MINDY

MINDY

Let me introduce myself. My pedigree name is Whenicanbebothered, but
all my friends call me Mindy. I am a racing greyhound. I was born in
Ireland, my mother was called Irish Lass, and my father was a well
known English racer.

Some people said that my father was one of the best racers this country
had ever produced when he was in the right mood. As I look very much
like my father [people thought I might be of similar disposition. Hence
my name Whenicanbebothered came about. The owners of my father took me
in place of a stud fee when I was barely three months old. I still
remember the journey because it was a very windy day and I was left in
the back of an old van on the car deck thrown about by the sea, and I
felt sick and wanted my mum to snuggle up to, but she wasn't there, and
I whined and she still didn't come. Then when the man came back to the
van and saw that I had been sick he shouted at me, but all I wanted was
my Mum. Then when we got off the boat we didn't go very far until we
stopped and waited for about half an hour and another man came over to
the driver's window and gave the driver some money then thrust me into
the arms of this other man and said to him
"If I hurry I might just make the ten o'clock ferry back.
"Bye George", with that he ground the old van into gear and he was off.
This man seemed much gentler than the van driver, but I was still
frightened and began to shiver. He gently stroked my head then said to
me
"Come on my beauty it will be much warmer in my car".
He walked over to a large estate car, opened the tailgate and put me
into a cage in the back and stroked my head again, and spoke gently
into my ear
"Now Mindy, you'll be ok as soon as we get you over to Tommy's
kennels"
Sure enough when the car drew up at the kennels, there in my own
little room there was water on tap. As soon as I touched the water dish
it was filled to the top with fresh cool water for me, and a nice young
lady brought me a dish overflowing with a delicious beef stew. When I
had finished this she took me inside and there was a large bed with a
blanket in for me to sleep on, and within five minutes of being left I
was fast asleep, with a full tum, no cat napping for me that
night.
The next morning when it was only just getting light, I was woken up by
the noise of the other dogs. Then a kennel maid in front of Tommy, who
made lots of notes on his clipboard, in turn walked up and down each
dog. Then it was my turn. At the moment I don't walk very well because
my legs are a bit too long for my body and people laugh at me when I
trip over my own feet, thankfully this morning whilst Tommy was
watching me I didn't. He looked at me from all angles whilst I was
paraded up and down and said to the girl who was walking me up and
down
"Gentle exercise night and morning and high protein diet for this
youngster, but let her see the other dogs chasing the hare on our
track, just to get her excited a bit, ok?
"Right we will see to it sir," replied Jane taking Mindy back to her
pen.
Under the watchful eye of Tommy and the care of his kennel maids I
quickly grew into a powerful racer. Just before I was a year old a lady
came to look at me and with what I now know is called a tape measure,
began to measure my middle and my length later she came back and
produced out of a bag what Tommy called my new racing colours, which
one of the girls put onto me and then Tommy said
"Now don't you look a prize girl", and then added
"I hope you are not going to let us down on Saturday down at
Leicester". Then he came over to me and gave me a hug and produced some
biscuits out of his pocket.
On the Saturday I was given very early on some of what Tommy called his
high-energy biscuits, then taken outside and given my daily brush. A
number of us were taken to a large van that had separate compartments
for each of us and at the back some places for the kennel maids and
Tommy to sit together with all the boxes with our coats in and a large
doggy first aid box. As one of the girls was putting this box in she
said to Tommy,
"Lets hope we don't need this box on this trip,"
"Yes, but better on the safe side" replied Tommy. Just after nine
o'clock the van rolled out of the yard and they were soon on the
motorway travelling south. We stopped after just over two hours and
were taken each in turn for a short walk and when we returned to the
van we all found that in our absence the water bowls had been removed
and put into a pile in the corner of the van. "That's it girls, no more
water or food until we have finished racing today". When we arrived at
the stadium in Leicester. I could see that there were a lot of similar
vans like the one we were in and judging by the noise they all had dogs
in them. Tommy turned to Jane the Head kennel maid and said to
her
"Ok then you get them ready and fetch them down about ten minutes
before each race, meanwhile keep the air-conditioning on I don't want
them panting before the race even begins.
Tommy then wandered of to talk to the other trainers and owners. About
fifteen minutes before I was due on the track, my kennel- maid took me
out of the van and put my racing coat on and started to walk me up and
down to warm my muscles up ready for the race. Then up onto the track
and the big parade of all the dogs in my race. Finally I ended up in
the trap. Suddenly the gate sprung open and we were off with the crowd
roaring in the background. I could see that just in front of me and on
the inside was a big black bitch, who every time I was on it's heels
just ignored me and wouldn't pull over to allow me to pass even with
the shale it was kicking up in my face in an attempt to blind me from
seeing the hare and overtaking it and then winning the race for Tommy.
All of us were now well into our stride and each bound was at least
fifteen feet nearer to the finish.
Then out of the blue there was a white dog at my shoulder, and then it
was passing me and overtaking the long legged black bitch that had been
holding me up. Now the white dog was past me and quickly moving out and
round the black one and overtaking it. The crowd started to roar and
wave betting slips in the air. Being overtaken by another dog seemed to
unnerve the black dog and very quickly I was overtaking it. By now I
