My Greyhound Space

Although there are definite generalizations one can make about the temperament and preferences of greyhounds it is quite interesting how different they can be.  The usual story is that they are 40 mile per hour couch potatoes,

Greyhound Couch Potato

who love to spend most of their lives lying on beds or sofas, but have the odd mad five minutes when they tear up the ground and spin like tops and shake cuddly toys (stuffies) and play the fool.  This is true, but it is amazing what variations there can be amongst the community we call greyhound.  Anyone with a multi-greyhound family will tell you they are all different.

Of course much of this difference is down to their previous nurture (or lack of it).  One of our hounds, Pingu, was rejected for racing and handed over to a rescue charity, so he has no experience of racing life, nor of anything much but a loving pet home.  He came to us an outgoing, well-balanced dog, quite demanding of affection, very active and hardy (for a greyhound) and without guile or cunning.

Conversely our other greyhound Slinky had had a much more chequered past.  He had nine races, came third about three times, mostly fifth out of six, so was not the greatest of racers.  Handed over to travellers after this, he was presumably used for coursing.  He still has a strong powerful prey drive even though he is not at all interested in running for its own sake.  When he came to us he showed obvious signs of abuse, and was almost starved to death and terrified of sticks.  So it is obvious all of this will have affected his temperament.  He is still very frightened of bangs and explosions, and is not at all sure of horses (his traveller past?)  But I imagine he has had to live on his wits much more than Pingu, so he is quite cunning and clever in his way.  At home he is very much the more intelligent dog, but lazy, kooky and cute.

So although there is a sort of template for the greyhound, and they all spend a lot of time in bed, when they are awake there are many different personalities.  How much this is down to innate nature and how much is to do with previous treatment is of course down to nature or nurture.