Pet Greyhound Wins a Race Against Time : Dogs: Group that rescued pooch once before gets him back from owner who considered having him put to sleep.

A cat may have nine lives, but Dylan the greyhound isn’t doing so badly either.

An animal rescue group’s race to an Orange County courtroom this week helped save the life of the hound, whose owner had considered having him killed. The same group had saved Dylan from almost-certain destruction more than two years ago, when he was no longer needed at an out-of-state racetrack.

The unusual court action began Wednesday when the nonprofit Hemopet organization, an Irvine-based animal blood bank that rescues greyhounds and puts them up for adoption through its Pet Life-Line arm, sued Dylan’s owner, Deborah Pommerening of Rancho Santa Margarita, who had adopted the dog from the group about four months ago.

The organization alleged that Pommerening violated Dylan’s adoption contract by giving him up to the Orange County Animal Shelter without its permission. Pommerening said, however, that she was forced to quarantine the dog there for several days after she told her veterinarian that Dylan had bitten a child.

Within hours of filing the lawsuit, which also named the shelter as a defendant, the organization won a temporary court order Wednesday preventing any harm to the dog. In the end, however, the order wasn’t necessary because Pommerening voluntarily returned the dog to the organization after learning Hemopet intended to sue her.

By Thursday, Dylan was back at his former home at the organization’s Irvine kennel.

“He’s happy. He’s wagging his tail. He’s a pretty wonderful dog,” said veterinarian Jean Dodds, who founded Hemopet in 1991 and will care for the 5-year-old greyhound.

Pommerening said the whole episode has been painful. She said she and her 10-year-old son adore Dylan, but the dog has serious behavioral problems and tore up her home when they were not there. After consulting several veterinarians and trying to train him, Pommerening said she believed the dog could never live in a home.

Pommerening said she concluded it would be more humane to put Dylan to sleep, rather than send him to a kennel for the rest of his life.

“We totally adored him,” she said. “It just about broke my heart to see him go.”

Pommerening said she took Dylan to a veterinarian to have him destroyed, but when she volunteered that the dog had bitten a child on Thanksgiving Day--an incident she described as a minor “nip”--the veterinarian was required by law to have Dylan quarantined.

Dodds said Pommerening had no right to destroy Dylan under the adoption contract. “We have a responsibility to them,” she said. “I made a commitment to benefit them for the rest of their lives.”

Dodds’ organization is one of several in Southern California that rescues various purebred dogs such as poodles, Dobermans and collies from shelters, then tracks the people who adopt them to ensure the animals are well treated.

Hemopet’s blood bank arm serves more than 600 veterinary hospitals and emergency centers. The greyhounds obtained by the group from out-of-state racetracks are used as blood donors for as long as a year, then become eligible for adoptions through the group’s Pet Life-Line arm.

Dodds said about 40 hounds have been adopted through the program.

“These animals made a contribution to save others,” she said. “They are very special.”

Judy Maitlen, director of Orange County Animal Control, said shelter workers always contact rescue groups whenever attempts to find an owner for a stray purebred fail.

“It’s always our goal to get the animal back into a home,” she said. “The (rescue groups) are just fabulous. . . . We’re just thrilled they are out there.”

Dodds said it was chance that she learned Tuesday about Dylan’s plight. When a woman seeking to adopt a greyhound mentioned spotting one with unusual blue-gray coloring at the county animal shelter, Dodds said she knew the dog had to be Dylan.

By Wednesday morning, Dodds’ husband, a patent attorney, had prepared a lawsuit and a Superior Court judge was able to hear the couple’s request for a temporary restraining order.