Can Old Dogs Learn New Tricks? Reinventing Yourself and Your Pet

In this episode, Amy talks with Joyce A. Miller, who's transformed herself from a mechanical designer to an author and freestyle dog dancer. Discover Miller's journey of reinvention for herself and her greyhounds, debunk myths about Greyhounds, explore the world of Greyhound racing, delve into rescue efforts, and learn about canine freestyle. Tune in for insights on reinventing yourself and your pet!

Shoutouts in this episode:
James River Greyhounds
Book: "Look! You're Dancing: A memoir of dogs, dancing, and devotion" 

Transcript

STARLIGHT PET TALK PODCAST

Reinventing Yourself and Your Pet with Joyce A. Miller, Author, "Look, You're Dancing: A Memoir of Dogs, Dancing, and Devotion

Announcer: Welcome to the Starlight Pet Talk Podcast, where we'll talk about and explore ways to help pet parents and future pet parents learn everything they need to know to have a happy and healthy relationship with their pet. So sit up and stay for Starlight Pet Talk rescue adoption and pet parenting done right.

Amy Castro: Welcome to Starlight Pet Talk. I'm your host, Amy Castro, and today's show is all about reinvention. Whether it's due to necessity or just a desire to change, or maybe you just want to try something new, it's never too late for any of us or our pets to reinvent ourselves. So to dive into the subject today, I invited a guest who has reinvented herself and her pets several times over.

Joyce A. Miller is an author. She lives in Richmond, Virginia with her husband and her Greyhound. The books that she's written are really, really interesting you've got to check them out. Joe Harris The Moon is a historical fiction based on a true story of her granduncle who played baseball in the 1910s and 1920s.

And then a completely different subject, her second book, Look, You're Dancing:  A Memoir of Dogs Dance and Devotion about her time volunteering for a Greyhound Adoption Group and performing Canine Freestyle or for those of us lay people dog dancing with a few of her greyhounds. She's actually had six racing greyhounds over the past 20 years.

So Joyce, welcome to the show and thank you so much for being here. 

Joyce A Miller: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Amy Castro: So, talk about reinvention. I was just so fascinated when I went on your website and we had our, our initial conversation about all of the different things, and I think I said to you, gosh, you're just like me. I feel like I'm somebody who's got, you know, a foot in so many different ponds, or, you know, so many different times that I've reinvented myself over the years, but you certainly have done that just as much. So tell us, because it's going to be really interesting for listeners, what did you do for a career before you started writing?

Joyce A Miller: So before I started writing, I worked for 31 years at a nuclear physics laboratory, and I designed the experiments. Physicists came from all over the world to do their experiments in Newport News, Virginia. And I designed the experiments for them so they would come and with some idea of something that they wanted to do, and then we would try to make it happen.

Amy Castro: Wow. So how do you go from, I mean, that's way over my head because I'm not mathematically, scientifically inclined at all.  But how do you go from that to being a writer? You just wake up one day and say, oh, I'm going to give that up. I want to be a writer. 

Joyce A Miller: So I always like to write, I like to write and I like to paint, two of my favorite things to do. So when I was a young child, I was always writing stories about things in our house. I would kind of give inanimate objects life and they would come to life and do things. And but you know, everyone goes down a path and so I was good at art and writing but my dad thought I would be like a starving artist if I went that way.

And I was always good at math, good at math and science. And so he said, you know, you need to learn a trade. And so I went to school for drafting because when I first started in the field, we did everything we drew on the board with a pencil and a triangle and to make straight lines. And so I went and started out at a company that made vacuum processing equipment and I worked there because they had, some of their drawings had been destroyed in a flood. And mostly what I did was trace their drawings and put the nice lettering that I did on them. And so I did that for a while and then I, it was the 1980s and things, I lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Things were not going so well there with the economy, so my husband at the time was a landscaper. So we moved to Virginia so that he could work more months of the year. And I looked in the newspaper and there was this ad for this person that could do vacuum processing and the kinds of things that I did at this other company.

And so I went there and applied for the job and got the job and then we started to work on the computer. And so I always kind of loved the drawing and  the modeling aspect of the job and so then when I retired, I thought, well, I'm just going to delve into that full-time and I'm going to see where the writing goes.

So I started with, so of course this also coincided with the pandemic. So it was, I retired in the fall of 2019 and in the spring of 2020, you know, everything shut down and we were all stuck at home. And so I did some online classes in writing. And my cousin had done the research for this, my Joe Harris book, which was about my granduncle. And so, I just started to do the writing and kind of fell in love with it all over again from when I was a kid. 

