The Strange Joys of Human-ing a Greyhound
The peculiar magic of greyhounds
In the bleached deserts of the American southwest, as scientists swung their keening axes into atoms in search of the ultimate weapon, discussion among them often turned to the subject of extraterrestrials. Physicist Enrico Fermi’s question was as succinct as ever: “Where the hell are they?”
Well sir, I can tell you that they are here, and most decidedly among us. They are gentle, watchful, and older than time.
They are greyhounds, Mr Fermi.
Yet they are not from here. They never were. Biology will no doubt contradict me, but I know it in my bones that some magic runs much deeper than species and phyla.
At the very least, they are definitely not dogs. To call them so is to call a Pagani Zonda an adequate means of conveyance.
No, greys are old spirits funneled down from far-off heavens into slinky noetic horses, their mantic arrow faces holding liquid eyes deeper than Marinara itself.
No dog is older. Greyhounds pre-date even our own civilization — there in Mesopotamia, and again, entombed with Pharaohs in ancient Egypt, considered a sacred intermediary between worlds of light and dark. I consider it no coincidence that their presence coincided with the construction of Giza’s Great Pyramids.
Which I suppose is mightily ironic, as mine never leaves her damn couch, unless those errant floppy ears hear the soft squeak of an opening fridge.
Yes, everyone has their favourite breed, and as you have by now determined my own, I shall below try — and likely fail — to detail the uniquely confounding sorcery inherent in the human-ing of a hound:
- Greyhounds are masters of duality.
You think you get them, until you don’t, and they take secret delight in cosmically confusing you. One minute, they’re a grinning gothic giraffe, next, a brooding shadowy unicorn, then finally some wistful ancient deer, graceful and innocent, yet slyly eyeing off the roquefort on the table. Some far-off magic has spliced a cat into a dog, crafted a creature of such diametric absurdities that nothing computes: Barrel-chested yet emaciated. Muscular and skeletal. Stately but goofy, often in the same five minute stretch. The essence of opulent inertness, yet pure lightning on legs. A powerful killer, yet terrified of almost everything.
2. Your couch is gone.
Say goodbye to it before your hound enters your home, as you will rarely see its cushions again. It is written somewhere in some official decree that every greyhound ever — but especially rescues — is allowed full and free rein of at least one couch, which they claim with such a natural air you are soon convinced this was how it had always been. They’ll lie there 22 hours a day, stretching like some long indulgent Jesus, shifting their elongated bulk and staring through you into some distant dimension.
3. They have been through hell, and need more love than most.
So many dogs need rescuing from something these days, but the mistreatment of greys is institutionalized. The racing ‘industry’ is full of corruption and cruelty, with some greys drugged, beaten, and run to utter exhaustion, many suffering crippling injuries. Those not fast enough (a recent NSW investigation found 96% of greyhounds don’t even survive a year) are shot en masse and dumped atop each other in unmarked graves. 17,000 loving loyal hounds who, every year, could have brightened someone’s life, just in the state of NSW. The ‘lucky ones’ are kept 23 hours a day in cages barely large enough for them to stand up or turn around in, which is slow agony for their long, bony limbs. My Katie came to me traumatized and completely devoid of trust, cringing and littered with multiple cigarette burns. Fuck greyhound racing all the way to the moon.
4. They are delicate Faberge eggs.
Fine-bone china cups with legs. Seeing Katie get excited and leap from her couch, over the lounge room and into the kitchen then turning on a dime and launching onto the opposite couch to smile at me before I can even blink brings to mind a finely-tuned but exquisitely fragile F1 car screaming around a supermarket. And like clockwork, such exuberance would elicit a yelp and a trip to the vet with yet another pulled muscle. Or torn open flank. Greys are bleeders, their skin cheap tissue paper pulled taut over endless muscle and an errant branch or protruding corner is all it takes.
5. They will heap quiet scorn on any attempt to turn them into a dog.
This is because they are not dogs, only haute couture imaginings of such. Greyhounds do not sit. Or stay. Or bark. Trying to elicit such things is an exercise in frustration, and will engender naught but detached bemusement. They have no fat and easily get cold, requiring turtleneck pajamas to wear to bed, and if you laugh at them, they will stare back like Myra Hindley. Their nose is a fifth dimensional vacuum cleaner, and when you walk them, it decides where to go, except when they “plant,” bolting themselves to the ground with the power of ten thousand suns and not moving for all the cheese in France. A lot of dog to carry home several kilometres… and then have yawn elegantly and triumphantly at you from their padded throne.
6. They are bipolar drunken acrobat weirdos
These goofy couch potatoes often ‘roach’: a kind of maniacal jerking on their bony backs, ringing themselves like a dishcloth with all four limbs jerking crazily into the air, eyes spinning like mad plates. They then often fall asleep this way, their long arrow heads hanging junkie-like off the side of the couch, punctuated by a lolling pink tongue. When they’re truly excited, they stand perfectly still, but for a juddering shake that vibrates from their very core, their teeth chattering together like cartoon castanets. They bite the air a lot, and lovingly nibble on you sometimes, too.
7. Watch them run free
For four minutes every day, Katie would spend all the energy she’d been conserving on her couch cushions and within seconds, hit Mach 5. Have you ever seen the second fastest land animal on the planet running free? They’re an earthbound tornado, legs spinning like the blades of a fan, grinning and machine-gunning in vast swathes of air as they scorch across the earth. If not, I thoroughly suggest you do; after thinking of them in those cruel tiny cages, it’s the best kind of soul food.
The first time I saw Katie fly — and all the times that followed — grinning as she windmilled across open green, or romped manically in tightening, delirious circles around confounded staffies and their laughing humans, was a privilege and honour that often reduced me to tears.
8. They can save you
Maybe because she bore so much of it herself, Katie always had a keen radar for up-swelling pain, and knew when I was struggling. We came into each others’ lives each carrying a fair degree of trauma, and each time I crumbled, that long snout would gently nose open my door, and there she’d stand, brown eyes surveying me and — always — requesting passage, before approaching slowly and nuzzling her wet nose in tight, silent and still as I softly stroked her long neck, the best space-holder in the universe as she journeyed me back from dark into light. There’s a reason they use greyhounds as therapy dogs. You can get lost in them. But you can also get found. You can also get healed. Thank you greyhounds. Thank you Katie. Thank you so very much.
