Hi all
I remember reading about a badly behaved Greyhound who the owner had no control over and was terrorising other dogs recently on the site.

Well tonight had a bit of a shock myself and can now just start to understand the shock and bedlam a greyhound could create running in like that at full tilt, although my experience was with a lurcher/greyhound type dog -(it looked like a small shaggy coated greyhound and so guess its a lurcher cross)

I have seen the 2 owners before (they look like travellers to be honest) with the 2 lurcher type dogs, on a local pebble beach and Poppy my WSS ran up to them, they had a good sniff, i tried to make conversation with the owners but didnt exactly get much in the way of interaction so off we went.

Well tonight i'm walking across the football pitches on the way to the fields, Poppys on her lead, and i spot these same 2 guys and their 2 lurcher type dogs a good way off in the distance (must be at least to football pitches away) and i didnt think much of it. We carried on heading the other direction but next, out of the corner of my eye, i notice this dog running full tilt at us, mouth open, teeth out and snarling, it looked 100% like it was hunting down Poppy (who was oblivious to it , she was just being a normal springer and sniffing around and scenting - looking the wrong way!). I pulled Pops lead to get her really close to me and turned to square up and face the dog (maybe not the cleverst idea but didnt know what to do) and must admit although i dont usually scare that easy i was a bit nervous as it was going so damn fast!

It kinda of did a loop around us , baring teeth, growling and lurched at Poppy, which made her yelp (bless her) and then ran off back to the owners. I looked over to them , expecting maybe a wave or shouted apology (although they were too far away really) they had looked up, een what was happening and just carried on walking,

Well it was only as i continued my walk i got angrier and angrier about it. It looked to me like the lurcher was hunting down Poppy and if Poppy wasnt on the lead god knows what would have happened, like i said Poppy was oblivious this dog was running full pelt at her and would dread to think of the result.

Is this likely, if i do see them again and Poppy is off the lead and the Lurcher tracks her and come running in what should i do? is it likely to lunge and attack or is it just running off its energy ?

It is really hard to say but...............

I have a deerhound who is from coursing lines so he loves nothing more than a chase. He is also bloomin large (in pic with ESS and Brittany).



Now he adores running down my spaniels and he will catch them and pull their feathering etc. The difference being that all the dogs understand the game. He weighs in at 46kg and could do serious damage, lets face it - he is bred to bring down a red deer stag in partnership with a second deerhound.

My spaniels/brittanys all have learned that if they can stop running then Brice loses interest.

So my best advice would be to keep a close eye and if you see the dog on the horizon then call Poppy in. Alternatively you could try doing an Emergency Stop with her and then walking up to her to collect her but if she is scared herself she is likely to run. At the end of the day I would personally rather curtail the walk than have an incident, unfair as that is.

Even if they are traveller types it is also worth letting your Dog Warden know, they may not be prepared to do much but you have registered a concern!

Mmmm it was me that had the run in but is all sorted now

BUT

your baby is a pupter and can't stand up to this like mine do/did. I have two adult boys and Sam at 15 months. The Grey was shot down by Tobe and this week by Jack, Sam was in the background but even after the Grey was put on the lead was frightened and took a lot of babying to get him to me. And Bam is a tough guyish.

We had a word with the owner and he understands and will put his lead on now when he see's us.

Have a word with them, you never know but air on caution when he/ she's around.

I think it's highly unlikely that the lurcher was "hunting down" your dog they don't generally hunt other dogs - they generally hunt rabbits I guess when you aren't used to sighthounds running around at 30 mph ish, it could be quite a shock. I remember being on an ST walk years ago and people wowing at Barley doing a loop around us

Thanks for the advice all.

If i see them again i will keep Poppy close to me just in case.

It is a shock when you see a dog hurtling at that speed towards you, pretty impressive aswell.

If Penel is correct and they dont charge/hunt down other dogs then i guess the dog was doing the same as most other dogs who run straight in do - but just at a much higher speed. Everything happens a lot quicker and they end up a lot further away from their owner.

Funny how docile and unsure it was on the pebble beach where it couldnt run and how assertive it was on the rugby pitches where it could get the legs going!

Yup, lurchers and greys do gain confidence from knowing they can always run faster than the other dogs around mine aren't allowed to run at or chase other dogs unless we know the dogs and they can cope with it but we do have a lot of lurchers at our socialisation groups that have "chase" issues tis a common problem.

We had this a while back with a grey hound. He came bounding across a very large field at great speed. When he got to Ollie he sort of circled, Ollie ran and the greyhound gave chase.
The greyhound wasnt being nasty just trying to get a chase going.
Ollie gave up because he doesnt like being outrun and the greyhound too found it all boring after a while and ran back from whence it came.
I must admit it was a bit scarey seeing him coming in at such speed but this one was just running on instinct and i could see he didnt mean harm. Not sure what i would have done if he had been baring teeth and growling though.