Amy Castro:  That's awesome. Yeah, so it's like, it's like that artistic thread, even though it went in more of a scientific direction, kind of always carried through. And I know when we get into talking about the dance with the greyhounds again, that that artistic thread, what we are passionate about seems to come out in us as we go along.

So on that note, about the greyhounds, and I know you're involved in the James River Greyhound Adoption Group , how did the greyhounds come into play in all of this? 

Joyce A Miller: So I always liked animals, from when I was a kid, I always had dogs and cats and so I had a mixed breed dog and at the time, this was many years ago mixed breed dogs couldn't participate in any kind of sports with the A.K.C. The American Kennel Club only wanted purebred dogs. And that's since changed. But at that time, so I trained this, she was kind of a lab mix. I trained her to, you know, sit and down and come and do all the things.

And I was friends with one of the women at our dog training club, and she said, you know, we should try this canine freestyle because it's really popular in Europe and the AKC doesn't do it. So there are like these little groups of people who sponsor competitions and that kind of thing.

So I started to train this lab to do the dog dancing stuff and then she passed away. Because as you know animals don't live as long as we do, and we wish they would, but they don't. And so I'm a big woman and I wanted to keep doing the canine freestyle, and so I thought, well, maybe I'll get a greyhound because again, at the time, this is 20 years ago, they were, when they were finished racing mostly, they just euthanized them.

They didn't even try to find them homes. And so I contacted the group in Richmond, not James River at the time it was a different group and I think the guy probably thought I was crazy because I said; this is what I want to do with this dog.  I want to teach this dog to do dog dancing. And he said, well let me contact the people at the track and see if you know what kind of a dog they have, if they have.

So he's called me back and he said, you know, we have this two year old, she's really playful and probably you could train her to do the things you're talking about. And so I got my first greyhound who was a black, we call them tuxedo greyhounds because they have like a white chest but black. And her racing name was Abar Kit and I called her Kit or Kitty. And I trained her to do the dog dancing. 

Amy Castro: Awesome. So, you know, it's interesting, this, this, the concept of, of reinvention and we talked about this previously. The misconceptions, number one that people have about greyhounds. And I think some of that has changed because as greyhound adoption became a bigger thing in the past years, people often ran with the assumption that they were probably maniacs, right?

So they just, all they want to do is run that they're hyper, that they're, that they just have one focus. And as we who know the breed a little, and I know you know it more than I do, but you know, they're actually for the most part, kind of couch potatoes. Right? They're not the maniacs that people might think they are, just because they like to run fast.  

Joyce A Miller: Right. Absolutely. So, they're not high strung and they're not, they're very docile. They're almost cat-like as a dog. And very good for apartment dogs. They're quiet for the most part. There are always a few that don't read the book and bark but mostly they're quiet and they sleep a lot and maybe one or two walks a day is all they require. And then, you know, every once in a while you want to take them to a field or a dog park or something and let them, we call it zoomies and let them get their get their zoomies out.

But for the most part, they're really wonderful, wonderful pets. And that is, well, when we first for sure when we first started in greyhound adoption, that that was a big misconception was like, oh, you know they need to, they need to run. They need, and people will, even still to this day, will, when I'm out walking him, they'll say, you know, that doesn't he need to run a lot?

And I'll say, no, pretty, pretty much. Wants to take a walk and go back home and lay on the couch. That's it. So they are also, not super easy to train to do 

Amy Castro: That's what I was, that's what I was going to ask, how that process worked. 

Joyce A Miller: So they, so when they race, they of course are either standing up or they're laying down in their crates.

That's basically what they do when they're racing.  So when you bring them home, they don't have like muscle memory to do a lot of the things that a dog that maybe you'd raise from a puppy would be able to do. Like, it's much harder for them to sit. They do sit, but it's not their preferred thing to do.

And even the one therapy dog test, if you take the greyhound they don't make the dog sit and all the other dogs have to sit. That's Therapy Dog International, their test requirements. So to teach the dog to do the things I needed them to do, to do the dog dancing was quite challenging. They could do the movement things, but not the stationary things so well. 

Amy Castro: Interesting. Yeah. Do they, and I've not, I've seen some demonstrations. I remember seeing a video of somebody with a poodle doing some dog dancing, like, a standard poodle. Are they on two legs or on four legs?

Because I would think that would also be a challenge for a greyhound that's pretty much spent its whole life keeping all four legs on the ground.

