Off lead
Here in the States, all the websites with dog information insist that sight-hounds should NEVER be let off-leash ANYWHERE not securely bounded by seven-foot fences… I think this seems like cruel and unusual punishment for an animal whose nature is to run, and my impression of your dog-walking involves your dogs running around off-leash – am I right?
This is the source of almost daily head-clutching* and anguished moaning**. The same advice rules over here too, and the problem is that it’s good advice. Sighthounds can disappear in less time than it takes to finish blinking, and be in the next county by the time you’ve drawn breath to call them. And I have the sharp end even of the disappearing sighthound continuum: greyhounds are the fastest dogs on the planet, but whippets are only a few fractured seconds slower and, furthermore, they’re sprinters. This is very useful when the only space you have available where you can regularly let your four-winds-on-eight-legs off lead is a small town garden (as you’ve guessed, that’s Third House in the silly hellhound photos), because they hit their speed at about the second leap and can turn on pinheads, never mind big clumsy dimes. But it’s harrowing out in the wide world. I talk to other dog people about the danger of dogs running away, and yes, it’s a danger for everyone, and any half-young and half-fit dog, including three-legged Yorkshire terriers, can escape a mere human. And I also have other dog people say, oh yes, my dog is really fast too. Well . . . no. Fast enough to get away from you; fast enough to disappear if your mind wanders. Yes. Fast enough that it simply must come when it’s called–reliably; and dogs are mortal, and prone to error, just like their humans. And therefore every dog is a big scary problem let off lead. But if you don’t have a sighthound, you don’t know how big and scary that problem can be.
I also know people who say laconically, oh, yeah, he/she runs off occasionally but he/she always comes back. This makes my hair stand on end. Back in the Palaeolithic when all you had to worry about is being trodden on by a brontosaurus***, okay, maybe you could afford to let your dog run off occasionally and assume it would find its way home again. But there are at least two powerful forces militating against this laissez-faire method of dog management in our modern society: dog thieves and cars.
I don’t know what it’s like in the rest of the world, but in Britain sighthounds, longdogs and lurchers are still highly desirable to a small enthusiastic percentage of the population for their pot-filling abilities†. Most of this group are as honest as you or I†† but there are those that aren’t, and they’re one of the reasons why sighthounds are near the top of any dog thief’s list of eligibility. I had an encounter once, when my hellhounds were about a year old, with a sporting-looking gentleman who liked them rather too well, and I was so subarticulately vague about where we lived that I think he both grasped why I was vague, and also that I may be middle aged and female but I’m not entirely stupid. I think the latter annoyed him, but at least he went away. And some of the other purposes dog thieves sell to . . . let’s not go there at all.
But cars. . . . Okay, the south of England suffers from high population density with attendant transportation facilitation networks . . . but show me anywhere in the developed world that doesn’t have inconveniently placed roads from a dog-walking perspective. When I lived in the back woods of Maine you could get lost, sometimes literally, up in the old logging trails where, if you were so unlucky as to meet a vehicle at all, it would be going 10 mph max so as not to rip itself to pieces. You can get out of the way of 10 mph. There are no back woods in the south of England, and those little twisty one-lane-wide two-way††† roads have a speed limit of 60. Sixty. Miles per hour. On a one–okay, maybe one and a half–lane wide road with hedgerows on either side, so you can’t see in any direction. Also, because of the way olde Englande is laid out, with tiny crammed-together villages surrounded by great swathes of farmland, quite big main roads slash through what looks like away-from-it-all countryside, where there are people walking their dogs and riding their horses and watching birds through their binoculars and generally trying to pretend the roads (and the exhaust backdraughts) aren’t there too. The speed limit on an officially designated motorway is 70 mph, and I’m here to tell you that if you average 75, you’ll be regularly overtaken.
And then there’s livestock. There are a few signal failures in my current incarnation as a hellhound wrangler, and one of them is that I have thus far entirely failed to discourage their extreme interest in livestock. I wouldn’t have a dog–one of my dogs that is, of the pet companion rather than the serious working category–loose in a field of livestock anyway, but I get tired of calling my little maniacs off, even with the leash as enforcement strategy. I read this rather arcane weekly paper about ‘countrysports’ for the lurcher, hawk and ferret info–especially the lurcher articles, which are always making offhand references to the fact that you must ensure that your working lurcher is ‘safe to stock’ so it can chase rabbits in fields full of sheep and so on. But they never tell you how. It’s not crucial in our case; my guys are never going to have to earn a living grabbing rabbits. But it would be philosophically pleasing to have a clue how one went about such.
But livestock are yet one more reason why your opportunities to let your hellhound off lead are limited. And sighthounds go deaf the moment they spot something to chase. Chasing things is what they’ve been bred for for hundreds if not thousands of years–and in the case of Salukis and greyhounds, probably thousands.‡ You haven’t got a prayer of overriding all that history. You work like hell on your recall, you bond like crazy, you keep your paranoia honed to a razor-sharp edge . . . and you have your heart in your mouth a lot of the time.
