Day 4

Back to Minty Woo today as a subject. He's getting more comfortable with my camera now. When I first got a DSLR he kept turning his head away when I tried to photograph him. Now he just looks at me like I'm nuts, especially today when I was photographing his nose!

I had always wanted a dog and nagged my parents for years and years. Finally when I was 16 and studying for GCSEs (exams in the UK) I said to my parents, if I get 10 A* star grades can I get a dog? And my Mum said YES, if you get those grades we will get one! The thing was she didn't think I would get those grades. And to be honest I didn't think I could either. But I gave it my best shot.

In the end I got 6 A* grades and 6 A grades and 4 of the A grades were only a few marks off A*. Because I was literally a few marks off the target, she gave in and said we could get a dog! We had in mind that we wanted to get a retired greyhound because a lot of them need homes after their racing careers are over. They are also generally very placid, laid back characters who sleep a lot, don't shed much hair and actually only need 2 short bursts of exercise a day.

So we went to a local rescue centre but didn't see any greyhounds. We were about to leave when we saw a sign to 2 more kennels down some steps away from the other dogs. Down we went and there was Minty in a huge outdoors kennel. He ran staight up to us and put his paws on the wire. Of course we were smitten. Then he started playing with his Kong toy and he was jumping literally 5 feet in the air! He was full of beans.

After a bit of thinking we decided a younger dog would be quite nice because we'd have them around for a bit longer. Although it said Greyhound Cross on his details he looked exactly like a greyhound. So we played with him for a bit in their exercise area and I remember he wouldn't look any of us in the eye. After a home inspection he came home just a few weeks later!

More on his adoption tomorrow . . .