So I take the longdogs for a walk this morning. Ten minutes in, and I realise that I’ve forgotten my glasses. One of my shoes has no lace in and they’re the wrong shoes anyway because I’m standing in deep mud. It’s raining, Chilli stops every ten seconds to eat grass, and Django is pulling mightily in the other direction, having decided that it’s a five-poo day. Without my glasses I can’t tell if that’s another dog or a rubbish bin on the edge of the field. My recall whistle’s got tangled in my anorak, and Chilli goes off on one because she is suspicious of poodles. I laugh wildly at the worried poodle owner. Then I have to rush both dogs back the way we came because the old lady with the Jack Russell is approaching. The longdogs get tangled in my legs and each other’s leads, my feet are soaking wet, and I drag them home. I’m cold and my back hurts. Twiglet, annoyed at being left alone, has peed in the hallway and tried to eat a book. She always goes for the more expensive, hard-to-replace ones.

I make a cup of tea, and ten minutes later think, ooh, if only we had room for one more lurcher…

(And that all happened in the middle of writing this article.)

As part of greydogtales continuing mission to promote weird fiction, weird art and the weirdness that is the lurcher, we wanted to say something this week about rescues. We opted for two approaches, a) giving our opinion and b) highlighting an actual rescue centre.

This week we’re joined by Lurcher SOS, after we’ve mouthed off as usual. We selected Lurcher SOS Sighthound Rescue as our first centre (and possibly our only one after this article) by the exhaustive scientific method of looking at lurcher photos on-line and going oooh, they’ve got nice doggies. Our latest two longdogs happen to be Lurcher Link beauties. The previous three dogs were respectively a street abandonment, Battersea Dogs’ Home and Dogs Trust. We’re not fussy. If you want a name-drop for your own centre, just ask.

So this bit is purely us, and has no connection to Lurcher SOS. If you like them more than us, you can skip this ramble, we won’t mind.

As most listeners will already know, all our dogs are rescues, always have been. It’s a simple decision. Large and small centres are full of dogs in need. It might take time, but you’ll always find a lurcher you love (and who’ll love you) in one rescue or another. You don’t need to rush it. Don’t just try to grab a dog and hope for the best (and yes, we used to do that as well, once).

In our view, one of the worst things that can happen to a dog, a centre and you is for you to whisk a new dog away without preparation – and then find out a few days or a few weeks later that you can’t cope. The dog’s confused, the centre’s stressed out and you’ve lost confidence. If you’re in doubt, fostering and volunteering instead can be a good start. That way you learn your own strengths and abilities, and see a range of behaviours with which you may not be familiar. And this can lead to the famous ‘failed foster’, where you end up with the dog anyway even though you didn’t mean to.

Read up on the various types, and the worst they can do (greydogtales is good on that bit, at least) because you need to know first. Collie x lurchers can be different from bull x lurchers, for example. Some dogs at rescue centres have been abused, beaten, over-worked or starved. If that was you, then you might be scared and difficult to handle at first as well. Many in this group respond astonishingly to patience and security – they may never have known either before. Others are there because owners died, moved or couldn’t have a dog any more, and you might find some in this group who are home-ready from the day dot, as it were.

We’ve had the hyper-anxious and unsafe rescue (Jade was ready to bite anyone not in her ‘safe’ group, and threw herself through a closed window once) and the completely sorted rescue. You do get them – we overcompensated for Twiglet, worried that she might take time to adjust. The first thing she did was to take a scrubbing brush and happily eat it on the stairs. The second was to claim the entire double bed as her own. It turned out that we were the ones who were supposed to adjust. A less traumatised dog we’ve never met.

Once you’re prepared, you’ll find that most lurchers and longdogs are in fact superb family friendly, easy-going, devoted companions (apart from lurcher puppies, who are actually insane).

