His deep brown eyes and long, muscular legs told a story that melted this jaded journalist's heart.

He had left the only home and the only work he'd ever known because no one wanted him around anymore.

The sunny March afternoon I first saw him, he had distanced himself from everyone else. He was obviously frightened in his temporary surroundings. He started to shake as I approached him, but he didn't make a sound.

He was a beauty, a real thoroughbred, wearing a brown and black coat that felt like velvet.

He was a greyhound discarded from a racetrack in Connecticut. And he wasn't even 3 years old. His name was Batman.

I'd longed to give a retired racing greyhound a home ever since I got up close and personal with some of the gentle giants at a parade in Erie.

For the next half dozen years, I read all I could about rescued greys, watched specials about them on Animal Planet and The Discovery Channel, talked to every owner I saw walking one and avoided greyhound racetracks.

My husband, Ray, a longtime lover of big dogs, was all for adopting, but we held back because we already had two cats, one of them a geriatric feline who would never be able to outjump or outrun a 70-pound dog that can reach 45 mph in three strides!

We also don't have a fenced yard, something we were sure would rule us out on the first home visit. Groups that rescue racing dogs want to be sure the hounds they've saved are going to good -- and safe -- homes. Adopters complete applications, supply references, undergo face-to-face interviews and home visits and finally sign contracts and pay a fee to offset transportation and veterinary costs before they actually get to take home a dog.

Despite our fear of rejection, my husband and I were excited about a Herald Pet of the Week from Rebound Greyhounds. The 2è-year-old brindle was advertised as "cat safe" but extraordinarily shy and in need of a home without small children.

I called Debi Kilar, director of Rebound Greyhounds, and we agreed to meet the next day. My sister, who has five dogs of her own and is active in Mercer County Dog Training Club, went along, bearing gifts of string cheese.

Half-a-dozen greyhounds in a spectrum of colors from black to fawn greeted us at the gate. But one young male held a good 20 yards back, near the fence.

"That's him isn't it?" I asked Debi.

"Yep," she said, and then welcomed us into her home.

Within moments, all the other dogs had discovered the cheese in my sister's pockets and were happily chowing down the bits she broke off for them. Batman had come inside, too, but he headed directly for his safety zone -- a 3-foot-high crate.

I knelt in front of the cage, a nibble of cheese in my outstretched hand, but he wanted none of it. He just lay in the crate, shaking. So I dropped the cheese and walked to the side.

"I told you he was really shy, really afraid," Debi reminded us. "He was too shy to race, that's why they let him go."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him stretch his neck to get that morsel. I broke off another bit and held the cheese near, but not inside, the cage. He stuck his nose out and took it.

"Did he just do what I think he did?" an incredulous Debi asked. "Did he just take that out of your hand? He's been here two weeks and never come close to that."

Minutes later as I sat at the table filling out an application, I felt a nudge at my left leg. That terrified dog was leaning against me. I was hooked.

And Debi was speechless -- almost. "Would you like to take him home?"

Our home was hardly prepared for a big dog. We didn't even have leash or a water dish. We'd expected the adoption process to take at least a couple of weeks.

"What about the home visit?" I asked.

"Oh, it would just be for tonight," Debi said. "You could bring him back tomorrow."

But he never went back.

Don't get me wrong, it hasn't all been rosy at our house since March.

First of all, I'm 40-something and never lived with a dog, not even as a kid. I had a lot of adjusting to do. Walking a dog on a cold, rainy night is not fun.

It takes work and patience to get a dog that's lived its whole life in a kennel adjusted to living in a home. And it takes an abundance of love and praise to get such a dog to trust his new humans.

To top it off, our grey was 10 times more fearful than most.

He had so much to learn; in many ways, he was a fully grown puppy.

He didn't know how to walk up and down stairs; we live in a two-story house.

He had to learn to walk on a leash; we don't have a fenced yard and greys can't be tied outside.

He had to learn not to wolf his food; there are no other dogs in our house vying for the same chow.

He had to learn to go for walks with my husband. My Herald colleagues howled every time they heard me on the phone, brightly encouraging, "Outside, Batman? Go outside with Daddy?" It took weeks before my husband could coax the dog out of the house by offering him a ride in our pickup.

The lowest point came about six weeks after the adoption, when for no apparent reason, Batman began making "potty" mistakes in the house.

Although he had long since endeared himself to both of us, I sobbed every time I found myself lugging the carpet cleaner to the dining room, certain we would have to give him back and I would have to admit that I'd failed in my goal of saving even one of the thousands of greyhounds let go each year from U.S. racetracks and breeding farms.

What neither my husband nor I expected was the support we received from the Rebound Greyhounds "virtual" family.

We had read many of the public Web sites rescue groups maintain to help them get the word out about their efforts to save greys.

We didn't know that many also have private Internet groups, where adopters encourage each other, offer training tips or just share hound humor.

Within hours of our online cries of frustration, the Rebound Greyhounds family rallied around us, urging us not to give up, promising that our boy would be a different dog in a year, even offering to "foster" him for a while so he could learn more acceptable behavior from their dogs.

Several suggested he might be ill.

He was.

And once he was through with two rounds of antibiotics, the problems were through, too.

But we were far from through with Rebound Greyhounds.

We've helped with a couple of fund-raisers, scoured yard sales for inexpensive bedding for recent retirees known as "newbies," picked up an extra bag of dog food now and then and occasionally offered some online advice of our own.

As my husband and I continue to try to socialize our shy guy, we've taken him to a couple of Rebound Greyhounds picnics, including one for World Greyhound Day in September; to a "meet and greet," where the public gets to see and pet greyhounds and learn more about rescue efforts and the organization; and to a couple of greyhound gatherings, including the largest one in the world, "Greyhounds Reach the Beach" in Dewey, Del.

Things have changed all right. I have a new mission -- to spread the word about greyhound adoption; a circle of new Rebound Greyhounds friends; and a devoted new companion named Batman.

Sarah Adams is The Herald's news editor.