or Dog Herding the Hard Way
We have recently discovered that some people do not know what a lurcher is. Such people are not well, and must be helped. Therefore the entire greydogtales workforce has abandoned its occult writing duties in order to produce a brief introduction to these noble dogs.
THE BASICS
The most common question asked about lurchers is: Where has my dinner gone? The second most common question is: What is a lurcher, anyway? You cannot answer either of these, because your dog has mysteriously disappeared over the horizon.
Greydogtales is here to help. Put simply, a lurcher is a cross between:
i) a dog which runs too fast for you and chases everything (a sighthound), and
ii) a dog which runs slightly more slowly but still chases everything (a working dog).
A longdog is a cross between two sighthounds, which means you don’t have a chance. The lurcher combination produces healthy, lively dogs, and healthy, exhausted owners. The name is derived from two words:
Lurch – as in to leave someone in the lurch, ie. far behind and helpless, and
Er – as in where’s that bloody dog gone now?
Two lurchers close at heel
GENERAL NATURE
Lurchers have two phases to their lives, the puppy and the adult. These are mostly indistinguishable, but we can note the key characteristics here:
Puppies
Very fast and quite mad, except when asleep
If you exercise them too much they will fall apart
If you exercise them too little your home will fall apart
Adults
See puppies above, but stronger, faster and more determined
Lurchers are very sociable with each other, and will soon form a pack, which exacerbates every aspect of the above. On the up side, after all this running, they do sleep a lot. Their preferred sleeping arrangements are:
- On your bed when you’re very tired and want to get in
- On the sofa and every chair when you have guests
- On the floor in a doorway where you will trip over them
Lurchers sleep at interesting angles. This often involves strange, contorted positions with neck twisted round, legs bent like an orthopaedic case-study etc.
Important Note. If your lurcher is completely upside down with all four legs in the air and its eyes closed, it is rarely dead. It is just comfortable.
COMMANDS
Lurcher respond well to commands. They don’t usually obey them, but they do respond well, often with great amusement. Common commands include:
SIT is uncomfortable for a lurcher, and will be ignored.
STAY is boring and will be ignored.
DOWN will be obeyed immediately if the lurcher is tired and was already going for a sleep anyway.
HEEL will leave you tangled in three leads at once and unable to move.
COME will leave you clutching your impact injuries and unable to move.
FETCH is also boring and will be ignored, unless a squirrel is involved.
DROP is unreasonable. It’s their squirrel, after all.
Lurchers have excellent recall. They remember perfectly well that you want to them to come back, and will do so when they have finished what they are doing. Which is usually running in the other direction, or round and round in circles.
FEEDING
These dogs have very specific dietary requirements. The lurcher diet consists of four main food groups:
- The nice meal you spent two hours preparing.
- Every cushion, soft toy and stuffed item in your house.
- The squirrel sixty foot up in that oak tree.
- Everything left out on the kitchen counter.
If none of these are available, they will eat what is in the dog bowl, but this is a last resort.
A chicken in its natural habitat
We at greydogtales do not insist on any specific diet. Commercial dog food is convenient and adequate, and supports the rice and ash growing industries, but is not much fun. The raw diet is well suited to those who like bloodstains on the carpets and a lot of bones to shift. It works particularly well if you are able to blackmail your local butcher on a regular basis. It is popular with the dogs, but not so popular with the chickens.
THE FAMILY
Lurchers make excellent family members, and are quite easy-going animals. Detailed planning is required, however, as you may not be able to afford both children and lurchers (see also below). Many people these days worry about aggressiveness in dogs. In general, you are more likely to bite your lurcher than it is to bite you.
The only notable exception to this is when they “play” together. This is why many lurcher owners have massive vet bills because their dogs have “had fun” by leaping ten feet in the air at each other, charging each other with teeth bared, and “amusingly” bitten each other’s noses/lips/ears during “fun” hour. The lurchers wonder what all the fuss is about. The owners wonder if they can take out a second mortgage.
IN CONCLUSION
You cannot afford to keep a lurcher, and you are not fit enough. Your home will be wrecked and you will have nowhere to sleep. You will have no food left. On the other hand…
Next time: Probably something ghostly or scary (but not more dogs yet).
LMAO at this. Yes, I have one of these creatures in my home. Yes, I am mental. But I wouldn’t trade him for anything.
