I am a greyhound recently retired from a thankfully brief racing career. I figure that six months of racing and ten plus years of retirement is a reasonable deal. I was adopted by Jim and Bonnie Jeffers through a greyt organization called the Greyhound Pets of America/California: Orange County and Greater Los Angeles. See its home page, which my new dad maintains (when he should be playing with me).

Looks like I'm still racing, right? Wrong! I'm running because I want to, not because I have to. Just because I've retired from professional racing doesn't mean I've lost the desire to run. Running is almost as much fun as eating. The GPA people named me "Kit." Mom and dad say they planned only to foster me for a couple of weeks, to help me get ready for my new permanent home. And man, has there ever been a lot to get used to! I let them know this plan was completely unacceptable, and they decided to adopt me themselves. Read about some of my early adventures.

Here I am with my big sisters. Cookie (left), a five-year-old female Lab (?) mix, and Katie, a seven-year-old female German Shepherd mix. Both were strays that mom and dad rescued from the streets as puppies.

Katie is pretty cool. She accepted me right away and lets me get away with just about anything. She loves to play with a flat, round thing that dad calls a Frisbee. It's definitely NOT a bunny, because it's flat and it flies, and if you step on it nothing happens. If dad even says the word, "Frisbee," Katie goes nuts. Mom and dad say that Cookie is the lover of the family. But I'm not so sure. She can get pretty bossy sometimes, especially when I'm having fun!

I was born on June 1, 1994. My track name was Coldwater Blush. My sire was RD's Fred, and my dam was Coldwater Mega. Why do mom and dad call me "Cleopatra"? The last queen of Egypt, Cleopatra VII, reportedly owned greyhounds (like most Egyptian pharaohs).

They called me "Peritas" at first (the name of Alexander the Great's greyhound), but decided they didn't want to spend the next decade explaining the name. I didn't like it much, so I never came when they called it. But "Cleo" is OK. I come to that name.

You might think that naming me after a famous queen puts a lot of pressure on me. But what you don't know is that I'm already a princess. I'm also very talented. I learned to sit very quickly. And I'm learning to catch a Frisbee! I watched Katie and dad play Frisbee and decided that it looked like fun. Dad holds Katie back, throws the Frisbee, and I catch it (if it's not too far away and thrown just right). Then I run off and chew on the Frisbee. All in all, a pretty good game. But dad keeps taking the Frisbee back before I can properly kill it. I just don't get it.

This place isn't much like a racing kennel. I had to learn a lot of stuff when I first came here. For example, they have these magical things called windows and glass and mirrors that make another greyhound appear when you look at them. I was pretty puzzled when I saw a greyhound in the oven. Do these people eat dogs? Dad said it was just a reflection in the glass. I've learned just to ignore her, whoever or whatever she is. Mom and dad say I've been a joy to them already. Mom says, "I never thought I'd like a big dog, but a greyhound really is the perfect dog." I just hope they don't expect every greyhound to be like me.

Some of mom's relatives visited us and brought along a Little Person named Tyler. Sometimes he tried to chase me around the living room, but I was way too fast for him. Here's a picture of Tyler giving me a hug while I was napping. He was a pretty nice kid, all things considered.