Tag Archives: lurchers for beginners

Lurchers for Beginners 5: It’s Just Not Fur!

Lurchers for Beginners has always been fearless in its expose of the truth about lurchers, and so this time we face up to that stuff they have all over them – fox poo. No, we mean hair, but fox poo will come into it. What is dog hair, why should you care and what might you find in it?

The Hair Itself…

Many lurchers have a single layer of hair, and thus technically have hair coats rather than fur coats. A fur coat on a dog means two layers, the soft linty undercoat and the stiffer topcoat of ‘guard’ hairs. Or an owner with too much money and no respect for those passing mink.

1142972_victor_20160117090533_victor_800
a typical “smoothie”, dogs trust

This single layer is typical of greyhound/whippet ancestry. Such dogs have a short coat with limited shedding which needs little maintenance. Whilst anyone can be allergic to any dog, short-haired lurchers can be a good choice for the slightly sensitive amongst you. They are not, however, hypoallergenic like those fancy expensive animals produced by pointing a over-sexed poodle at another dog and letting go.

Short-haired lurchers are especially good for those people with inefficient vacuum cleaners. Most vacuum manufacturers have apparently never had more than one small hairless dog, despite the claims in the brochure. We’ve already lost two Dysons in the struggle, though we admit that they lasted longer than most. A wounded Dyson is a dangerous beast to confront…

Of course, as you can produce a lurcher simply by putting a sighthound and any other dog of the opposite sex in a motel with romantic lighting and free sausages, you could have ended up with a lurcher who has a full fur coat.

e46eb379b35d6a6d8d02c76dc3389f3b
a typical “roughie”

Greyhounds bred with terriers or collies may produce all sorts of tangly rug effects, whilst the presence of deerhound often provides a sort of ‘wiry’ look to the coat. We once had a Bedlington, greyhound and godknowswhat cross who managed to shed both long grey hairs and soft white ones absolutely everywhere. This produces small lurcher clones in every corner of the house (more of which another time). Grooming is even more important in such cases.

800px-Greyhound_fur_brindle
“greyhound brindle coat”, scott robinson

Even short-haired lurchers benefit from a regular brushing down. This keeps the coat clean and remove some of the hairs which would later be shed – before they clog the vacuum filter. With the longer haired lurcher, grooming also allows you to find missing lego, bubblegum, sticking plasters, houseplants and other detritus – maybe even that remote control for the DVD.

The downside is that with no real undercoat and thin skin, lurchers can need extra wrapping in winter (and on those family trips to the Arctic Circle to work out where all the penguins went*). It is now extremely easy to purchase a second ‘coat’, which has many benefits. Your expensive designer dog jacket will:

  • absorb mud and stinky water much better than your dog, and cost more to clean;
  • amuse passing pedestrians, who seem to have far more opinions about your dogs than they should have;
  • come halfway undone and trail along after your dog, gathering additional mud;
  • give your male dog hours of fun pulling it off because he doesn’t like the strap near his bits.

Also remember that lurchers are a Funny Shape, as someone put it. Standard dog coats will not fit, being either too tight over that deep chest or too loose around that narrow tummy. And lurchers who do zoomies require well-fastened coats, or you will find the two parting company in seconds.

It may sometimes be better to shove your lurcher into an old pullover and abandon dreams of style. Please remember that early experimental techniques such as spraying dogs with a layer of teflon, or covering them entirely in saddle-wax for three months of the year, are no longer recommended.

We did once consider using squirrel-fur coats for winter protection, in order to produce a lurcher which chased itself 24 hours a day, but we relented at the last minute.

*they’re at the Antarctic, silly.

Variations in hair/fur colouration deserve an illustrated essay in their own right, so we’ll ignore them for the moment. Unless you’re obsessed with adding highlights and blue-rinses, we consider whatever nature provides in the way of dog hair colour to be quite adequate. Brindled, merled, saddled, spotted and unicolour make no difference to the quality of the hair coat and what you find stuck in it (although we do love a brindle).

Important note for new lurcher owners: If you have a lurcher with saddleback markings, and he or she is gaining a lot of weight, do make sure that you haven’t been sold a porker. 

Pig of the Year champion a Berkshire, Barlings Stonebow from S.H Ashcroft, Lincoln.
this is not a lurcher (champion from s h ashcroft)

Which is where we come to the second half of today’s entry…

… And Things You Find In It

1) Fox Poo

It’s hardly fair to blame lurchers for this one, but they do have a magnetic attraction to the stuff. The classic sign is the ‘shoulder rub and slide’ on a piece of grass, which means that your dog is happily smearing odiferous fox droppings into its coat. If you’re fortunate, the fox will have been constipated. You will see the fox walking in an awkward manner and searching back-gardens for discarded packets of Ex-Lax. The poo will be firm and of limited interest. If not, as happens with so many urban foxes who eat random bin contents, the poo will be messy or slimy, and ideal for spreading.

fox-1123444_960_720
a fox hunting for the toilet paper

One added advantage of the ‘shoulder rub and slide’ is that the poo also gets on the underneath of the collar, but you miss that bit. You wash the dog itself, but then spend days wondering where the stink is coming from.