Thanks. The problem with lurchers is that they’re so odd you just want more. Never had that with a breed before. Worrying…
hahaha… this made me laugh.. We have 2 and if we had the space would have many more. They bring joy and constant amazement to our lives and keep us sane! Who would have thought!
V tres funny! My three to a tea. Thank you.
And thanks for visiting. Sadly I only post about one longdog entry in three (I have to write for crusts), but do come back for the next one!
Brilliant post! I wouldn’t have believed it prior to owning one, now with two lurchers I know it to be so true. Why on earth did I rehome a second? As you say, they are so odd you can’t resist another 🙂
Cheers. More lurchers in two or three posts’ time (unless you like ghosts too?).
absolutely, that’s why I now have a second too!
Yup.
so funny, can relate to this so well that I am laughing out loud, I have one of these slightly mad but gorgeous critters, she makes me laugh every day
Really pleased you enjoyed it. Call by in a week or so for more longdog tips – or horror stories…
This made me cry with laughter as I contort myself round puppy lurcher on the sofa to keep my space. He is lurcher no.4 and I have never known such an accurate description for what is essentially a crossbreed! We are still working on the recall….
Thanks for calling in. I have actually managed to bribe Chilli into some recall by designating my left jacket pocket as her second feeding station. She now hovers nearer to the treats pocket and less near other dogs/people/rabbots/squirrels. It’s the pocket she loves, not me, I’m afraid…
I haven’t laughed so much in ages, I have a Lab who shares many of these traits, including the earlids which close immediately on my howls of HEEL!
Hi. We also have an old chocolate lab, but she’s slightly – I say slightly – better at recall and fetch etc. than the longdogs. And at least I can outrun her!
Loved this! My latest dog is a whippet and now I’m obsessed with pointy faced dogs. (Also enjoyed your raw feed post, especially the ‘interflora for serial killers line) 😀
Hi. There really is something about those long slim faces that makes us forgive them, well, most things. Raw feed’s best for us, but I try not to preach. Not everyone likes throwing flesh and bones around, let’s face it. I see it as a secondary hobby, like juggling oranges or stamp collecting, nowadays.
Yes, Wilf has trashed many a treasured thing – anything goes missing, his bed is the first place I look! – but oh I love that boy!
We also raw feed, and yes it’s not the nicest thing at times (kitchen floor full of blood smears earlier, yum)!
Having fostered many a sighthound/lurcher, and recently adopted a Saluki, I am with you on your description above. Thank you. Your work made me laugh out loud tonight. Please keep it coming. There are many of us long nose owners, who’s only respite from the torture visited on them by their dogs, is to read of dogs much worse than their own!!!
Well, today Chilli jumped on my partner’s lap-top, Django ate one of the other dogs’ dinners and Twiglet just peed herself in the kitchen, straight after we’d washed the floor. It’s all relative, isn’t it? More longdogs in a week or so. Cheers!
Very funny and very, very accurate.
I have a Lurcher and a Whippet, less money than I had before, less intact furniture than I had before and more permanent shin injuries than I had before……. Recall happens sometimes, breaking in advance of stopping, less often……… But it makes my heart sing to watch them run.
You’ve just described my collie, although her sleeping places also includes the window ledge if the window is open to let air into the room at night.
Absolutely spot on and hilarious because it is so accurate. Currently sitting on the sofa next to our lurcher girl, trying to hide the perfect muddy footprints that she thought it acceptable to leave behind when ‘flying in from the garden’ , hot on the tail of our lurcher boy. This was after a fun filled session of digging as many holes as possible in the lawn in the shortest amount of time, and creating their own running track of churned up mud and grass round the edge. A picture of innocence now they demonstrate ALL of the traits mentioned but we wouldn’t change them for the world!
Loved it.
Priceless:
I’m owned by two of these idiots and that just hits the nail on the head.
Hilarious! Totally true, all of it. Yesterday our Lurcher finally killed the spare room carpet and woke us up at 2am barking at a hedgehog outside! Love the commands part of this post. They are clever enough to understand all of them but won’t do them!
We laughed out loud, went upstairs and found 3 in the bed. They are quite simply the best, funny, loving, couldnt give a S*** when they are busy, I have traipsed all over for hours looking for them. Complete waste of time, they come back when they want and not before.
