavoom, said Phyllis. And the greyhound is without doggy odor.
During its racing career the greyhound is among the most mistreated of breeds. It lives in a crate with only space to lie down, get up, turn around and lie down again.
Which is why, now and again, you find one with a backside worn bald by its close confinement.
Yet, when embraced amid a loving human family, the greyhound is among the gentlest, most affectionate of beings.
You'd swear the dog had been to finishing school instead of being treated as an object in a pen.
What the greyhound craves, without having in many cases any reason to know it exists, is love.
No wonder, when love comes, the dog is ecstatic.
Of course, the odds are it will never experience that emotion because 50,000 greyhounds are destroyed annually, sometimes in terribly sadistic ways.
``It's the only sport in the world that kills its athletes,'' said Gay Latimer.
She and her husband, Sam, entered their dog in a race and were so shocked at what they saw backstage they gave up having anything to do with an industry so inhumane.
To save the dogs, the two work as Virginia officials of the National Greyhound Adoption Program, a nonprofit agency of volunteers with headquarters in Philadelphia.
In this area, 142 dogs have been adopted. Much of the Latimers' time is on the road fetching greyhounds from the nation's tracks. In January they rescued 41 dogs slated for destruction in Florida.
Sunday's picnic, from noon to sunset, offers games and contests and a raffle with substantial prizes. Food will be varied and reasonably priced, with hot dogs for $1 and drinks for 50 cents.
Of all the sights, the most endearing is of those noble dogs and their devoted owners.
``The nicest people own greyhounds,'' said Gay Latimer. ``At least I think so and even my vet says that.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Vavoom, the yodeling greyhound who shares a home with Phyllis and
Gene Moor, loves a long walk in the late afternoon or evening.
Greyhounds, their owners say, are loving dogs - without a doggy
odor.
by CNB