The folks who follow sports declare that Flo Jo was fast enough to catch a rabbit. They say she once ran professionally and that crowds cheered her from the grandstands.

That was yesterday. Today it is Flo Jo's eyes that her new fans remember.  Her patience and kindness. Her kisses.

Flo Jo has changed trades. She's given up the race track and along with fellow Greyhound Meagin works the second floor at Wesley Rehabilitation  Hospital in Wichita, KS. Flo Jo and Meagin are said to be the first retired racing Greyhounds in America to work as therapy dogs at a rehab hospital.  Flo Jo is full time. Meagin is a part-time volunteer.

I felt like I was a celebrity's friend when Wichita's Saturday night news featured Flo Jo and Pam McCaslin in mid-February. I hadn't met Flo Jo yet, but my mom and I had dined with this pretty young mother of two from Danville, KS, two nights earlier at the hospital.

Mom was to check out next day after a knee replacement. McCaslin would remain many weeks longer in rehabilitation for a spinal injury.

We hated to ask what had happened. McCaslin was in a wheelchair. A  therapeutic torture device known in modern times as a halo neck brace totally immobilized her head and neck. We assumed partial paralysis.

Thanks to a special utensil molded for her hand, McCaslin could feed herself. She visited easily with us and two other dinner partners, showing off her T-shirt autographed by several hundred students from Harper Elementary where she is school secretary. McCaslin's cheerfulness and normality begged us to see past the "halo."

After watching the weekend news, I decided to meet the Greyhound nurses and visit more with McCaslin. It was clear that Flo Jo and Meagin filled a spot for her and other rehab patients that only dogs can.

Flo Jo had been at the job three weeks when I met her. She was still learning the ropes, but seemed like an old hand to me. She was calm and self-confident. Flo was mostly on leash then for on-job training. The whole hospital watched out for her.

A sign by the elevator door reminded: "The black Greyhound on the second floor is Flo Jo and belongs to Wesley Rehab Hospital. Please help us keep Flo safe by not allowing her to get on the elevator to go to the first floor alone."

Wesley Rehabilitation Hospital is a 65-bed inpatient facility that also offers  comprehensive outpatient care, according to Linda Mansfield, director of clinical services. Occupational Therapist Mansfield and her husband Roger had already learned the value of a Greyhound as a service dog. Meagin was Roger's own service dog.

Mansfield could see the advantages of a full-time therapy Greyhound for Wesley and convinced Physical Therapist Marty Holmes to be caretaker of the new hospital Greyhound Flo Jo.

"She's probably the most cheerful come-to-work individual I know," said Holmes of Flo. Flo Jo is Holmes first Greyhound, and she enjoys her as a  pet at home as well as a fellow co-worker.

Flo will be three in May. She ran at Wichita Greyhound Park for about six months, breaking her right back leg in a race which forced retirement.  "People remember betting on her at the track," notes Holmes.

Flo is a natural for therapy. She's been through rehab and recovery herself, with a cast on her leg for eight weeks. Judy Suter, director of Wichita Greyhound Park Adoption Program, worked with Flo for three or four months after she broke her leg. She said Flo and Meagin are the only retired racing Greyhounds she knows to be working in a hospital.

"Friendly. Outgoing. Not rowdy," was Suter's description of Flo. "She goes up to everyone. She doesn't jump up and lick."

Racing Greyhounds are ideal prospects for therapy work, thinks Suter,  because they've been handled by people all their lives. She has placed several other racing Greyhounds as nursing home dogs in Kansas. Linda  Mansfield adds that a Greyhound is a good size for rehab work because it is  big enough that someone in a wheelchair can reach it, but not so massive  that it will make patients fearful.

Therapy dogs were not a new concept for Wesley. The hospital previously had therapy dog night once a month. Use of an in-house, everyday therapy dog seems to be working beautifully.

"Flo is a very loving dog, and patients realize that she is always happy to see them. She lights up a lot of patients' lives. I like to use her if I have a patient that isn't responding well," said Holmes.

"Patients have reacted very positively," said Holmes. "No patient has showed fear, mostly because Flo has that smile and is always wagging her tail. When we walk in the morning, everyone is calling for Flo. She likes to stick her nose in every door."

Flo visited my mom, too. The amazing thing I discovered about this hospital is that I could have brought my own Scotties to visit Mom.

"Patients can bring their own dogs any time," said Wende Wingert, Wesley  marketing assistant. "There's no reason Grandma's dog can't come see her and make her happy."

Rehab Greyhounds "get a neat reaction from people: "'Hey, Meagin. Hey,  Flo Jo,'" Pam McCaslin mimicked when I returned to the hospital.  "Especially the older people like the attention. They light up when the dogs  come in."

"Affectionate," McCaslin called the two dogs. "A lot of people don't have many visitors. The dogs are like a hug they don't get all the time, a degree of affection that's not served to them often."

McCaslin has enjoyed Flo and Meagin. She'd been in the hospital for five weeks and had seven weeks to go, with five of that seven to be in "the halo" night and day. Then it would be finally home to her family and Beethoven, the new puppy they had taken in two weeks before her injury.

I eventually learned McCaslin's ordeal was the result of a pickup accident.  "I took the ditch instead of rear-ending someone," retold McCaslin.

Several days later I met Roger Mansfield, service Greyhound Meagin's partner. Roger is medically limited to lifting no more than five pounds.  Meagin wears a backpack and can carry up to 10 pounds for Roger. He has had her for six months and trained her himself. Five-year-old Meagin raced at the top level at Wichita Greyhound Park. She was a Class A racer, available through the park's adoption program when retired. Interestingly, the park provides racing Greyhounds' records to adopters.

"Anyplace I need to go, she can go with me," said Roger of his Sedgwick County licensed service dog. He has graciously shared some of Meagin's time and talents with Wesley Hospital's patients.

"The hospital discovered that some patients who wouldn't respond to therapists would respond to Meagin. That's why they got Flo," Roger explained.

Wichita Greyhound Park Adoption Program, the operation that placed Flo and Meagin as therapy and service dogs, has a hard-to-equal record. In 1994, it adopted out a record 336 racing Greyhounds.

"All Greyhounds that come into our adoption program get adopted," said director Judy Suter. Individuals who race at Wichita's track must sign a contract that the dogs will enter the adoption program when finished racing in Wichita, go back home for breeding or move to another track to race. The  adoption program was in place when the track opened in 1989, according to Suter.

"Wichita is the only track that supports adoption 100%," claims Suter.  "They provide an office, what we need for the dogs, a kennel, and a monthly newsletter. They support us completely."

Former racers Flo Jo and Meagin lead a slower paced life these days. They  win hearts instead of races. Their work at Wesley Rehabilitation Hospital in Wichita is opening new doors for racing Greyhounds.

For information on Greyhounds as service/rehabilitation dogs, contact Linda Mansfield, Director of Clinical Services; or Marty Holmes, Physical  Therapist, Wesley Rehabilitation Hospital, 8338 W. 13th Street, Wichita,  KS 67212; ph: 316/729-9999.