We have used friends, neighbours, and dog walkers. Most of our dogs have been rescues, some from centres but most from friends of friends who just got in over their heads. Can I suggest you go and get an ex racing greyhound. We got one from the trust that re homes them. Merlin 18 to 24 months old, mad as a hatter when playing and a fantastic temperament with my Son when he was younger. They were inseparable. Nobbled the other dogs when racing so had 2 strikes and he was out. What ever you can offer them is a dam sight better than being kept in a crate for hours on end whilst racing and being kennelled for ours on end. They don’t get a lot of socialisation when racing in case it hampers their racing career. I wouldn’t get a puppy unless I was at home to train it, but a rescue is another matter all together. One of the most stressful things for a dog to cope with is being in a kennel with hundreds of other dogs that they can hear and smell but not interact with.
We’ve had retired greyhounds. Brilliant dogs and as others have said they are lazy sods. They are rightly known as the 45mph couch potato.
We sometimes left them 8hrs or so, usually once a week max and has someone come round and let them out and spend a bit of time with them and they were perfectly content.
We now have a cockerpoo and more recently a labradoodle and occasionally they get left 6 hours. We have a dog monitor app using iPads and iPhones and I can confirm they just sleep all day except when the postman comes.
As for the two dogs being as easy as one dog. With the hounds the second one proved to be very hard work. We loved her to bits but compared to hound 1 she didn’t travel well at all, was very difficult to house train and generally made life quite difficult. She definitely was way more work than just having the one.
With the c’poo and l‘doodle though the c’poo is definitely happier and more settled with a around and I am very happy to have a pair :).
The other way to go at it is day care for the dog. That will be the evening that the hound sleeps like a log due to lots of mental and physical activity during the day.
Your male dog will need to be neutered and females will not be admitted while in season.