Lurcher owners argue about what makes lurchers different from other types of dog, if anything. Our experience suggests a few common points which you might want to know:

• they are genuinely faster than most dogs you’ll ever encounter
• they don’t do well on some types of anaesthetic
• their anatomy can make the traditional ‘sit’ uncomfortable
• they have thin skins which get torn slightly more easily
• with suitable bursts of activity, they sleep a lot, which surprises some new owners

Most dogs have a prey drive (it’s how they used to live). Lurchers can be sedate and disinterested in potential prey, but we always like to point out that a lurcher with a high prey drive needs more training and watching. You just can’t run as fast as they can!  We’re not a veterinary or behavioural encyclopaedia, so we’re sure experienced lurcher people and centres will have their own points to add (if you want more of our views, some less serious, then click on longdogs in the little tag cloud on the left).

And so, on to someone else at last…

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Lurcher SOS

Now in their 6th successful year, Lurcher SOS was started in 2010 by lifelong lurcher owners. Lurcher SOS is a Surrey based lurcher and greyhound rescue organisation. They have a network of supporters, fundraisers and fosterers in the South and Southeast, but they have homed dogs throughout England, Wales and Scotland.
They are all volunteers and their mission is to rescue, rehabilitate and home abused, abandoned and neglected lurchers and greyhounds from Ireland and the UK. They rescue whippets and all other sighthounds too and have helped Spanish, Cypriot and even Romanian and Egyptian sighthounds!

The organisation takes in lurchers and greyhounds of all ages, from puppies to oldies. Dogs come to them for various reasons – some are strays, some have been ill treated and some need to find a new home because their owners no longer want them. Some of these dogs are so emotionally and physically scarred that they will need long periods in foster homes, learning to trust humans again.

Rescue centres vary in their missions. It’s worth noting that Lurcher SOS has a particular mission which prioritises dogs due to be put to sleep, or dogs in danger both in Ireland and the UK. Because of this, rehoming from private individuals can rarely be considered.

Like so many such centres, they’re a non-profit organization and receive no statutory funding. They rely solely on donations from the public and are always in need of fundraising support to cover the cost of the care of their dogs. They are also actively seeking new foster parents and permanent homes for rescue dogs.

If you’re in their area, you can get more information on the organisation in general by clicking on the following link:

lurcher sos main site

Here’s a direct link to how you can help them, as well:

giving lurcher sos a hand

Thank you Lurcher SOS. As usual, next time – something else weird, with probably less added lurcher for a day or two…

or Right, I’m Concreting Over the Lot

As Jane Austen wrote in her early draft of Lurch and Lurchability, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a gardener in possession of a good longdog, must be in want of his wits.”

Sadly, Ms Austen was later converted to spaniels by an over-amorous curate from Tiverton, and wrote no more on the subject of the lurcher or the longdog. She didn’t say much more about gardening either. So it falls to greydogtales to expose the sordid truth about trying have a lurcher and a garden at the same time. This third section of Lurchers for Beginners is drawn from painful experience, dear listeners, and therefore not a Laughing Matter.

The typical lurcher is a long-legged, light-footed beast, able to dance nimbly between two of the feathers on an angel’s wings and turn on a pinhead. Clearly the ideal companion for the keen gardener. Oh dear. Only we will tell you the truth…

Some of you, no doubt, will have that gentle creature who trots straight down the garden path, has an inconspicuous pee and returns to sit quietly at your feet. We at greydogtales have not yet met this sub-species. Many lurchers consider the garden to be a place for army manoeuvres and major earth-moving projects. For those of you who are in doubt, let us examine some of the main components of a garden – and their fate…

THE LAWN

Also know as the Main Runway. It is used for take-off attempts, such as squirrel catching, fence jumping and flying after the neighbour’s cat. It also makes a nice arena for chasey-chasey and bitey-face, which are sadly not yet Olympic sports. Typically the suburban dog lawn consists of three parts:

• A trodden wasteland of bare earth. This is a cracked, dry dust-bowl in Summer, and a lethal mud-slide in Winter.
• A stretch of sad, desperate grass which has gone brown or yellow due to frequent use as a toilet, even though you spent all year watering it straight after the dogs, or trying tomato ketchup and so on in their diet.
• A tiny bit of surviving green grass, slightly smaller than a garden chair, which will be noticed by your lurchers any day now.

