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Greyhounds!
Disco11
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
My wife,daughter and I are moving into a townhouse and we have decided to get a dog. We don't have a fenced yard but we are a 5min walk from a fenced dog park.
We have been looking up dogs and my wife met a racing greyhound rescue group. We where thinking of getting a adult dog from the s.p.c.a anyway.
Just want to see if anyone has any experience with a retired racer or greyhounds in general.
Thanks!
We have been looking up dogs and my wife met a racing greyhound rescue group. We where thinking of getting a adult dog from the s.p.c.a anyway.
Just want to see if anyone has any experience with a retired racer or greyhounds in general.
Thanks!
Disco11 on
gamertag: Canadianllama
Posts
They actually retire them really really young. So it wont be like getting an aged grumpy dog that you can't teach things too. I have friends who exclusively own and adopt greyhounds and they love them. They seem to just fit right in. Pretty sturdy by the sound of it.
gamertag: Canadianllama
Probably not a huge issue, but really my only experience with them. A big fluffy dog bed will make basic training easier.
You'd think that, being racers, they'll have all kinds of energy. But they're really pretty lazy.
Finicky digestive systems, too. They're not low-maintenance dogs, especially at first when they have all kinds of lingering health issues, but a good vet will help you get the dog adjusted to living with people who don't abuse him.
when the indigo children come
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They are great house dogs. They don't require a lot of exercise, and will lay around the house on the couch all day if you let them. Ours were never shy around new people, but that tends to be a function of how they were treated at the track. If they were abused, they tend to be more shy. They were very sensitive about their ears. Apparently it is a very common practice at racetracks to pull on their ears as a 'disciplinary action', so if you touched their ears the wrong way they would squeal like you had hit them.
All in all, very good dogs. Very few health problems, and they tend to live a long time. Our female lived to 12, and her brother is still alive and well at 13. We definitely would adopt greyhounds again in the future.
Thanks for all the good advise! The agency we are adopting through fosters them for a month or two and does behaviour test to see what type of prey drive they have and ow they react to small animals. They also house break the dogs and provide some obedience training to new owners.
gamertag: Canadianllama
gamertag: Canadianllama
Because of their tendency to lunge after stuff (at least at first), a wider collar (ex. 1.5 or 2 inch wide leather collar) would do less damage / hurt less than a narrower one (ex choke chain).
Also, they don't grow the thickest coat in the winter, so depending on where you are and how cold it gets, be careful how long your dog is outside in the winter... you may end up having to dress him =S lol
All in all, greyhounds are very sweet dogs, and usually quite gentle (when they're not taking off at warp speed). As others have said, just because they raced does not mean they will be constantly bouncing off the walls; they are quite happy laying on the couch all day.
And good for you for looking into rescues!
As far as I'm aware, they tend to enjoy two short-ish walks a day, one slow, and one where you let them blast it for about 20 minutes, and other than that they're pretty content to lounge around and be petted a lot. They are lovely dogs, and good work on thinking about rescuing
gamertag: Canadianllama
They seem like pretty awesome dogs.
This is correct. All sighthound breeds (greyhounds, wolfhounds, etc.) have serious issues with barbituates due to the way these compunds are metabolized in the body. Namely, barbituates are metabolized mostly by fat cells and the liver. Obviously these dogs have a lot less body fat than other breeds, and their liver metabolism is different as well. Most vets should know this, but make sure yours is aware.
Thanks for the advise guys, we have decided to go ahead with our plans and are waiting till they get a new batch brought up from the states. Should have a new house mate by the summer and will post pics when he gets here!
gamertag: Canadianllama
Our first rescue was a german shepherd/australian shepherd mix. He was a great dog but had been abused. He was scared shitless of kids and strangers. However to us and in our home he was great! When he passed away we adopted another German Shepherd. She is a pure bred AKC ( i think that's the correct name?) but she loves kids and is very easy going. She can run and play just as fast as any other German Shephed (and can jump 4 feet in the air) but during the day she's pretty lazy. She loves to sleep in my bed or on the couch most of the day. In the evenings she'll hang out with me and the kids. She lets my youngest climb and sit on her like a pony.
So even though the breed should be a high energy breed, our Loki has the personality of a couch potato. My biggest suggestion is to just meet a few of the dogs and you'll know when you meet the right dog and personality. Just be sure to give them a few weeks to a couple of months to adjust to their new environment. Rescue dogs sometimes need more adjustment time especially if they had more than one home already. Our poor girl had 3 homes prior to us. She's a perfect dog! She just needed to find a family to fit with.
Good job again for going with a rescue dog! I think they love you twice as much!
gamertag: Canadianllama
Might I suggest you get a classy tweed hunting jacket with leather elbow patches for him so that he may laze around in comfort on even the chilliest days, with all the protection his bony little elbows require.
They cast a shadow like a sundial in the morning light. It was half past 10.
gamertag: Canadianllama
Some of us have restrictions though
I was talking to a guy with a greyhound at my dog park. He said his real challenge was training him not to chase the small dogs (the old park didn't have a separate small dog area). If the park near you has separate areas that would probably be ideal. And according to my research when I was planning on getting a greyhound, I was told they can jump a normal chainlink height fence if they sight something they want outside of it. The parks around here only have normal height fences, so that may be something to ask your contacts about, some conditioning/training may be needed before you trust him/her.
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You could probably get a whippet, they're smaller than greyhounds but otherwise pretty similar. I'm pretty sure there'd be a load of them who need re-housing the same as greyhounds
Are whippets still raced en masse like greyhounds are? I kind of thought they weren't any more . . .
Incidentally, when I was looking at whippet breeders a couple years ago I learned that a lot of them can't be trusted around cats . . . so I would think they could still be a danger to chihuahuas and the like.
Italian greyhounds are very small indeed and probably wouldn't be a danger to anything but rodents, but they're notoriously hard to housebreak, unlike "regular" greyhounds.
Whippets and IG's aren't common in CO, the climate here isn't ideal. And IG's aren't ideal for living with my husband, they can break their little twiggy legs jumping from a couch ... and my husband does NOT watch where he is walking, ever. :? I'll just wait until I'm somewhere not as hellish, in a house :lol:
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Whippets are raced, and bred for racing to the point now where some have a genetic mutation that prevents the production of myostatin. See figure A
Figure A
They cast a shadow like a sundial in the morning light. It was half past 10.
gamertag: Canadianllama
Fun (OT) fact. There is a breed of bull that carries that gene normally. Scientists are using this to try and duplicate the results to cure muscular dystrophy.
And I've seen that whippet on a few shows, it just doesn't look ... right.
PS - The Greyhound that I played with at the dog park did NOT look like a 65 lb dog, they are so deceptive in that way.
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The problem isnt finding one. The problem is I already have dogs.
There are also two known people with this disorder, one in Germany, one in the US. One child at the age of 18 months, was able to the iron cross, a gymnastics move where one is able to support their own weight with the arms extended at 90 degree angles to the body. It's pretty cool, and the protein is totally named after a drug made up in the incredible hulk series.
Also this condition is more common than you may think. Heterozygous dogs are selected for in breeding programs, as they have extra muscle without a huge amount of bulk to weigh them down, so they are faster. Homozygotes, those with two nonfunctioning myostatin genes are more rare, but not unheard of, though usually disposed of early in life.
They cast a shadow like a sundial in the morning light. It was half past 10.