Hilarious!!! Made me laugh out loud!!! I <3 my lurchers!!!!
Ha ha I haven’t learned anything over the years apart from you can definitely trust them with children ! Now on our 5th lurcher/sighthound and this one is proving to have every trait possible – but we love him despite them.
Brilliant…if only I had read this before taking my two on. 13 months old and whilst I am now fitter than ever I can’t wear white, dresses or even get dressed in the morning without my clothes being stolen off me. I have no nice shoes left and have resorted to cheap ones. Luckily I have a friendly butcher, the only saving grace in my life. Vets bills are horrendous, especially when leaving chewing gum with xylitol on the table. Nothing is safe or sacred. Even going to the toilet I am accompanied and sniffed. I remember when I just had cats. I might have been fatter but I was a lot calmer. Oh the joys.
You need to add a labrador. She eats everything the lurchers don’t, including bags of sugar, cup-a-soups, handbags and TV remotes!
My name is Worzel Wooface and I are a lurcher. I want to do Complaints to the Management of this actual very post because I do fink you is casting nasturtiums on us lurcher doggys.
The reason we do lay all over your actual beds is to show you how to do it properly. You hoomans do not use enough of the bed. You curls up into little balls and the rest of the actual bed finks it has doned somefing to hoffend you. We make beds feel betterer about themselves.
Lurchers fink food waste is orrendous and want to make sure it doesn’t go bad. We fink the safest place to store food is in a tummy. If it isn’t in your tummy, we will store it in ours. We is just keeping it safe.
If you hadded legs like ours, you would run too. Legs is wot we is good at. We has to be good at legs because we isn’t that good at brains. Or hobedience.
Dad says I has a recall of a fridge. I would like to point out to him that my record of coming back is 100%. He says I are missing the point.
I do like a good game of bitey-facey with other sighthounds. I does not generally like to play this game with other doggys though. They does not hunderstand the rules very actual quite well and they also has loads more floppy skin which means they aren’t as careful with me as I am with very them.
Mostly, lurchers are luffly boykins wot just want to make hoomans happy and healthy. And give them somefing else to worry about rather than the mortgage or the kids school reports or whether they is going to have a art attack. We is Mans Best Friend. They just doesn’t know it. Yet.
http://www.facebook.com/worzelthelurcher
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1508549850
I can’t argue with any of that. Maybe we’ll follow up with the Ten Things Lurchers Do Better Than People at some point!
Crying with laughter reading this!!
We have 2 lurcher sisters that we got from the Dogs Trust nearly 12 years ago and I can honestly say you nailed it with that post! The photo of lurchers ‘close at heel’ made me chuckle cos no matter what you do, if they get a scent they’re gone! Even approaching 13 years old ours are still great hunters and thieves. Wouldn’t be without them though 🙂
Brilliant! Describes my two very well but you forgot the paragraph about being a Drama Queen (my leg, ear etc. is falling off and the only cure is treats) and the paragraph about how they all believe (despite their size) that they are lap dogs!
Yes, we used to call it the Italian footballer moment – hardly brushed, but wailing and performing with the best.
So right! And so think we won’t notice as one legs follows another until all four have miraculously arrived on a lap.
Chilli moves an inch at a time until suddenly I realise that I’m buried under her. She’s absolutely convinced she’s a lap dog!
Thank you so much for this. It made me laugh out loud and appreciate my sighthounds even more. Because, as you probably know, this goes for sighthounds as well.
…..had my lurcher for nearly 2 years, never a dull moment and a scatty as a box full of lurchers. If you can envisage a 2 year old child that can run at speed…that is a lurcher…wow!!!
Love it, but, you’ve missed out one extra special command that has my Lurcher’s ears pick up, the way they do when someone opens food! With the addition of injury inflicting tailwhip, flailing, bounding dew claws, that yes, will scar for life and will include roo’s, play bounds and a general bouncing off the walls manner. Walkies.
Also, can you afford one? Probably not, but one is never enough and I’m only alowed a third grey/Lurcher once a child leaves home!
I didn’t dare even type “Walkies”! On my bark, release hell…
Brilliant! And also true for my five whippets. With the exception of the name, which in the case of the whippet is clearly derived from ‘whip it’, i.e. take for yourself anything that might be edible and isn’t nailed down.