Joyce A Miller: Right. So that's, another kind of misconception I guess, about the dog dancing is like, when you tell people that you do dog dancing, they envision a dog standing on its hind legs with like a tutu on or something. And there, and there are videos on YouTube that where dogs are doing that.

But the canine freestyle is very much; you try to do it to the dog's strengths. So you try to make a little routine that shows the dog doing kind of the things that that breed of dog would do normally. So there, so it kind of works like pairs ice skating. So you, when you compete, you get a score for a technical score, and you get an artistic score. Your artistic score is like the music you pick and how well does it match the dog and like costumes that the person wears. So, the person and the dog work together. In some of the disciplines, they don't allow the dog to wear any kind of outfit, like not even a collar. In other ones they wear like a collar, maybe some little things on their front paws.

 So the strengths are, you know, for like the greyhound would be like, doing moves when, where they are on all four feet. Like they have to spin, they have to circle around you. They can, you can have them stay in one part of the ring where you move to another part.

So yeah, there are some, I want to say they just, you just try to work with the dog's strengths and not have the dog look ridiculous. 

Amy Castro: Right. That's, that's good because I like to maintain, well, for the most part, like to maintain the dignity of my dogs. Not, you know we do, Dog-toberfest event every year where at least somebody's coming with, with meat in a costume. But, yeah, for the most part, I try not to humiliate them as much as I can. 

Joyce A Miller: Yeah. Yeah. And people do, they like to watch the dog dancing. And so you, you do want to make it fun, but you do want, like you said, the dog to have some dignity.

Amy Castro: And so how did your dog adjust? You know, so going from the track to becoming not only a pet and living in a home, but also now this new career hobby, whatever the dog thinks of it as, as a dancing dog. How did he adjust to that? 

Joyce A Miller: So, so, so my first one, she seemed to adjust pretty, pretty well because I think she was younger so when they, when they race, they start racing them when they're like 18 months old and up to that point they stay with their litter mates.

So they're kind of with their family up until 18 months old, then they start training them to race. By the time they're two years old, they know pretty much if they're going to be good at it or not. So a lot of dogs come into the adoption window when they're like two years old. Then they race from the time they're two until they're four or five.

And so then the next group that's like available for adoption will be in that age. And then if they're really, really good and they race well then, then they put them into their breeding stock. And so then those ones, maybe they'll be eight or nine years old, they'll be really senior dogs.  And then there's a group of dogs that come up for adoption.

So there's kind of like three age groups. So when I got my first greyhound, she was really young, she was like around two years old when I got her, so I think, she still was a little puppyish and so it was challenging to train her. And the other thing, like you were saying that now they come from the racetrack into your home, and you would think that they, that they would think that this is the greatest thing ever.

Right? I don't have to live in a kennel anymore, and I can live in this house, but it's really overwhelming for them. Like they've never seen steps, they've never seen a ceiling fan, they've never seen, they've never had had that freedom to, go in any room in the house and so, they might hear the furnace, come on and freak out.  Mine were also weird about seeing their reflection in the stove, like they would come into the kitchen and go, who's that?

Amy Castro: That's interesting because that parallels in many ways when we get stray animals that come into shelters or rescues that have spent a lot of time on the streets or maybe always lived outdoors. I've had dogs, we've brought home here to the rescue ranch you open the door to bring them in and, and they don't even really seem like they know how to get their feet over the threshold and then they're walking all funny because they've never been on tile or carpet or whatever it is. It's interesting.

Joyce A Miller: Exactly. So yeah, the whole idea of coming into the house and then, and so like I said, my first one was really young, so she adapted I think, much quicker than if I would've taken one that was like five years old. It probably would've been nearly impossible to do it with one like that.

Amy Castro: In looking at the, at the greyhounds and greyhound racing, obviously a lot has changed in the past few years. I know for us outside of Houston, we used to have a big Gulf Greyhound Park, big racing track, down in Lamar, Texas, which is now shut down. What has happened to the greyhound, I know you're not a greyhound racing industry spokesperson, but I know working in rescue you have a feel for what's going on with racing and what's happening to the, the breed of the greyhounds when it seems like it's sort of the racing's kind of gone away.

Am I correct in that?

Joyce A Miller: Yes, you're correct. So now I think there are only two states that still have racing, which is West Virginia and Iowa. My, most of my greyhounds came from Florida because Florida was the place that had the most tracks 20 years ago.  But almost every, I think almost every state had at least one track and people bet on them.

