Doyel: My greyhound Cap is 7 years old, and learning how to be a dog
GOSHEN, Ind. – He comes out of the car like an extension ladder, those long, skinny legs unfolding one at a time as he wobbles to his feet. He’s in a Petco parking lot in northeast Indiana, standing quietly between the car and life he is leaving behind, and the car that will take him to his forever home. Mine.
Want to see an awesome sight? Come face to face with a greyhound. Want to see something even better? Come face to face with your greyhound.
They call him Cap, but that’s been his name for just one month, since he joined the Greyt Angels Greyhound Adoption group in Goshen. If he had a name before that, they’re unsure. He was a working dog, a hunter not a racer, not what you and I would call a pet.
First thing they did at Greyt Angels, along with a thorough health scan – turns out he’s in fine shape for a greyhound of nearly 7 years – is give this long, lean, muscular, magnificent creature a name: Cap. But there’s time to change it, and I will. We have about two hours together, this dog and me, as we head south on U.S. 31 to our home in Greenwood. We’ll talk it out, and decide on a more fitting name.
He climbs in stages into our backseat, watches the cornfields go past for a few minutes, then sighs and lies down.
Two hours later, we’ve settled on a name:
Cap.
World-class athlete with no clue about being a dog
He couldn’t walk up my apartment stairs.
Cap has spent the last month in a loving, two-story foster home, but he’d never seen stairs like these, the open kind, nothing between each step but open air and the world below. He’s a world-class athlete, capable of reaching 40 mph, but he couldn’t climb the stairs. Too scared.
Want to fall in love with a dog? Stand behind him, encouraging him by placing a small treat on every step, as you gently lift each foot – front left, front right, back left, back right – until you’re at the top. It's a slow process, several minutes, as he trembles his way up.
It takes one step on those stairs to understand why the Greyt Angels adoption process had been so thorough. They’re not fooling around there in Goshen. They cherish these animals, taking in retired racers and hunters, loving them and fostering them and caring for them before carefully selecting its permanent owner.
They interviewed me three or four times by phone, then asked for three references. I cheated: One was Michael Kaltenmark, the genius behind Butler University’s live mascot program, and the lucky owner of Blue II and Blue III (aka Trip). Another was Evan Krauss, Kaltenmark’s protégé and now the caretaker of Butler’s mascot program, and Blue IV. The third was the head of canine therapy at Eskenazi Hospital.
I wanted this dog badly.
Just as badly, perhaps more so because they already knew and loved Cap, Greyt Angels wanted the right home for him. This is not a normal adoption, because this is not a normal dog. At Greyt Angels, they’re looking for a forever home ready to help a middle-aged greyhound become something it’s never really been: A pet dog.
Seriously, Cap was a worker, an employee, and there’s not much more I want to say on the topic, OK? The care and living conditions of this and so many of our planet’s beautiful creatures – greyhounds, thoroughbreds, circus animals – is an explosive, divisive topic, and to be clear, I’m on the side of compassion. Seven years ago when American Pharoah won the Triple Crown, I wrote about an earlier race that day at Belmont, when a French colt named Helwan stumbled and fell and was put down behind an impromptu curtain, right there on the track. Judging from the occasional notes I receive to this day, the horseracing industry still hasn’t forgiven me.
The feeling’s mutual.
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What I will say about Cap and all the greyhounds from Greyt Angels, all I am qualified to say on this very specific topic, is that Cap came to me exceptionally healthy, unscarred physically and – near as I can tell – emotionally.
To fully understand the next paragraph, please read this one carefully. My first job at age 16 was at a veterinarian’s office in Macon, Georgia, cleaning cages and walking the boarding dogs. I’ve lived with dogs most of my life, and when I couldn’t do that, I got a job with the Wag! walking service and went into strangers’ homes all over Indianapolis to walk their dogs. Maybe I walked yours. If you were a Wag! client from 2018-20, check your digital records. See that smiling selfie your walker took with your dog? Could be me.