Thank you very much for posting this, it fits our lurcher Ash to a tee! Such appropriate comments which made me and my wife laugh out loud! Lurchers are hard work, but ultimately very rewarding.
So true! I have 2 rescue lurchers now and had 2 previously so have obviously got the bug. I am so amused at their ingenuity for stealing food…..they do it so quietly. I’ve lost many a birthday cake, cheesecake, sausages, polo mints and Terry’s chocolate orange including the box and foil wrapper, (christmas eve and a visit to the vets). 1/2 a pork belly covered with foil, the foil was replaced by the dog to delay discovery and sauce licked off the top of a lasagne. In fact this morning I lost 3 toast soldiers while I took a cup of tea to my mother. I look forward to more stories.
As long as you have lurchers, you have stories. Not all of them printable, mind you…
Our head of the pack, Pinot the alley cat, is punch pleased with our complement of saluki cross grey Lurchers, who do his job of keeping the other feline interlopers from the garden. Otherwise spot on, but hey, we do do get stopped so often, our boy and girl look very good! Could not do or live without them! Little blighters!
Does a whippet/German pointer X count as a lurcher? My dog ticks every box in this article. Crying laughing reading it and spat my tea at the picture of two lurchers close at heel. Sums up a walk with my dog beautifully. Wouldn’t change her for the world. Found this article through FB, but will be keeping an eye on this blog from now on.
Anything with whippet or greyhound running around inside is a lurcher, I reckon. Thanks for the nice words.
This couldn’t be more true!! My four are absolutely bonkers an regularly have to fight her for the corner of the settee lol, alot if people are quite arrogant to lurchers an have been told (by the lady in my local post office…..that working dogs are not welcome in here!! But asked I it would be ok too bring my staff x in an her reply was yes to my amazement.) now I’m not one for judging staffs an associating them as nasty dogs as I believe a dog will turn out how the owner has reared it, my 4 salukis’ are absolutely amazing dogs……very arrogant but I wouldn’t be without them.
Always fascinated by saluki x’s, but I do get the impression they’re independent and a bit regal, if you know what I mean. Love to get to know one – but would they meet with a commoner?
I love this! Doesn’t all apply to my Border Collie x Whippet, but made me laugh all the same!
I have three of these endearing creatures, one is a ‘longdog’ greyhound X saluki. I am currently nursing a damaged knee due to a 40mph collision. I have just lost half my sandwich and there is no room on the sofa. The two chairs are occupied and one is nursing a ‘fun hour’ injury which bothers me more than it does her… Would I have another breed? No…
This made me laugh! However, it applies to full blooded whippets as well. Having had a bunch of them over the years I can attest to all your accounting as being so true . Love them so much.
Glad you enjoyed it. Never had a pure-blood whippet, but they look like lots of fun…
Ha Ha
This is brilliantly funny and soooo true. One of our sofas has a lurcher belly shaped hole in it, excavated by our boy to fit comfortably, which he uses to sleep on when we are out
(ignoring several comfy expensive dog-beds he can choose from) but he still insists on sitting with us (forcing us to teeter on the edge) on the other sofa when we want to sit down in comfort. Anything remotely edible is purely there for his delectation, including all my neighbours cats. . By the way, whats recall ????
Thanks for stopping by – the sofa thing gets me. Django pulls out the stuffing, as well, to make his ‘belly shaped hole’ even more comfortable. I do a lot of sewing! Oh, and I think recall is when they recall that it’s dinner time…
Our new 5 month old Saluki x greyhound is everything you said; it was like someone read my mind 🙂
On Monday he destroyed a 100g ‘jar’ of coffee, which was in his reach but we figured he wouldn’t be interested. He didn’t eat enough to be a problem, but he did eat enough to be whizzing his tits off for 18 hours. Imagine that at 2.30am?
Never had a lurcher before and our other three mutts both love him and look utterly exhausted at the same time. He makes me smile – a lot.