And also, so at the same time there was the rise of the lotteries and every state had a lottery and so people could bet on the lottery. So greyhound betting on them waned a little bit. And so when that happened, track owners were not making the amount of money that they made beforehand because there were less people coming to the tracks, less people betting.

And so they didn't keep up the tracks the way they, the way they had in the past. And so the tracks are made out of sand and a lot would have holes in them and stuff because they weren't able to go out and maintain the tracks. So a lot of dogs were ending up with broken legs and so and before the adoption groups got involved they would just euthanize those dogs.

But now, the adoption groups kind of have stepped in and made it so that they would take those dogs and take anyone’s that the owners deemed that they weren't able to race anymore. So because of that, now there won't be a lot of greyhounds available for adoption. A lot of the adoption groups have actually shut down.

Our group and Richmond still gets dogs from West Virginia, but a lot of the groups in other, even other groups in Virginia have shut down. They, there's just no need for them anymore. And so that in the long run is probably going to change the whole greyhound breed, and I have mixed feelings about it. The greyhounds, I mean, they love to run. They love it. If you, for short, short, they're, they're sprinters. They're not distance runners. But, if you let one go in the field, that's the first thing they're going to do is take off and do a big loop around the field and they just love it.

So, if. industry was such that, you know, they could support that, that would be a great thing because, you know, they breed them to run versus breeding them to show, I don't know.

Amy Castro: It'll be interesting to see how the breed will evolve when they're not being bred for racing.

Joyce A Miller: Even the greyhounds that I see in dog shows, I think they're beautiful dogs, but think they do look different than.

Amy Castro: Yeah. Agreed. So your latest book, the Look You're Dancing, a Memoir of Dogs Dance and Devotion and I don't want you to give away everything in the book, but if, can you give, give us an idea of what people can expect if they were to, to purchase it and read it?

Joyce A Miller: So it's a memoir about my time in greyhound adoption and why I how I got into dancing with the greyhounds and so I danced with two of them. My very first one, which I told you about, the black one that was named Kit. And then along the way I decided to get a greyhound puppy. So at the time that I got the puppy, if they didn't witness the breeding, then they couldn't register the dog to race.

And so somehow this dog had got pregnant and had puppies and so they were going to euthanize all the puppies. And so our adoption group took the litter and I took one of the puppies and boy that was an awakening for me because it was kind of like a little velociraptor from Jurassic Park.

That's what he was like. So, but anyway, I got, I got through that stage and trained him to dance too. So I had two of them that I, that I trained to dance. And so that's kind of what the book is about. When I got the first greyhound, I got kind of sucked into the adoption group and I wanted to help.

And so they gave me the job of doing home visits and I don't know if in your rescue work, what kind of home visits you do, but, it was just, just a little short visit to make sure that they understood about the dogs not being great at going up steps and about the kind of things that the dogs would have never seen before.

Make sure that their yard was fenced and there were not holes in the fence that the dog could get out of those kinds of things. But as I did more and more home visits, I found that people really tell you things and show you things that you may not be ready for. So those kinds of stories are in the book.

Amy Castro: Well, don't, don't give those stories away cuz that's something I would look forward to reading more about that because we, in our group, we don't do home visits and so it would be interesting to see. But where, where can people get a copy of the book? 

Joyce A Miller: So it's available on Amazon and on and Barnes and Noble.

Also I have a website that's www.joyceamiller.com. and they can buy it from the website. The website also lists the links for the other places if they want to get it that way. 

Amy Castro: Ok, great. Well, Joyce, thank you so much for being with us here today. And I think, you're, like I said, you're a fascinating person from, 30 years of working as a mechanical designer to becoming an author, greyhound rescuer, greyhound dance partner.

I think you're, you're a real inspiration for people who would say, oh, I've got to keep doing this because that's what I was trained to do, or that's what I went to school for whatever the case may be. And that it's never too late to reinvent yourself or try something new with your pets.

You know? I think pets definitely enjoy having a job and having something to do, whether it's dance or some other activity that they get to do with you. They're always happy with that. So thank you so much for being here with us. 

Joyce A Miller: Yes. Thank you. I agree. I agree that the pets enjoy the, just the bonding and being with, with you.

So, whether they do well or not doesn't really matter. It just matters that you're together.

Amy Castro: Right, right. Okay. Well, again, thank you so much and thank you everybody for listening to Starlight Pet Talk today and hope you enjoyed this episode. Please continue to listen to our upcoming episodes, and if you don't do anything else for us this week, give your pet a hug for us.

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