Hi Judy and Sonia - welcome to the GRTB message board and congrats on adopting your greyhounds!

Either one of those mini-vans you mentioned would work out great for the trip.

If 2 crates will fit in the back of the mini van then yes, use them for the trip.

The Greyhound Project (the group that puts on the RTB event) provides the dog licensing for this event, so you will not need to purchase any.

Life vests for your greyhounds are not required, but just be sure you don't take them too far out in the ocean due to the undertow, and of course the must be on a leash at all times.

There are a few restaurants in Dewey and Rehoboth where dogs are allowed, usually the ones that have outdoor eating areas.

I believe there will be a vendor directory available as the time gets closer to the event, just be sure to check back here often.

Carole, Mom to Toby (Pat C Drop Zone), Rica (JAMS America), Garbo (JAMS Garbo), Lily (RWC Show Off)...Mr. Kurt (B's East Wind); Miss Greta (JAMS Shy Gal); Aleya (JAMS Aleya)

Judy and Sonia, we have a Town and Country and removed the seats to fit two crates. I feel we have more control when we stop for the dogs to stretch their legs and of course to potty. I always fear they may become frightened at the rest stops and bolt and the crates let YOU decide when they leave the van.

 Everything Carole said is spot on, as usual.

 Enjoy your first Dewey, you will love seeing so many of these wonderful animals in the same place.

  Terry 

Judy and Sonia, we have a Town and Country and removed the seats to fit two crates. I feel we have more control when we stop for the dogs to stretch their legs and of course to potty. I always fear they may become frightened at the rest stops and bolt and the crates let YOU decide when they leave the van.

 Everything Carole said is spot on, as usual.

 Enjoy your first Dewey, you will love seeing so many of these wonderful animals in the same place.

  Terry 

I, for one, think about Dewey all year long,   It makes me smile.   The board will really pick up closer to the time.  
   One valuable piece of advice I  got was to keep an ID tag on your hound with your local address and cell phone number.  Your home address will not do much good if you are not home. 

   Also take 1/2 as many clothes,  We are a pretty casual group  and twice as much $.  Lots of vendors bring one of a kind items.    It is so cool..  Glad you can join us.   

  Jan,   Ben, Morley and Joyce

Always nice to see new folks joining the Reach the beach board.

The Greyhound Project will take care of the dog licence for the weekend so we do not have to buy a visitor one. But if you want one for future use, I think they are still $15/each and good for the life of the dog.

The vendors get together and make a catalog, at least last year they did and it was great! They will post on here as it gets closert and let us know whare they are available.

There is a leash law so you cant let the dogs  run loose on the beach,so I doubt they will need life vests. many of us use the long leads 25ft to let them run into the water, if they will go. But for walking we are instructed to use a not longer then 6ft and no retractable leads are recomended.

We drive a Town & Country and you can get 2 large crates in it. We have to many dogs to use crates and I have seat belt harnesses for mine and clip them to the floor where the seat belts attach to the van. We also remove the fuses for the power doors and tail gate so we can't accidentially bump the remote and open it. Also if the dogs are not crated they can touch the side door button with their nose and it will open ( first hand experience there) if the doors are locked ours wont open that way. A rental van wont have the owners book in it,so you can ask them to remove the fuses and put them in the glove box, it will be easy to see where to put them back. Just hard to tell which fuses to pull put. 

We have attended Dewey for 10 years and hope to get there this year as well. We have our reservation made for the Rehoboth Inn,it is very close to the action and the staff is wonderful!

Also, lots of restaurants have patio's and allow the dogs on the patios while you dine.

For the past few years we have had an early bird get together at Zogs in Rehoboth,they have a good size patio area and we have a greyt time!

Rehoboth & Dewey are about a mile apart,if that.

Also the suggestion to add a vacation tag to your pups is a good one. I buy the hard plastic ,clear key chains at at our local hardware and can take the card out and can get our hotel and cell numbers etc on them. I also use a tag collar on my dogs all the time and have the martingale just to walk them. That way if they should manage to slip the martingale the tags will still be on the dogs. I also tighten up the martingale a bit tighter then I do for at home walking just incase they get spooked in a rest stop by a semi truck or any thing for that matter.

Hope to see you at the beach! 

as others said as the time gets close this board will light up!

Debi

Hope to see you at the beach! 

Looks like you have a pack of greys.....we keep thinking of getting more...did you always plan to have a pack or did you start with one and end up expanding the to the pack?  They must have their own room in the house?  Do you have a fenced in property, we only have a 10 x 20 kennel mostly used for them to do their business, but I would think with so many dogs you almost need a lot bigger fenced in area?

We finally found a dog park about 1 hour away in Concord NH and have gone twice this past month, the last time we finally let them off the lead and they had a blast with about 6 other dogs, but it was amazing as Chuck doesn't seem to like any other dogs but greys but at the dog park he actually played with non-greys and did not try to eat them....LOL!

Small white dogs are the worst for Chuck....is that normal?

Can't wait for the vendor directory.

Will you and the pack be going this year to Dewey, would enjoy getting to meet everyone.  Guess we just need to do watch for the different activities to be posted on this message board or is there someplace else to check too?

Keep in Touch!

Judy/Sonia/Chuck/Molly

We have a Dodge Datoka right now and we got one of those hemmock things to help keep Chuck and Molly on the bench seat without falling off.  They seem to like it but is really is only comfortable for short trips like to Dairy Queen for ice cream and not a long trip to Dewey.

We are looking at the vans now to determine whether to just rent one or actually buy one, especially having crates seem to be a lot safer for the road for Chuck and Molly.

So you did not mention you were coming to Dewey this year, are you? If so we look forward to meeting you all.