There are solutions, of course:

• Re-turf (and/or re-seed) the lawn twice a year until you get bored – or run out of money.
• Cover everything with Astroturf. Don’t stop at the garden, put it all through the house as well. It may well last longer than your carpets.
• Abandon all your lawn-related dreams and convert the mower into a lurcher-pulled sled for those trips to the local shops.

FLOWER BEDS

Surprisingly, you can have flower-beds. Sometimes. These should be placed after you find out where the main runways lie, and compensate for cat entry-points, where neighbours’ children poke grubby faces through the hedge etc. Plants that are particularly suitable for lurcher flowerbeds include:

• Lichen and algae
• That indestructible grass you find on dunes at the seaside
• Mature holly bushes

A swathe of prairie-style planting may seem durable and appealing. Do note that any particularly expensive fancy grasses will be mysteriously chosen as prime fodder, despite there being common grass all around.

You can also plant pretty, delicate flowers, but don’t come crying to me.

Tubs and planters are an excellent alternative, unless you have a male dog like Django, who likes to wander round the patio peeing on everything in a pot to make sure it’s his. What remains is a display of patio plants which are all strangely brown down one side.

Raised beds make excellent sunbathing stations for the lurcher who likes a tan. They are also prone to being undermined by urgent digging activities. Always make your raised bed foundations from deep, industrial-strength concrete or pure granite bedrock to avoid this problem.

WATER FEATURES

Water-features are popular. They are useful for drinking from when they’ve knocked the bowl in the house over and soaked the carpet. The larger ones, such as ponds, are ideal for i) accidental baths (damn, missed that cat) and ii) standing in to cool down sore or over-heated paws. This usually involves destroying all your hard work arranging marginals, shallow-ledge plants and water-lilies in tasteful perfection. A passing hippopotamus would do less damage.

Both i) and ii) have an added attraction. They allow the lurcher to come back inside and adorn the entire house with wet and muddy footprints, duckweed, and that delicate pond-plant you paid too much for at the garden centre.

Note that ponds are a Questionable Thing. greydogtales is always on the alert for risks, as we have enough already. Some authorities (and some normal people) consider that pond water, especially if it is still and laden with muck/bacteria, is not a Good Idea. A clean, circulating-water pond is probably safer. Note also that certain lurchers will automatically head for the most disgusting, toxic water-source they can find anyway…

TREES

Trees are simply Satan’s Highway, used by the squirrel army to avoid direct combat, hide their ill-gotten supplies and generally taunt the innocent lurcher (see earlier post Lurcher v Squirrel: The Battle of Dork’s Drift). They are also an occasional transport route for cats, who are surprisingly close allies of the squirrels when it comes to lurcher abuse. Trees have only two other purposes:

1. To be peed on
2. To be run into

The latter may only apply to our longdog Django, who is skilled at looking over his shoulder whilst running and immediately crashing into various tree-shaped obstacles.

BOUNDARIES

High, thick conifer hedges re-inforced with heavy-grade green mesh work very well. As do eight foot high concrete walls. The lurcher is a peculiar animal. Some will leap six foot, others will show no interest whatsoever. They will not tell you which one they are, which is annoying.

If in doubt, put sturdy fencing panels everywhere. Everywhere. It’s even useful at the top and bottom of the stairs, around your bed and in front of the fridge.

If in further doubt, put smooth-topped trellis on top of everything. Note: Never put anything pointy on top of boundaries – this will produce either vet bills or a collapsed fence. Or both.

As lurchers may well come in from the garden hungry and investigate the kitchen, it might be wise to put more trellis around the stove top and the work surfaces, as well. After all, they didn’t pay for that steak.

It has occasionally been fashionable to create a stylish sunken garden. Frankly, this is what you usually get if you have too many lurchers. Why pay a landscape gardener?

IN CONCLUSION

There is no conclusion. The war between lurchers and gardeners is an endless struggle. The only victor is that nice, smiling woman who runs the nearest garden centre, and who always seems so very pleased to see you again…

Next time:  Probably something weird and horrible to balance the books…