What everyone else has said about greyhounds is true, probably not the best dogs for long days out. I’d say you are looking for a smaller lurcher, with a good rough coat. Smooth coated lurchers tend to be very thin coated / bald on the under sides and inners of the back legs.

Sighthound feet are generally small in relation to the size / weight of the dog, putting more pressure on them, and hastening fatigue and soreness.

I know a whippet x bedlington who will run all day long, is happy out in all weathers.

Don’t discount collie X dogs. My previous lurcher was a collie x grey and was the most sensible, trustworthy dog I’ve ever met. Utterly bomb-proof around stock, faultless recall, etc.

Which Tyler is now my favourite joke of all time. Oh my word, I can’t stop laughing.

A physicist, a biologist and a mathematician are sitting in a street café watching people entering and leaving the house on the other side of the street.

First they see two people entering the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three people leaving the house.

The physicist says, “The measurement wasn’t accurate.”

The biologist says, “They must have reproduced.”

The mathematician says, “If one more person enters the house then it will be empty.”

This makes me fill up, particularly the last two lines as it’s exactly how my first lurcher Ali would come back through the meadow on his daily when called. The whole thing describes life with a dog completely.

WE HAVE A SECRET

We have a secret, you and I
that no one else shall know,
For who but I can see you lie
each night in fire glow?

And who but I can reach my hand
before we go to bed
And feel the living warmth of you
and touch your silken head?

And only I walk woodland paths
and see you ahead of me,
Your small form racing with the wind
so young again, and free.

And only I can see you swim
in every brook I pass
And when I call, no one but I
can see the bending grass.

Our circumstances changed a little after we took Ted on, but we have managed to work out a routine so that we could keep him. I dread the day he goes because a house is just wrong without a dog, and I don’t see how we can get through the settling in period with a rescue with our new ‘schedules’.

His raaaaaandom elongation of syllables drives me round the corner.

Yeah, quite a novelty that nothing is “sweated down”, “fried off” or “whacked in”. I like it.

Britcar 24hr 2010

I’m absolutely champing at the bit for rFactor 2.

What is point, Killfile, what is point?

Funniest radio series ever….

😆

did anyone see this coming?

I can’t be alone in remarking, back then, that this would slow burn before igniting. (Indeed, my wife just said “Well, you were right”. How I wish I was recording that conversation….)

Bull running is cruel. Sending a bunch of stressed, scared and angry bulls running down a narrow street with hordes of people screaming at them is beyond entertainment (IMO). The people that participate deserve any mauling or stampeding they get. Hopefully, they’ll be hurt badly enough to reconsider doing it in future.

Pretty much sums it up, well said Darcy.

Lovely pics! Sadly I didn’t know our Ted as a pup as we took him on as an adult.

I would love to meet the person who did have him as a pup though. Mostly so I could demonstrate just how painful it is to have your dew claws dug out in a botched DIY ‘operation’. Cruel bastards.

EDIT: The last few posts were made as I was typing. LOL at ‘Sybil and Basil’. I know two westies called ‘Holmes and Watson’ and two cockers called ‘Joe and Jarvis’.

pendantic nature

Not pedantic enough…. ;O)

It seems ‘take’ is out of fashion now:

“I’m going to bring my camera on holiday”

I’m glad it’s not just me then.

I work with under-graduate students, and ‘can I get…’ is the norm now. It’s not quite as annoying as the increasing amount of people who want to ‘grab’ something we sell.

“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space…”

In my experience the swarf takes ages to cool down when it’s flicked down the neck of your polo-shirt……

Or inhaled nasally. When dressing the bottom of some cast iron packers a piece the same size and shape as a fly maggot caster and a deep cherry red with heat flicked up my left nostril. Sadly I’d just exhaled so had to inhale before I could snort it out. This dragged it further up my nose, with a terrifying sizzling sound. Then the pain kicked in. It was days before I could smell anything other than fried hair, snot and flesh.

Thanks all, just looking for a way of automating it.

Bikemonkey, a retired racing greyhound would fit that easily. A walk before work, midday whizz break, and walk after work is all they need. Some of them are so badly institutionalised they need a good while to adapt to a home environment, but many just adapt straight away.

Look up http://www.greyhoundgap.com

Do you fancy trading? My two are bastards…

There’s a switch in Ted’s brain that trips when we go through the front door, and he becomes the same. Well, for some of the time anyway. So on balance….

I seriously reckon that my most common utterance over the last 4.5 years is simply “Ted”. In this manner: “Ted….Ted…..Ted….OI! TED!….[voice of doom]TEeeddd![/voice of doom]”….etc… And that’s just at 03:00 when he’s remaking his bed for the third time. Wouldn’t swap him though :O)

they don’t enjoy long periods by themselves, and they don’t sleep all day.

