The ‘tail’ of Chase the gentle giant

After being missing for six weeks, he had been found near the forest’s edge, all skinny and “brown and white”.

“He was skin and bone, and I mean, greyhounds are skinny anyway, but this dog ... his spine was protruding about two inches.”

She couldn’t let Chase stay this way, so Ms Jane offered to take care of him, just until he got back on his feet.

And that’s when Chase’s previous owner reached out and thanked her for taking him in.

“She said to me, it didn’t work out at their place because they had a border collie there who was too dominant with him,” she said.

“I thought, oh, all right, no worries, I’ll look after him until I get him well enough to go to a new home.”

What she didn’t realise was that Chase had already chosen his forever home — with her.

“I just made the decision that I was going to just adopt him and be done with it,” Ms Jane said.

Before his last two homes, Chase was a racing dog known by the name ‘Drinking Shiraz’.

Ms Jane’s house was going to be his third home, and she wanted to make sure he was completely comfortable and settled in.

But according to her, the greyhound warmed up to her “very, very quickly”.

Chase came into Ms Jane’s life just a month after her previous rescue, Jesse, an Australian silky terrier, crossed the rainbow bridge.

She and Chet, her miniature poodle, were devastated.

“And quite frankly, neither of us were getting over the loss of Jesse,” she said.

“She was a tiny dog, huge presence.”

Just when Ms Jane thought it would be only her and Chet from then on, Chase came into the picture and changed everything.

In a sense, she and Chet needed Chase just as much as he needed them.

Now, Chase loves visiting the Nathalia G.R.A.I.N Store, where he often meets the local women’s art club, Making Space on Mondays.

He joins a social dog-walking group on some Sunday mornings, and spends every Tuesday and Friday at the Nathalia Boarding Kennels for a doggy day out.

“He’s so gentle, he’ll let the poodle boss him around and it’s just good that the only thing he’s very possessive about, and this is very much a greyhound thing, is their bed,” Ms Jane said.

She also mentioned how Chase would titter whenever he was excited, and sleep with his eyes open whenever he got comfortable.

And you can’t ignore his “helicopter tail”.

“Some dogs just wag their tails and then some dogs do what you call helicopters,” Ms Jane said.

“He does helicopter tail spins; when you see his tail, he’s happy.”

On June 13 Chase marked his ‘Gotcha Day’, a date that commemorates the day rescued animals were adopted into their forever homes.

So, how did Ms Jane celebrate the special day?

With one of his favourite beef shanks, of course.

And a small jab at the vet’s.