Hi, nice to hear from you. They’re a handful alright. 5 months, as well – you’ve got a lot to look forward to. Django, for example, is 6 now, and only this morning he’s shredded kitchen roll all over the living room and knocked everything off the coffee table in search of leftovers. The trouble is, he’s wonderful! And it’s pouring down, so he’s very bored…
Just discovered this site, so amusing and so true! We have had our lurcher since he was ten weeks old and he lives for cuddles. Although he is a skilled thief he is not greedy and rarely eats what he steals (except for a large chocolate cake!), he buries his booty in our raised garden bed, which the other dogs know and therefore benefit from his criminal habits. Rufus came from a litter of 10 and when we got him we inoccently got a big dog cage for him, 4 nights of howling until 3am and my husband brought him into our bed, now 3 years later he is still with us but takes up most of the bed, we cling onto the edges!!! We love him, he is a funny, nutty but very loving and loyal companion
Pleased to meet you – the lurcher plague keeps spreading. Our Django is the other way round – he’s an incompetent thief, but always hungry, so we catch him out just in time regularly and he looks so tragic we usually give him something. We are weak!
Excellent,very funny.i to am a new recruit to the lurcher ,who leaves me dizzy on a daily basis
Hi, and welcome! They are a funny lot – virtually everything I joke about has happened to us at one time or another. Amazingly, I don’t really have to make much up at all.
Brilliant article and so rare to find a writer who can make you laugh out loud. After loosing our elderly cocker we rehomed a 5 month old lurcher from a rescue. We have been told he is a deerhound cross and we swear he has doubled in size in a month and are waiting in trepidation to see how big he will grow! The ” where’s my dinner” happened on day 3 of ownership and our remaining cocker has had to learn all about “bite face” the hard way! We have had to get very strict with not letting him run at and barge Bee in open spaces as he plays so rough we were worried it would be her that fell apart but he is much improved and they are firm friends. We have had him a month and he has completed our family and we look forward to learning more about these wonderful dogs!
Pleasure to meet you, and thanks. Deerhound crosses are brilliant – but they do play rough, as you say, even they mean no harm. Our neighbours thought our two deerhound x’s were in a fight to the death, but the pups were just having lots of fun. Just don’t let yours run directly into you – Django has dropped me a couple of times purely because he wasn’t looking where he was going. 🙂
Belatedly shared on my page for my Borzoi/Greyhound (by DNA) brothers. Thank you!
Haha, just stumbled on this page and oh how I laughed then I cried as we are collecting a young boy on Thursday from a rehoming centre! A 4 year old lurcher not sure what cross he is but he seems really docile and quiet, mmm, all a ruse it seems?
Showed my hubs this tale and the fear was palpable in the room, lol.
Actually we’re really looking forward to finding out his personality so I will be catching up on your writings whilst Lurcher proofing the home. xx
Hi. I wouldn’t worry too much. If it’s any help, these tales, all fairly true, are collected from our exploits with far more than one lurcher – we’ve never had one who did all the naughty stuff at once, thank the gods. Each has his or her own traits, and they are, in general, the most wonderful gentle companions. 4 is a good age, though – the pups can be a right handful. Django was 4 when we got him, and he’s a dizzy delight. Hope to see you again!
Found this site through my daughter this afternoon. Always fancied a lurcher and thought I’d done enough research before adopting one two years ago after my very old mongrel died. Obviously I hadn’t been thorough enough. The dull eyed, dirty, abused creature I brought home has morphed into a glossy, lazy, thieving whirlwind with an unhealthy interest in sheep. I’m Writing this perched one bum cheek on sofa as guess who is hogging the rest?
Lovely. Glad you found us. Lurchers have to capture our hearts, otherwise we wouldn’t put up with some of their weirdness – and they always seem to have a new trick up their non-existent sleeves. We shall keep exposing their cunning ways!
Love it…… That’s the dog I recognise I don’t think he’ll ever learn. I’ve just googled ‘Chocolate Toxicity Calculator for Dogs’ again. If food isn’t kept in a safe he will find it, he will eat it. That said you couldn’t ask for a more friendly dog – sleeps legs akimbo or in your arms. Daft & fast
Oh thank God, I thought I’d just got a mental dog, it’s so lovely to hear they’re all barmy! I adopted Roo (she has 3 legs after nasty original owners) at 3 days old and she was bottle-fed. Totally mis-sold, she was about the size of a gerbil then and now at 8 months is the height of a small pony with the brains of a stunned herring. She is also still entirely capable of running at 200 miles an hour and launching herself at toddlers in a friendly way which they don’t seem to appreciate. The only thing she’s afraid of is hedgehogs. I might get a few and line them up outside my bedroom door – has anyone else found themselves with so little space in their own bed that they seriously contemplate sleeping in the dog bed instead? Wonderful article, thank you 🙂
Lovely to hear from you. I may have bundled a lot of our experiences into one – to be fair to our alpha female, for example, she’s quite well-behaved most of the time. Django, on the other hand, does sometimes seem to have the brains of a ‘stunned herring’, as you say. And yes, I do occasionally think it would be easier to curl up on the floor than fight for the bed. 🙂
Brilliant and very accurate
Thanks. Nice to see you here.
