Alfie, you lied!

Alfie as a puppy!

That's right, Alfie lied! Our 7 year old ex-breeding champion racer has, as it happens, never won a race.

We've never really known for sure what secrets Alfie's past held. We got him from the RSPCA in February. They told us he was 7 years old, had been saved from the Canberra Pound, had been a racer and probably a breeder (on account of the fact that he was particularly well built for a greyhound and had been kept after his ideal racing age) and... that was it. We knew 4 facts 'for sure', and as it happens, three of those facts are wrong.

Greyhounds have ear tattoos, which are registered on a National Registry and are unique to each individual dog. Alfie's tattoos read VAA (on his left ear) and 7543 (on his right). We've known for a while that we could find out some basic information about Alfie's past by tracing these tattoos, and this week, I finally got around to doing so... and found out more than I could possibly imagined! I can't believe I waited so long!

I contacted the Racing Authority with Alfie's ear tattoos and, in a strange stroke of luck, they were able to put me in touch with the lady who whelped him. We now know that Alfie was born on December 8th 2006, first in a litter of 3 male puppies (he's not even three years old yet!). His father, ElGrando, is a famous racing dog whose lineage can be traced back-- get this-- 31 generations on his sire's side and 23 generations on his dam's side. His mother, Hunter Tylo, was a brood dog whose lineage can be traced back 33 generations on her sire's side and 36 generations on her dam's side. That's all the way back to the 1820s on both sides. Isn't that incredible?!

Alfie's Dad, ElGrando, a famous breeder who has 345 kiddos.

Alfie's mom, Hunter Tylo.

One of Alfie's brothers is a black dog who has a 'perfect map of Australia' in white on his left side, and the other is a breeder who lives in South America. Alfie lived with the people that bred Hunter for the first 18 months of his life (until about this time last year, I suppose). He was trained as a racer, but wasn't fast enough to be 'city class', so Jacquie (his breeder) sold him to a guy in Canberra. The guy who bought Alfie sounds like a deadbeat, because apparently he bought another dog but never did pay for him in full, and Jacquie could never trace him down. Poor Alfie DID end up in the Canberra Pound though, and then the RSPCA, and now, he's found a forever home on our couch.

And he'll win every race in this house.

Alfie, taken this last week.

But I'm still flabbergasted-- absolutely flabbergasted-- that we were able to find out so much about Alfie! I was expecting a birthday at best... and we got a whole history!