At 5 years old i used to go racing with my grandad to Westhoughton Greyhound Track on a Thursday night and one of his friends would let me race his little 16lb blue whippet bitch, she was very slow but that didn't bother me i had already learned that it wasnt the winning that i was interested in it was the taking part that i enjoyed. Two years later my grandad bought me my own pup (for this i am eternally grateful) she was the pick of the litter again she was Blue but she stood out from the others because she had four white paws, a white tip on her tail and a white stripe on her neck, and i can remember my grandad going to do their dew claws and she was the only one to scream and she screamed and screamed and screamed. 6 weeks later we took her home and she was an excellent little dog she would always sleep under the duvet with me whenever i stayed at my grandad's and when she was 5 months old i told my grandad that i was going to train her to sit, shake a paw etc and my grandad told me striaght away not to bother as whippets are not very bright in that department, well that was it, i knew my little girl was clever so every night i would secretly take her on the park at the side of my grandads house and after a couple of weeks she had it mastered, one sunday afternoon i told my grandad to sit down and i showed him what i had learned her, he was amazed. Cleo later learned to talk on command and she understood everything that you said to her.
I can remember me & my sister fighting once and cleo dived on her and bit her bum.
Cleo learned to race on the straights easily but on the bends was a different story, she was always at Westhoughton watching and would go mad for the lure but if you put her in the trap she would turn straight round as soon as she came out and run straight to me, after a month or so of this i was going home absolutely gutted, it was only when my grandad suggested that i run all the way round the track so that she could see me running away that she finally went round, after this she never turned back again. She would also sit and wait at the back of the trap until i told heer to get in then she would just hop in and all the other racers would laugh at this whippet taking orders off an 8 year old. She was an excellent bitch on her home tracks (preston & westhoughton) and would often beat champions in the names of Double xx, Treble xxx, Kibenora, Valentine, Brooklyn, Paddy's Choice and went on to win the overall points two years on the run at westhoughton but if you took her to a different track she was like a different dog and would be 10 - 15 yards down on her times, so she was always raced at club level from then on. At 4 years old Cleo dropped a muscle and was never the same again because she would always be in a lot of pain the day afterwards and would bruise up quite badly. So she was duly mated, this was another performance in it's self, i think at one point four of us were holding her still as she kept attacking the poor stud dog. Cleo gave birth to 6 pups via c section (1 dog pup later died) and as i had fancied a white dog for a while i was exstatic that there was one dog pup who had a brown patch over his eye just like dad. Two of the bitch pups were blue like mum with a fawn bitch and a brindle dog - so we had a nice mixture of colours to pick from, the white dog was definately staying from day 1 and my grandad fancied the brindle dog and the other two blue bitches were spoken for so we also ended up keeping the fawn bitch. A year later Cleo developed a lump on her spine which was operated on many times, she then went on to have kneumonia and an enlarged heart and the one lump turned to 6 which we were told was a foreign body but the vet couldn't operate any more because it was to close to her spine, she was on medicated for another year for the lumps and 5 of them went down but one always stayed and as it didn't cause her any discomfort we decided to take her off the medication to see how she went on.
Cleo's health was ok for the next 6 years (she turned 12 on the 5th October) until this year when she started losing a lot of weight and her already small appetite got even smaller and she started to drink a lot of water, we knew straight away that she would never get over this, yesterday she lost the use of her back legs and you could see in her eye's that she had had enough so i made the heartbreaking but necessary decision to stop this terrible suffering and tonight at 5.15 cleo quietly fell to sleep in my arms and went to play with Lassie & Trixie in doggy heaven
Go with love clee clee you might never have won a racing title but you will always be my little star
R.I.P. Cleegie xxx
(Edited by Vicky at 7:39 pm on Oct. 11, 2001)
I can remember me & my sister fighting once and cleo dived on her and bit her bum.
Cleo learned to race on the straights easily but on the bends was a different story, she was always at Westhoughton watching and would go mad for the lure but if you put her in the trap she would turn straight round as soon as she came out and run straight to me, after a month or so of this i was going home absolutely gutted, it was only when my grandad suggested that i run all the way round the track so that she could see me running away that she finally went round, after this she never turned back again. She would also sit and wait at the back of the trap until i told heer to get in then she would just hop in and all the other racers would laugh at this whippet taking orders off an 8 year old. She was an excellent bitch on her home tracks (preston & westhoughton) and would often beat champions in the names of Double xx, Treble xxx, Kibenora, Valentine, Brooklyn, Paddy's Choice and went on to win the overall points two years on the run at westhoughton but if you took her to a different track she was like a different dog and would be 10 - 15 yards down on her times, so she was always raced at club level from then on. At 4 years old Cleo dropped a muscle and was never the same again because she would always be in a lot of pain the day afterwards and would bruise up quite badly. So she was duly mated, this was another performance in it's self, i think at one point four of us were holding her still as she kept attacking the poor stud dog. Cleo gave birth to 6 pups via c section (1 dog pup later died) and as i had fancied a white dog for a while i was exstatic that there was one dog pup who had a brown patch over his eye just like dad. Two of the bitch pups were blue like mum with a fawn bitch and a brindle dog - so we had a nice mixture of colours to pick from, the white dog was definately staying from day 1 and my grandad fancied the brindle dog and the other two blue bitches were spoken for so we also ended up keeping the fawn bitch. A year later Cleo developed a lump on her spine which was operated on many times, she then went on to have kneumonia and an enlarged heart and the one lump turned to 6 which we were told was a foreign body but the vet couldn't operate any more because it was to close to her spine, she was on medicated for another year for the lumps and 5 of them went down but one always stayed and as it didn't cause her any discomfort we decided to take her off the medication to see how she went on.
Cleo's health was ok for the next 6 years (she turned 12 on the 5th October) until this year when she started losing a lot of weight and her already small appetite got even smaller and she started to drink a lot of water, we knew straight away that she would never get over this, yesterday she lost the use of her back legs and you could see in her eye's that she had had enough so i made the heartbreaking but necessary decision to stop this terrible suffering and tonight at 5.15 cleo quietly fell to sleep in my arms and went to play with Lassie & Trixie in doggy heaven
Go with love clee clee you might never have won a racing title but you will always be my little star
R.I.P. Cleegie xxx
(Edited by Vicky at 7:39 pm on Oct. 11, 2001)
, sky would probably be in detox by now 