A sunny day in Chicago (4/5/8)

After an adventurous night in Indy, we headed up to Chicago's northern suburbs. We'd been in the windy city recently (last May) for one of Ilsa's high-school friends weddings, and we liked the town. The city is quite pretty (as you can see above).

We scoped out the dog parks in Chicago on our way (on the iphone -- once again showing off its utility) to Bell's former owner's place. This woman was living in New Orleans before Katrina -- and stayed there through the hurricane with her three dogs (two of which were greyhounds). The coast guard eventually made her leave -- and made her leave her dogs behind. She emptied the contents of a bag of food on the table, opened the toilets, and reluctantly left. Once she got to safety, she started calling the SPCA -- and they eventually went to the house and rescued one of the dogs. Bell was too scared to come out, and they had to come back the next day. They eventually rescued her, and took her to a kennel where they were keeping all the lost pets.

The greyhound adoption leagues are very strong, and word was out around the internet bulletin boards and mailing lists that there were greyhounds without homes. Her former owner couldn't keep the dogs -- they were stuck moving to Chicago and couldn't keep them, sadly. We'd been on the lookout for a second dog to keep Penny company, and had recently begun leaning towards the idea of a female older greyhound. When we saw Bell's picture, we knew we had to try to help. A great group of people helped get her from Baton Rouge to Memphis, Nashville, and eventually Louisville, where Ilsa picked her up back in 2005. She's been doing great and is a spunky, affectionate older lady.

Anyway, the plan was to stop by and let Bell's former "mom" see her again, and although emotionally a bit complex, it was a good time. The dogs were exactly as stressed as you can see below:


We then went, with Bell's former "mom" and her sister, over to a local dog park (right on Lake Michigan) and the dogs had a great time, as you can see below. Bell even ran! Quite impressive at nearly 15 years of age!