Point is, I’ve known hundreds of dogs. And I’ve never seen one more gentle and sweet than Cap. In the battle of nature vs. nurture, nature is a powerful force – but a dog that has been mistreated for the better part of 7 years wouldn’t act like Cap. Not possible. You can tell me otherwise, but I won’t believe it. This is the paragraph you need to understand, and believe. I’m not here to debate. I’m here to celebrate Cap.
And to watch him become what he was born to be: my best friend.
It's like walking a reindeer
Walking a greyhound for the first time is like walking a deer. Cap is tall, powerful torso perched high above four long legs, trotting elegantly. So many analogies popped into my head the first few times I walked Cap, as he skipped along effortlessly on a body that was bred, quite literally, for speed:
It’s like walking a motorcycle.
Or, when it rains: It’s like walking a jet ski.
Or, when we’re jogging: It’s like trotting alongside Usain Bolt.
After a few days we went to a nearby park, and I saw what it was really like.
We’re trotting along steadily, a pace of about 9 minutes per mile. His nails are clicking on the asphalt path, the only proof I can offer that he wasn’t floating, and the faster I go, the faster he goes. Eventually we’re jogging at what I would guess from past experience is a 7:30 mile, and his head is bobbing up and down like that of a racehorse.
And then he sees a squirrel.
What happened next? More analogies come to mind, right away, as my brain tries to compute what is happening. It’s like walking a Porsche as it revs into second gear, or riding a dolphin as it hits the open sea. Cap's sudden shift into overdrive is awesome.
Am I romanticizing my new dog, my new life, my new best friend? Maybe. Try being me, sitting here, writing this story as Cap snores at my feet. At night he sleeps next to me on our bed, and he has a cozy dog bed in the living room where he’ll nap as I watch TV. But if I’m at the dining room table, writing, there’s a fluffy blanket near my feet, and a beautiful greyhound snoring on it.
So many dogs need us. Please.
If Cap has vocal chords, I don’t know about it. Seriously, the dog hasn’t barked since I got him three weeks ago. He did whimper once, when he rolled off our bed. Like I’ve been telling you: A greyhound is a world-class athlete, but a surprisingly clumsy canine.
My bed is low, the mattress sitting on a box spring about 2 feet above the ground, but I had to help him climb up the first few times. He’d stand next to it, looking down on the bed – because he’s so tall – and tentatively put his front two feet on it before getting stuck. I finally fixed that, but good, by tossing a motivational treat near my pillow. Not sorry.
Almost seven years old, and there are so many things he’s never done before. It’s like adopting a child who’d been raised by wolves: Looks like boy, but has no idea how to be a boy. That’s Cap, at times.
And there are so many dogs needing homes. So many greyhounds? No, actually. The greyhound racing industry is being phased out, illegal now in 42 states, with active tracks only in West Virginia and Arkansas – and Arkansas will be done by Dec. 31. This changing world has led to thousands of greyhound adoptions in the last decade, but as the racing industry goes away, so does the need for adoptions.
A lucky break for me, finding Cap.
But there are so many dogs who need a similar break. We had a story in the IndyStar on Dec. 9 about the overcrowded conditions at Indianapolis Animal Care Services, which we reported “is running out of space with hallways, offices and kennel space filled up with dogs.” You need me to rewrite that sentence, or do you prefer to read it again?
Here, try this one:
"We are taking in more animals than we are getting out, and if the situation doesn’t improve soon, SAVEABLE animals will die. It’s as simple as that."
That’s from an IACS social media post. Are you crying? You're not alone.
There’s just one Cap, a slow starter in the morning who likes celery and loves peanut butter and spit up a sock I’d never seen, two days after coming home with me. He has a cartoon body, part kangaroo and part praying mantis and all mine. But there are thousands of dogs that can be yours, and before you worry about walking into IACS and trying to choose one – how do I pick? – here’s a true story:
Everybody thinks they have the best dog in the word. And everybody is right.
To learn more, finds IACS at indy.gov/agency/animal-care-services, Indy Humane at indyhumane.org, or Greyt Angels at www.greytangels.com.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Christmas comes early for IndyStar sports writer and Cap the greyhound