was second in the race, then as we entered the last bend before the
finishing flag the white dog with black spots seemed to run out of
track and next second was tumbling over, and I with the aid of that
final shout from the crowd romped over the line. The roar and clapping
from the audience was amazing to me, and a little bit frightening. I
slowed down quickly, to allow Jane to put my lead on and as we walked
towards Tommy he threw his
Hat into the air once again, and then he was fondling my ears. Tommy
looked up at Jane and said
"Think we might have another champion here, we will have to stop on the
way back for a celebration drink I think".
After the last race we were all put into our compartments in the van
and it set off for the motorway and up to the north and food and my own
bed, our water bowls had been replaced before we left Leicester.
Soon After we turned off the motorway, before we arrived back at the
kennels, Tommy stopped at a Pub, and he took all the girls inside for a
celebration drink. Shortly afterwards a Ford Transit van drew into the
car park and a number of people scrambled out of the back stumbling
over placards that read
"Yorkshire animal liberation front" and "Freedom for all
animals".
They all came round to Tommy's van and one who had a bar in his hand
forced open the back of the van, jumped inside and opened up the doors
on our pens and another began to bang on the side of the van, at which
we were all frightened and some of us jumped out of the back. The very
second that we were out of the van one of the girls started to bang a
stick onto the floor, which frightened most of us, so we started to run
faster and faster out of the car park and down the road. All this noise
penetrated into the pub and to Tommy's ears eventually, and he and some
of his girls came running out of the pub, just in time to see the trail
of black exhaust smoke coming out of the Transit van as it sped out of
the car park. A couple of the dogs were found nearby, but I had the
wind in my fur and ran on and on turning into a field. Tommy called the
police, but there was little they could do. Tommy and the girls waited
all night to see if any of the dogs came back to the van, but they
didn't. Early the next morning Tommy went down to the Police Station to
make a statement. Tommy gave the Sergeant photographs of myself and
other missing dogs and he put our photographs onto the notice board and
underneath he wrote
"Missing from home".
Meanwhile I trotted through the fields and eventually came to a road,
looking right and left I could see that to the right was a small
village, there might be food there, it was now a long time since I had
eaten. In the centre of the village there were a few shops including a
bakers and a butchers. I found a narrow alleyway that took me behind
the shops, and as I came up to the area behind the bakers a man was
just coming through the back door with some bread and cakes to put into
the large bin behind his shop. He saw me and said in a friendly voice
to me
"Here you are girl do you want some of this," holding some bread and a
stale meat pie out to me. I ate this in one gulp, but this only seemed
to whet my appetite for a proper meal. Moving on to the rear of the
butchers shop, it was my lucky day, a delivery of meat was being
unloaded from the abattoir. The back door to the shop was open for the
deliverymen to take the half carcases into the butcher's cold store.
When the delivery was almost complete a nice man called Bill, I know he
was called Bill because the lady from the shop kept calling him Bill,
as Bill got into the back of his truck for the last load and as he was
picking up the half carcase he threw me a bone that still had plenty of
meat left on it. So now you know why Bill is a nice man
"Thanks Ruth see you next week ", he shouted as he climbed back into
the driver's cab. With that, the truck was gone. As I started to gnaw
at the bone, Ruth walked over to me and fondled my ears, and whispering
into my ears
"Stick around Petal and I'll see what I can find for you.
Fortunately for me it was early closing, and in less than an hour Ruth
appeared from the back door of the butcher's shop with a parcel under
her arm, together with a piece of string which she proceeded to fasten
to my collar, she tapped her leg and said
"Come on girl lets get off home". We set of at a fast pace so I needed
to go at a trot to keep up with her. As soon as we arrived at her
cottage on the edge of the moor she opened the parcel that she had
carried home and put some pieces of beef on to cook. When they were
cooked, Ruth thickened the meat juices and put them into a dish for me.
Whilst I was eating Ruth disappeared upstairs and appeared again with a
blanket, which she put down at the side of her kitchen fire.
Over the next couple of years Ruth's eyesight gradually deteriorated
until it was no longer safe for her to use sharp knives in the
butcher's shop that she had worked in for many years, and enforced
early retirement became inevitable. I t was at this point that the
friendship between Ruth and Mindy flourished. The two of them still
managed to take a walk round the village each becoming more and more
aware of the other. The routine had become walk and a little shopping
in the morning followed in the afternoon by listening to the radio in
Ruth's kitchen, near a warm blazing fire in the winter months.
Some eight years later Tommy had been away for a long weekend and was
on his way back to the kennels early on a Monday morning and was
driving through the village where Ruth lived, he spotted a lady walking
past the village shops with a greyhound on a lead at her side, every
step that she took the dog looked back over it's shoulder at the ladies
face, almost checking that everything was ok. Tommy thought that the
dog looked slightly familiar to him and started to slow down. Then as
he caught up with her he saw that the dog was pushing in to the ladies
left leg and that in her right hand the lady had a white stick, and was
obviously blind and that the dog was keeping her safe on the pavement,
it looked as if this walk was something the couple had done on a
regular basis over the years. Tommy dropped his car into second gear
and accelerated away from them and back to the kennels.

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