Rather obviously, pet shampoo is a must. Fox poo really does linger. Despite suggestions that tomato ketchup works wonders, a lurcher (and house) smeared with tomato ketchup is still a major cleaning job, so you might as well just deal with the fox poo directly.

2) Half the garden

‘Half the garden’ can be broken down into three easy sections:

2.1) Mud

The lurcher is God’s way of moving your flowerbed into your living room without divine intervention. Due to constant charges into the night and excited zoomies, lurchers are particularly efficient at churning up a mud path and then bringing it in to show you.

  • Mud from your garden is normally just mud. Wash it off, rub it off with a towel or let it fall off. We rub it off because washing towels is easier than washing three dogs.
  • Mud from the world outside your garden may not be just mud, and is therefore best washed/rubbed off straight after walkies. You don’t know what’s in it.

See also Lurchers for Beginners 3we were gardeners

2.2) Seeds That Are Harmless

Our dogs are constantly coming home covered in goosegrass (cleavers etc) seeds and other burr-like things which are quietly using the lurchers as a transport system to get away from their parents and breed somewhere else. Even goosegrass doesn’t want to stay with its mum all its life. Apart from invading your garden or sticking to your cardigans, most of these are Harmless.

2.3) Seeds That Can Be Horrid

LOS ANGELES, CA., AUGUST 16, 2011-- It is the bane of the dog owner?s existence: the foxtail, the cluster of weed seeds that anchor themselves inpets? skin and paws. A look at the foxtail and other noxious weeds that post the biggest threats to dogs. Weill need to shoot details of three weedy things that get caught in dogs furs -- foxtails and little barbed obs that some weeds drop, posing a threat to dogs paws and skin this time of year. ( Kirk McKoy/Los Angeles Times)
kirk mckoy/los angeles times

On a more serious note, do watch out for certain grass seeds, such as those of foxtail and similar grasses. Some of the hairy pointy ones can get caught in sensitive areas and burrow under the skin, hurting and eventually doing serious damage. Three key areas to check are:

  1. Between the pads of the paws. The seed can tangle with soft fur and go through the thinner skin there, causing pain and inflammation.
  2. The ears. If a grass seeds reaches the ear canal, it will do the same thing – working its way in towards the ear drum, again with nasty consequences if it gets embedded.
  3. The nose. They can get stuck up there after your dog has been snuffling in long grass.

Don’t panic, though. At the earliest stage, where you can see most of it on the surface, gently pull the seed out and clean the affected area. Best to get professional help if you think a seed may have got stuck somewhere sensitive and is really getting in there. Don’t leave it too late, because grass seeds don’t show up on X-rays and it’s hard to work out where they’re going.

Other things found in hair are relevant to most dog types, but we feel obliged to mention the common ones below.

3) Paint

Some lurchers, lacking an undercoat, try to make their own using Dulux. Our dogs have the unerring ability to find any bit of wall or skirting board we have recently painted and rub against it. Warm water, patience and occasionally a pair of scissors are the answer.

4) Flakes of Dandruff

There are two main brands of dandruff.

Stationary dandruff, seborrhea, usually means dry skin, but we’re not vets. If your lurcher gets a lot of it, ask a professional. Human anti-dandruff shampoos are too harsh, but you can get doggie ones. And brushing can help move natural oils around and encourage oil production.

Cheyletiella-yasguri
a mite photo of no real use – but if you find a mite this actual size, do ring the police immediately

Moving dandruff is much more exciting, and means that your lurcher has mites. Known as Cheyletiella, these mites amble about on the surface layer of the dog, raising flakes of skin. Very contagious, though not often serious. We’ve never had them, but they can be treated with various commercial preparations. They do need treating because they will spread to all the other animals, and can even hang around for a while on people.

5) Fleas

Fleas are great fun and can easily be trained to ride miniature bicycles and work long hours in flea circuses before getting unionised and demanding health care…

FleaCircus-Prof-W-Heckler

No, wait a moment, that’s in stories. Real fleas are a damned nuisance who make the dog itch, you itch and lay their eggs all over the place. They can spread tapeworms, and they start itchy patches which can later become sore and infected.

Dealing with the dog is relatively easy, with a range of specific products available. Dealing with the rest of house, dog bedding and other items can be achieved by pouring petrol over everything and living in a caravan in the garden for the rest of your life. If you have an allergy to petrol, try the more boring approach of washing the bedding, vacuuming madly and using safe flea treatments – dusting powders, topical applications and repellents.