Mine does…..

so does mine

Lurchers FTW! Or something…

they don’t enjoy long periods by themselves, and they don’t sleep all day.

Mine does…..

The thing is that many breeds of domestic dog are so far removed from wolves or wild dogs that looking at ‘natural behaviour’ is irrelevant. They are products of artificial selection, so strategies successful in the wild go out of the window.

Ted has deerhound and saluki blood in his breeding. Two breeds that have been selected for very long chases, independent of human guidance. Those that had a singular purpose when on the chase, despite how far they were getting away from their handlers, were more successful, and more frequently bred from. The side effect of this is the well known saluki aloofness. They also show wilful disobedience until the task at hand is complete, whether it’s chasing a rabbit, whizzing on a tree, or eating a meal. Ted has this in spades. He very often goes off to a quiet corner on another floor in the house to get some peace.

Ted couldn’t give a toss about pack leader status, it’s been bred out of him. He wants chasing, long pursuits of a quarry (only an Aerobie satisifes Ted’s need to chase over a long distance) and a comfy bed. He needs firm handling, because he has no concept of pack leader, and you have to constantly assert your wishes. If he doesn’t want to conform, you might as well piss in the wind.

It’s all because of the qualities inherited from his ancestors, artificially selected by humans shaping the breed to their own ends.

In summary, not all breeds are the same(!)

EDIT: And to answer the OP’s question, you’d have to try hard to muck up looking after a greyhound.

LOL at some of the replies in this thread. Our Ted has no problem being home alone 5 days a week. I come home every lunch time to let him out for a whizz. He has two good hour long walks EVERY day with lots of play to simulate a working lurcher’s life. It took him a week to settle in to this routine when we got him.

I sometimes feel guilty about it, but I’ve watched him on a webcam and his day is exactly the same as when we’re around all day. That is, sleeping the sleep of the dead. He simply doesn’t move, and once he was still for so long I thought he’d died in his sleep and was about to rush home when he got up, turned round and literally fell back to sleep.

It can be done, with the right dog, and the right routine.

Thanks Clubber, I’ll look in to that too.

Cheers Z1ppy, I haven’t actually tried with the iPod as it was out in my car and it happened late last night. Perhaps that will re-sync correctly?

I’ll have a read of your link, thanks.

The music is definitely gone from the NAS, I browsed to it, and also searched for track names / artists from the root of the drive. It is strange, you’re right.

Ted does not retrieve. Ever. That’s something that happens to other dogs as far as he’s concerned. Once he’s chased and caught he loses interest. If I’ve got two with me, he’ll chase the second one, but the first one ceases to exist in his world once he’s caught and ‘killed’ it. If I don’t throw them, he won’t pester me to do so.

He will let me if he thinks he hasn’t had enough play when we are heading home by trying to take the frizbees from me. If he’s proper blown then he doesn’t bother.

Cheers Devs. Ted loves his Aerobies. I can chuck one 70 or 80 yards in the right wind and he gets some really good long sprints, and something to ‘kill’ at the end.

Two more of frizbee action.

Ah, I thought that might be it. I knew I should have written ‘lure coursing’. 😀

Muzzles are standard at a lure meeting. I wouldn’t be at a hare coursing event.*

*Nor me. 😉

What’s so interesting about the muzzle Darcy?

Gundogs? Terriers? Pfffftttt….

Lurchers more like it. (OK, Ted’s a longdog, but let’s split hairs)

Ali.

Ted

Franny (not my dog) coursing.

quality of them is a bit shonky like some of the parts not fitting flush with each other.

That’s when it becomes ‘modelling’ rather than ‘assembling’. And when the fun starts!

Izal is the John Wayne of toilet paper. Hard as f*** and takes no s***.

Thanks for the ideas everyone. I had thought of velcro, but wanted something a bit more ‘proper’. I’ll keep searching (or just buy another iPod!)

I also remember Lesley Judd being a treacherous bitch.

Steady on, Lesley’s a good friend of mine. (Unashamedly name dropping…)

Ali the lurcher

Ted the longdog

Your pic looks more like a raven DezB. Which the OP’s bird could be, but doubtful in Worcestershire. I’d say buzzard.

Thank you TheBrick! ‘Alot’ drives me insane but I’m going to adopt the coping strategy in your link and enjoy encountering it from now onwards.

I put a cooker hood with fan and light over my desk in the shed, vented outside. It cost about £40. (I think it would work much more effectively mounted upright against the wall, so any overspray would go directly to the fan, but I’m limited by space.)