Life

Bark for Life helps people and dogs

Dogs enjoyed Bark for Life.

By Bill Moss, Published: May 5, 2012

The head pats, ear scratches and the new aromas were OK. Skye and Tabasco, rescue greyhounds, just didn't care for some of the commotion on Main Street.

"They don't like it," said Beryl Orchard, the dogs' human. "It's too much noise."

"The beat of the kettle drum I believe it was," added her husband, Neville Orchard.

The Columbus couple and Skye and Tabasco were among dozens of visitors to the Bark for Life fundraiser to fight cancer on North Main Street in front of the Historic Courthouse.

The Orchards had whippets before they graduated to rescue greyhounds. Skye broke his right back leg his first race. Veterinarians at an animal hospital said that injury was common at that track. He would never race again. The Orchards took him home straight from a hospital in Daytona Beach.

Lutrelle O'Cain, the administrator of the Blue Ridge Humane Society, was accompanied by Bleeker, a compact chocolate Labrador-Springer spaniel mix. Bleeker was wearing a vest that said Adopt Me but she would soon get to shed the advertisement.

"She's been adopted," O'Cain said.

That's the phrase that rings the bell at the Humane Society.

"We pull animals out of the county shelter and put them in our shelter," she said. "They're on a time limit out there (before they're put down). When we get them, they're with us until we find them a home."

www.blueridgehumane.org

The dogs at Bark for Life all had good homes. They were just out for a meet and greet.