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My heart is in the Highlands,
my heart is not here,
My heart is in the Highlands a chasing the deer.
Robert Burns
The
Beasts of Dùn Sgàthan now have a Facebook page.
Well they may chase the deer in their
hearts, but no luck in
reality. Their chasing is limited to "bunnies" and only
non-living ones at that. These are what drive them to their
divine madness. Most of these are the white plastic kind (lures)
either at events or at home. They long to chase the the fluffy
long tailed ones (cats and squirrels) but are not allowed
to those any more than the deer...or even the real hare that they
occasionally see while on walks now that they are in the wilderness.
They must contend with the plastic ones and the stuffed ones that don't
run but can be flung around the house and killed when the madness
reaches a peak! These latter are also good for tormenting each other
into further madness by trying to keep them away from the other.
And for occasional indoor fetch with the humans, that Bran
(the Greybrador Retriever) loves so much.
The Pack
We adopted Irony on
June 18, '98 from Greyhound
Placement Service after a long canineless wait. To check out
her story and more pictures click on her picture or her name. We lost
her to l iver disease on August 18,
04 and will miss her always.
On Feb 6 ,'99 we brought Bran
from GPS to foster with us. Well, it didn't work out......because on
May 12 we drove back to GPS and signed the adoption papers!
We lost him suddenly in March of 2008, exactly one year to
the da y that we lost our horse Saoradh.
Since moving to Colebrook NH we are no longer
involved in LGRA or SCA coursing, which you will see mentioned on their
pages. We also
aren't really doing much in the way of "meet and greet" either, but
keep looking for possible venues up here.
On March 22, 2003 we finally made another trip to
Goffstown and adopted Scolaighe. She was a
wonderful addition, mellow and cu ddly.
She became ill several years
ago, something causing her brain to swell, but remained lovey and
cuddly so we cared for her while she seemed to be happy until it was
time to say good-bye in December of 2009.
In July of 2004 we parted from our hound-only
ways and got a Border Collie/Australian Shepherd/Chow mix puppy. We
wanted a "working pet" and someone offered us the puppy so we went for
it. .You can cl ick on his
photo or name to meet Gleann.
After the loss of Irony and then Bran, and other
losses in
our life, we finally were able to adopt another Greyhound on November
25, 2009. We couldn't handle knowing we were going to lose Scolaighe
without some new life in our house. Our pack coloration also
diversified again with the addition of Òrlaith,
a lovely fawn girl. She's yet another bounced "loser" who has fit right
in very quickly. She left us Feb. 22, 2014.
After we lost Scolaighe, we started thinking
about adding to our pack again. So January 27, 2010, Aaron and Òrlaith
went on down to GPS and picked up a loser buddy of hers, now known as Cù Mór.So
we are back to three. Sadly, he left us in July, 2013
 That
debate, of course, gets intervened when a friend notes that a dog is in
need of a home. Sometimes the dog isn't what we have in mind, but that
doesn't mean he's not perfect. This was the case when a friend of a
friend was looking for a home for 10 year old Sachairi,
who has happily joined our pack on
Black Friday, 2010. We lost him on Feb. 6, 2016.
After losing Cù, we were down to one hound,
Òrlaith, along with the fluffy dogs and cat. Due
to her tendency to stress over pack changes, even good ones, we decided
to wait and when she passed we were houndless for the first time since
that fateful day in 1998. It took us a few months, but we finally
felt ready and when we were, so was Gráinne,
who came to live with us on July 22, 2014. She lost her battle
with cancer on March 2, 2017 at only 7 years old.
 For
several months Gleann had the difficult job of being an only dog for
the first time in his life. We wanted to adopt again, but our finances
were devestated by the vet bills we had. We were hoping for sometime
this fall or winter when, just as we came home with our secnod cat (see
below) we were offered a hound who turned out to be Gráinne's
half-brother. There was no way we could say "no" to that so on Sept. 7,
2017 Aaron drove down to GPS in Dover and picked up Cairbre!
The Pride
In 2011 we, surprisingly, ended up with a cat as well. He came from the
same home as Sach almost exactly a year l ater. This is Merlin. We tried to change his name to something more Gaelic but it never took and now we know why.....
Then in 2017 we heard someone else we knew was moving overseas and
looking for a home for their elderly black female cat named.....Nimue.
Well with that name it was obviously fated to be, so on August 31 we picked her up.
In part because we've been less active with
hound activities, we don't update here that much. Instead we have The Beasts of Dùn Sgàthan Facebook page.
We also have a page of photos of more than one together, which I try to update on
occassion.
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