Due to quantum physics and the speed of light at sea-level, or perhaps something else, flea infestations hang around for a while. There will be flea eggs, elite Special Forces fleas who can hide for longer in dense carpet undergrowth and so on. Keep on top of it, or you’ll be scratching again.

Do we need to say that we don’t mean the petrol bit? This is, of course, extremely unsafe, especially if your lurcher knows where the matches are kept…

6) Ticks

We don’t like ticks. Sheep-ticks and other varieties (such as deer ticks) are found on moorland, in long grass, bracken and some woodlands and gardens. As lurchers run around actively, often where you don’t want them to, ticks are worth a mention. The last one we found was on a tortoise, which was surprising as we didn’t realise that he knew any sheep, or that he went fell-walking. His circle of friends was clearly wider than we thought.

Ticks embed their mouthparts in your dog’s skin (or yours) and feed on the blood. When they’re full they drop off. Charming. They can be harmless, but some carry nasty bugs like Lyme Disease.

Never squeeze or put pressure on the main body of the tick, as they have a habit of throwing up. The blood and digestive juices which result can carry infection into the dog’s bloodstream (or even yours). Ticks are a pain. Despite various folk-lore suggestions, the best thing to do is to use a tick-removal tool or a pair of narrow-nosed pliers, grasping the tick around the forebody right behind the head.

esccap
esccap photo

Check out somewhere like this site for actual advice:

lyme disease and tick removal

Hmm – that last bit wasn’t very funny, was it, listeners? We considered adding jokes about how many sheep-ticks it takes to change a light-bulb and so on, but they didn’t quite work. So It’s Just Not Fur! has its limitations. We don’t get paid for writing this, you know. As always, don’t take our word for anything. Double-check it or find a friendly vet.

beginners5

If you do have further questions about lurchers or longdogs, feel free to send them in. We’ll decide what to do next:

  • If they’re interesting questions, we’ll answer them on here in our usual inadequate way. We may also be sarcastic or drift off topic, so you have been warned.
  • If they’re serious medical questions, we’ll have no clue what to say and tell you that you’re on the wrong web-site. Most of our dogs reach old age by being stubborn, not because of our genius-level knowledge.

Next time: Weird odds & sods that didn’t fit into the articles. Sorry, what we meant to say was: A magical miscellany for your entertainment…

 

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Common Lurcher Questions: It’s Lurchers for Beginners 4

or An Expert Avoids Most of the Issues.

Every so often we glance at the doggie search questions people use to find this site. Alarmingly, some of them are quite serious ones. We’re just people who live with lurchers and longdogs. I may have to post a photograph of me in a white coat, like in the adverts, saying “I am not a veterinarian, but…”. Pictures of me in a grubby khaki jacket with a poo bag in one hand and the leads tangled around my legs are not inspiring, that’s for sure. So let’s forget that ‘expert’ word.

However, we thought that Lurchers for Beginners might look at some of the top searches and see what we could make of them. Today’s brilliant photos come from Lurcher Link forum member Ann, and are of her gorgeous deerhound/greyhound cross, Roxy.

ann's roxy
ann’s roxy

Here are the seven most commonly asked questions, and they are all genuine, taken from the last four weeks:

1) What’s the best way to get a lurcher fit?

Haven’t the faintest. We walk ours twice a day, stop Django eating discarded Greggs pasties from the pavement (and the contents of every other food bowl), and run them as often as possible. The running really does help (them, not you). And we feed raw, using meat and bone that isn’t too fatty and some blitzed fruit or veg now and then, but that’s optional. If you want to know, the approach is called BARF, which is what people do when they see you hacking up raw carcasses with a maniacal enthusiasm. Just don’t let your pups trough on endless kibble and cake, whatever you do feed them. When we’re exhausted and we’ve settled down, our dogs like to keep fit by jumping on and off the bed, playing bitey-face and generally exercising themselves – and our patience. It works for them.

2) Why are lurchers a funny shape?

This is down to God, evolution or human breeding programmes. Possibly all three. They are designed to run, with deep chests, very flexible spines and skeletal articulations which make them good at it. The sighthound crosses run in what is called a ‘double-hung’ suspension gallop, with all four feet off the ground a lot of the time. Lurchers have large hearts – they pump up on the old oxygen and charge at up to 45 miles an hour for short periods.

They’re not built for marathon-type stamina running, but for bursts of hyper-speed. They are built for dead-legging you, hitting trees and overshooting into rivers (see ‘muddy lurcher’ below). With a low body fat and wiry build, they can also look very leggy compared to other dogs. Chilli has at least eight legs, like furry stilts, which stick out all over the place, often in our faces. Or maybe we accidentally rescued a gigantic spider on a diet. It’s hard to tell. Django, on the other hand, resembles a kangaroo with identity issues, especially from behind.

roxy3
ann’s roxy (louise kingston)

3) Do sleeping lurchers growl often?

