Greyhound (and other sighthounds)

As for breeds, you might try submitting an application to GRIN. The Spanish galgos are really wonderful. We almost adopted a galgo/podengo but someone else snatched her up before we could.

Galgo Adoption

These dogs are typically coming from extremely abusive situations, though some of them are very outgoing and well adjusted.

Keep an eye on borzoi rescue. They don't get dogs often, but they do get them. You might also contact some of the borzoi lists and get word out that you are looking for an adult borzoi. Many breeders have adults, either returns, retirees, or pups that didn't turn out breeding quality, that they hang onto until the perfect home comes up.

Wally never had a broken bone, a cut pad, none of that. I took him hiking weekly. He adored it. We also did something called The Swamp Stomp, which is a mile long obstacle course through the woods and swamp, and he did everything I asked, including belly crawling through the swamp under a tarp. He took it all in stride and had a blast

My friend's Greyhound is her running partner. They go for 2-5 miles everyday. She has to be around 10 years old now, but you'd never know it. That dog is the energizer bunny!

I also had a client with 5 retired racers, 2 of whom did agility just as well, if not better, than most of the dogs in her class.

I used to know a woman who adopted a 1 year old because he was too unfocussed to run. Not a year later the woman got into a horrible accident and suffered a brain injury, which causes her to have Grand Mal seiziures. The dog, with very little training, learned how to alert her to an oncoming seziure, and then to lay down on top of her when the seziure started so she wouldn't hurt herself.

I'm a firm believer that you can find a Greyhound to fit just about anyone's needs. You just need to find a good rescue that is pulling the type of dogs you want. Some rescues prefer to take in the broken dogs (I volunteered for one of those). Every dog who comes in has a broken leg, a skin tear that stretched for half of their body, etc etc etc. Then there are the rescues that sure get a broken dog here and there, but mostly end up with dogs around 4 or 5 who were retired for slowing down, or even young dogs who failed on their maiden run for one reason or another. Though Wally didn't come from the track with the best reputation, he did come from an awesome kennel there who adored him to the point where the kennel manager sought me out after I adopted him to check in on him. He was a favorite, and I think it was pretty easy to see why

Greys will always be my favorite. Though it's been two years since I've been able to bring myself to see one in person. I keep trying to walk out the door to go to the adoption kennel on the weekend to donate Wally's old collars (I literally have had a box of collars sitting by the door for two years), but just can't muster up the courage to do so. **sigh** They truly are amazing dogs.

My mom is really interesting in Greys and I keep nudging her that direction. I've met some pretty awesome ones and Jay Sisler (who helped bring Aussies into the public eye) had an amazingly trained one. I posted a video on here a while back of the tricks they did together, including somersaults!

Why didn't you tell me that!?

Next time in CO I'm going to drag her to a meet and greet. Excuse to snuggle Greyhounds + convincing someone they should adopt one = WIN!