Judy and Sonia with Chuck and Molly

Hey I am from PA, little town called Fleetwood outside of Reading.

We never thought about the tags, we got ones made out in Seattle which we purchased before we picked up the dogs...Long story but we visited Greyhound Placement Services in Goffstown NH right before our vacation to Seattle and that is when Chuck and Molly picked us.  We made the decision to adopt them while on vacation and had their tags made out there with their name, our home address and our phone number.  But when we are down in Dewey that won't help much.  So thanks for the advice we will get a tag with my sisters home info down in DE where we will be staying and our cell phone number.

Looking forward to shopping too, there are no places around here that sell the martingale collars or other greyhound items.  We have had to order on line for everything, we use Greyhound Goodies that is associated with the GPS adoption.  

So excited about coming to Dewey hope we can meet up!

Judy and Sonia with Chuck and Molly!

Yes it seems you do have a lot of dogs!  Must have a big house and lots of property for the pack!

What do you mean the Greyhound Project will take care of the dog license for the weekend?  Do we need to pick something up from somewhere or does the towns just expect we all have a license for the dogs that weekend?

Can you provide more details on what is this early bird at Zogs?  Would love to meet up there, let us know date and time and it is on our schedule.

Yea we have the martingale for walking with leash only and a separate collar with their tags (name, license for our town, rabies, etc.) that make a lot of noise so we always know where they are in the house...LOL

Thanks for the inside info about if we rent a van and the fuses, would have not known that, appreciate it!

Looking forward to Dewey!

Judy / Sonia / Chuck / Molly

Sonia and Judy - you are so welcome.  I will not be attending the GRTB gathering, it's just too expensive for me with my pack because I would either have to rent a van and/or board 2 of them.  I have attended 2 of the gatherings, my first was in 2003 and my last visit was in 2004, both times I only had 2 greyhounds.

I have always preferred to have 2 greyhounds and did start out that way.  However, most of my greyhounds came from the owners/breeders in Jacksonville, Florida.  My first (and heart hound) was one of their greyhounds and I was able to find out who her owners were and got to meet them when I attended the very first Sandy Paws Greyhound Gathering which was held in Jacksonville, FL  I had been in touch with them via email prior to the gathering and had hoped they would get to see their greyhound again, but sadly a few weeks before the event I lost her to bone cancer.  So when I met them I told them I needed another greyhound for my Toby, and I wanted a  JAMS hound (JAMS was their kennel name), and they introduced me to Aleya who was waiting to find a new home.  I had wanted to adopt JAMS America, but she wasn't ready to retire from racing yet, so went ahead and adopted Aleya.  One year later, the owners called me and told me that America was retiring and asked if I still wanted to adopt her, and of course I said yes, after all, I had been waiting for a year for her to finally retire.  When I adopted Aleya, one of their other females had pups and I got to choose one of them and choose her name, the owners told me that she would automatically be mine when she retired from racing.  None of us knew that Garbo would not make the racing circuit, so at the young age of 20 months, I adopted her too.  So that is how my 2 soon became 4!  The owners/breeders are no longer in business and Garbo was the last litter of pups they had.  After losing my Aleya to cancer (Mast Cell Tumor), I was down to 3, but with Toby being 13, and Rica, almost 10, I thought I should go ahead and adopt another.  Lily had been in a previous home for a year, but her owner had to give her up since she was diagnosed with cancer (the owner was diagnosed with cancer, not Lily) and knew she would not be able to take care of Lily.  Now I am back up to 4!  My personal preference is for 2 because it is easier as far as travel goes, and makes it easier to foster too.  However, I make no promises that I will ever be a 2 hound home!  LOL

None of them have their own room LOL, and yes I do have a fenced in back yard, but we have adopted to folks who live in apartments and/or condos, and their hounds do just fine with walks, etc.  I personally do not like dog parks, with greyhounds having very thin skin, they could get seriously hurt, and so many of the people who bring their other breeds to the dog parks do not pay any attention to their dogs and things can get out of control quickly.  You were lucky that Chuck did okay since you mentioned he usually doesn't like other breeds.  I am sure that the small white dogs are probably fluffy and Chuck may think of them as toys.  I also think it is a myth that greyhounds need to run a lot, if they go on nice walks, they are just as happy and content.  Even in my fenced in yard, they rarely run, but do run once in awhile.

This message board is the best place to keep up on the upcoming GRTB event, where you can check on schedules, vendors, avaialable rooms, other activities, etc.

Sorry I won't be attending, but you will meet lots of people.

Carole, Mom to Toby (Pat C Drop Zone), Rica (JAMS America), Garbo (JAMS Garbo), Lily (RWC Show Off)...Mr. Kurt (B's East Wind); Miss Greta (JAMS Shy Gal); Aleya (JAMS Aleya)

The Greyhound project is the group that has always organized the Dewey event. They will pay for the blanket dog license. No one will stop you and ask you for any thing. Nothing to pick up any place.

No, we don't have a huge place,but we do love our dogs. I am also a dog sitter and we usually have a house full. It takes about 80% determination and 20% craziness!

Zoggs is a restaurant in Rehoboth, all the folks who will be there Thursday can come and dogs welcome. It starts about 6:PM.  More will be posted as it gets closer to October.

Dewey is really small and easy to find your  way around,Rehoboth a bit larger but it is also really easy to find your way around. In Dewey, there is a place called Sharkeys and lots of folks hang out there and they have great burgers. I hope I am not miss informing on them, he was thinking of closing for good. Maybe some one who lives there can update us on Sharkeys! 

Dewey  & Rehoboth is just a relaxing time to brign along the dogs and take nice walks and  chat with every one you see. And did we mention no sales tax and all the outlet malls??

Debi