Greyhound Puppies

A whimsical thought: one of the slightly sad things about adopting a retired racer is that you don't have knowledge or pics of them as puppies.  Same applies to anyone who rescues a dog I suppose, unless the previous owner is kind enough to supply them.

At Kerry Greyhound Connection, our local greyhound rescue charity, occasionally we do get a litter of puppies.  These are usually lurcher, presumably produced by a female greyhound who has been cast out into the world who has been tupped by another non-greyhound dog.  She would then have been found by some kind individual and handed over to the charity already pregnant.  She would be allowed to have her pups and then spayed and made ready to become a rescue dog afterwards.  These pups attract an inordinate amount of affection and attention from the volunteers and adopters.  One reason is because everyone goes "aaah" when they see a puppy, but also there is the rarity value in the rescued greyhound community.

One thing is for sure in many cases: greyhounds go through a second puppyhood when they come into a home for the first time.  Our two, both males, did little but play-fight for the first 5 months or so they were with us.  These were no doubt establishing the pecking order between our two boys, but in a comical and non-threatening way.  It got quite boisterous at times, but always funny.  We did wonder where the couch potatoes we had been told of were, they were so active!  Fortunately we did capture some of this puppyish behaviour on video - because it suddenly stopped, and, touch wood, they both know exactly their place with each other and what the perameters are for acceptable behaviour.

The other funny stuff was playing with stuffies, and thieving.  They had a wonderful time collecting things and amassing them on their beds or sofas.  At one stage we had an empty wine bottle from the recycling and a plastic watering can on the garden, both adorning the sofa!  They gave us hours of amusement with their total excitement at being in a home and garden with lots of lovely things to find and do.  This behaviour does not last, and they soon calm down, although sometimes brief flashes of their old puppyish selves appear to delight us.