Sat here being pushed off the sofa too! Typed in ‘lurchers and sofas’ and found this site. Sat reading it to hubby and we’re both laughing our heads off. Got Nutmeg (now 5th old) from rspca where she had been since a day old. She’s a lurcher/saluki cross brindle coloured and gorgeous. We have experienced alot of the comments on the page which makes for hilarious but true reading. We also have a 9 yr old cavalier king charles and a 1 yr old cavapoo….. you can imagine the fun Nutmeg has with them . She leaves older one alone (mostly)but torments the cavapoo we too thought they were going to kill each other at first. After a couple of tearful weeks we thought we’d have to return her….. so glad we didn’t! The two get on great now and have play spats daily. Nutmeg stand over Summer and Summer looks up and goes for the neck! Our bed is not our own after constant crying we sadly gave in…. thinking of moving into spare room! God knows what size she’s going to be but counter surfing and jumping on us when drinking hot tea seems to amuse her. Love her, love her, love her
Hello! Glad you found us. I’m afraid that we too are weak, and sleep surrounded by, or occasionally covered by, dogs. The worst bit is when Django and Chilli decided to play bitey-face on top of us early in the morning, and they seem to have about eighteen legs between them. Then you get a big-eyed cheerful smile, and can’t stay angry…
Am being squeezed off the sofa as I write. All of our lurchers are as so beautifully described. One of our lurchers, Spot, has designated himself as the pack meeter and greeter, this involves hurtling towards anyone/dog that he sees in the far distance before screeching to a halt, expressing his joy at meeting him/her/it by barking exuberantly and racing back. He hasn’t got an aggressive bone in his body but it doesn’t always go down well. Fortunately, everyone around here knows him well, thank goodness!
Chilli does just the same – hurtles towards strangers and strange dogs if I don’t stop her in time. It does worry people sometimes, though as you say, she never does any mischief when she gets there. I have to walk with extra eyes in the back of my head – she always spots movement before I do.
I also have two lurchers who have had pups 6 weeks ago so now I have 13. It’s crazy here. I have no money,food or energy left for my 3 kids. Lol
We’ve got a bullhound he’s 11 we’ve had him since 3months fantastic breed love him to the moon n back
Perfect
Thanks! 🙂
It is 7 am and I’ve woken up to the lovely smell off puppy downstairs. As I’ve walked through to the kitchen my ankles have been chewed, my thighs scratched to ribbons, feet wet with pee. Just another morning at home with my lurcher . Made his breakie and my coffee as he’s followed me up the stairs chewing on my Achilles’ tendons my staffy has run for cover to my daughters bed and I realise that’s my new red bra milo is chewing on and not his Santa . I look for help on the internet and find this page …….. well now laughing at the fact he’s chewing my bra (it was in the washing pile cos he peed on it) thinking well that’s just the lurcher I got…. he likes red bras
The joy (?) of lurchers… 🙂
what a great refreshing read! made my evening…thank you!
Very glad that you enjoyed our odd take on lurcherdom. 🙂
Absolutely brilliant!! Came across this article when looking for information on how to train my pup… i have had a typical lurcher before and have realised i should just quit the training now
Hi there. On the plus side, most of them settle – and even our reactive Chilli now hesitates, because of whistle and treat training. But they will put you through it. 🙂
Hilarious reading of these insane dogs! Would love one. As a babe in a pram my grandparent’s lurcher used to howl when I cried…not that I remember of course!
One day I’ll join the ranks of the insane – like you!
Thank you so much for the excellent and informative article! I am really pleased to have found the site that can tell me such a good tips about Lurchers.