The best we get is the occasional excited set of whimpers and a frantic kicking of one or more legs. This is presumably when they are taking down the Squirrel Army on their fantasy hunting trip. See Lurchers v Squirrels – the Battle of Dork’s Drift:

squirrel madness

Or they’re finally teaching next door’s cat a lesson. In Chilli’s case it may mean that she’s having a dream about how to reach the liver treats, thus becoming an even more independent girl than she is now. Many lurchers and longdogs make very little sound even when awake, unless they’re taunting each other to run across the coffee table and see what they can knock over.

ann's roxy
ann’s roxy

4) How do you deal with a muddy lurcher?

By covering every surface of your house in cling-film and polythene sheeting, then hosing the place down once a week. You can try bathing them, at which point they look woeful, thin and distinctly put-upon. We don’t bother. Fox poo gets a quick wet scrub in the appropriate area, everything else gets a towel-down and ‘let’s hope the vacuum can pick up all the dried mud tomorrow’. Twiglet gets a towel-down even though she doesn’t go out much, because it annoys her to be left out. But we’ve had too many dogs for too long to care much nowadays. The world is, after all, primarily mud in one form or another.

a typical lurcher owner's carpet
a typical lurcher owner’s living room carpet

5) Why does my lurcher sleep so much?

Because he or she is a lurcher. Almost every dog charity seems to have posters up trying to correct people’s views of lurchers and sighthounds. The dogs are seen charging around wildly, and people go, oh, I couldn’t deal with one of them. Lurchers and longdogs are famous for kipping – as long as they have had their burst of exercise a few times during the day. Chilli dozes for twenty plus hours of the day, and is fit, slim and one of the fastest dogs we’ve ever seen. When she’s not being fast, she just wants to cuddle and sleep. Although – have we said before that lurcher puppies are insane? They may bounce off the walls quite a lot for the first couple of years. So you’ll be asking ‘Please God, why won’t my lurcher puppy just go to sleep?’ instead.

ann's roxy (louise kingston)
ann’s roxy (louise kingston)

6) What equipment do you need for a lurcher?

A rocket-pack for catching them, chainmail gloves for interrupting bitey-face, and American football-style padding for impact damage. Numerous sofas, cushions and comfy dog-beds, because lurchers are usually low in body fat, short of an undercoat and thin-skinned. They do not appreciate sleeping on hard surfaces, and will point this out to you. Repeatedly. If nothing else is available, they will use you as the required padding. You’ll learn eventually.

Alternatively, for lead and collar issues, we refer you to our post Lurchers for Beginners 2:

this time it’s personal

with the addition that if you muzzle, be sure to use an open basket muzzle of some form. These allow the lurcher to drink and pant, which are very important given their love of charging about at high speed. Don’t use a closed or constrictive muzzle whatever you do.

a typical basket muzzle
a basket muzzle looking unnaturally clean

Basket muzzles are also a good way for your lurcher to bring more mud back into the house. Or snow. Or stinky water. Lurchers and longdogs are tool-using animals, after all.

The seventh and last question for today has no funny answer, because of what might come of it. So we’ll take this one seriously.

7) Does my lurcher need a bowl off the ground?

Again, we are not a substitute for proper advice, and studies are still mixed in this area. Deep-chested and large dogs tend to be more prone to bloat, or gastric volvulus, a terrible condition which is often treatable if caught early but can also be lethal. It may sometimes be genetic, but there are some indications that raised bowls can increases the risk of bloat, maybe because the dog eats more quickly or takes in more air. Basically they’re not sure. We feed on the floor, in case they’re right. However you choose to feed your dogs, to reduce the risk of bloat ensure that you portion food out over at least two meals a day, never one big one, and don’t exercise too soon before or after feeding. Small meals and sensible exercise rules, basically. Those might help.

Bloat needs immediate veterinary treatment. This is not an area for dithering or home remedies. If you have a large or deep-chested dog, look up the symptoms and familiarise yourself with them. You may never encounter it, so don’t start stressing out. We know what people with medical dictionaries are like. It is simply better to be prepared.

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So there you have it. Another addition to the encyclopaedic Lurchers for Beginners series, bringing you everything you needed to know about your lurcher and some rubbish which you might want to forget immediately. That’ll teach you to look things up properly in a real book.

Next time: Some of those weird, dark pictures that make you feel peculiar. It’s for your own good, you know…

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Lurchers for Beginners

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.

lurchers for beginners
two of our heroes

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?

heelTwo 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.

chickenA 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).

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