So the short form is yes, I let my hellhounds off lead. Occasionally. Nothing like as often as I’d like to, but Life Is Compromise, and this is the best I can do. If you’ve ever seen a sighthound run, you know you simply have to let them. Running isn’t merely what they do, it’s what they are. Of our three whippets, Hazel was the one who had to run. Of my two 7/8ths whippet x 1/8th deerhound hellhounds, it’s Chaos. Darkness chiefly runs for purpose–which purpose is usually to nail Chaos–Chaos runs for sheerest joy. They both have that drop-down-a-gear-and-burn thing that running dogs all have, and sighthounds extraordinarily so, but in Chaos’ case it makes your heart and your breath stop, and your eyes tear up. Not only in fear that he’ll be having a deaf fit when you go to call him in.
And I really need the reissued SUNSHINE or the new CHALICE to be a best-seller because I want to buy an acre of good running land, and put a seven-foot fence around it.
* * *
* Or head-banging-with-large-heavy-plastic-drum-handle-of-long-extending-lead, which is what happens if you try to clutch your head while out walking with a brace of hellhounds.
** Which leads inevitably to this
*** Yes, I know, there’s about a 100 million years between the last brontosaurus and the Palaeolithic. It’s what we call in the trade a vivid image.
† Ie they catch things you can eat.
†† Well I don’t know about you
††† Yes, you read that right. Now that I have (sort of) figured out how to load photos, I want to have a Favourite Road Signs of Britain series. One of them is: ‘oncoming vehicles in middle of road’.
‡ Whippets are youngsters–a couple hundred years or so–but they’re only bred-down greyhounds, and greyhounds are thousands of years old. Greyhound-type dogs with and without feathering are painted on the walls of the pharoahs’ tombs. The folk mythology that I know says that Salukis as a breed and a specific lineage are even older than greyhounds, but I think that probably depends on who you read, and how your sense of romance takes you.
comments
Please join the discussion at Robin McKinley's Web Forum.
Dog thieves. *shudder* That’s so, so wrong. Poor dogs. :(
It’s one of those things that truly don’t bear thinking about.
(Comments won't nest below this level)
We have friends who have greyhounds (rescued) and they used to take their dogs out to a large untended field (in our urban sprawl) to lt them off the lead to run. (The untended field was, for six weeks per year, the parking lot for the local renaissance festival.)
Now that untended larger field is our new library. I can’t regret the building of the library. (It’s a library! And a big lovely one at that!) But it was wonderful to see the dogs go zooming around in a wide open space.
(Also, on a side note, I received my copy of Dragonhaven and have finally got time to settle down and read it. I’m enjoying it immensely; thank you!)
Thank *you*! :)
(Comments won't nest below this level)
I’ll do my part to buy the hellhounds a proper place to run. Perhaps we should mount a grand campaign – buy a book, buy Robin’s hellhounds X square meters of space. Something like that. You could put a photo of them on the back of the dustjacket, maybe with you discretely in the background.
Your descriptions are so vivid, I wish I could see them in full flight.
Dog thieves are evil and must be smited, is all I can say. ::Hugs::
Well, on my list is ‘learn to video hellhounds’. But it’s not likely to happen SOON. It’s not just the camera, it’s THEM.
(Comments won't nest below this level)
*****I also know people who say laconically, oh, yeah, he/she runs off occasionally but he/she always comes back. This makes my hair stand on end. Back in the Palaeolithic when all you had to worry about is being trodden on by a brontosaurus, okay, maybe you could afford to let your dog run off occasionally and assume it would find its way home again. But there are at least two powerful forces militating against this laissez-faire method of dog management in our modern society: dog thieves and cars.*****
Indeed. Amidst my other life crises right now, I’m in the middle of shopping for a new house. Some of the major criteria are distance from a major road, in case the dogs escape a fenced yard, and legality of a six-foot fence. I just now got back from seeing two houses I fell absolutely in love with. Met all my needs. Stunningly beautiful. Prices right. One has a small yard that would take major re-working to enable fencing a dog-friendly area, but might still work. The other backs onto a major road; whether I could put in a fence that I would trust to be sufficiently escape-proof is a major issue. And any purchase offer would be contingent on getting a variance to put up a six-foot fence, which wouldn’t be automatically legal in either neighborhood. I can hear all my acquaintances now, saying, “Oh, just get an invisible fence!” Yeah, right. First of all, my girl will ignore any shock that wouldn’t kill her if she wanted to chase something. Secondly, what’s going to protect my dogs against intruders, human or animal? So maybe one of these houses will work out, and maybe I’ll have to keep looking.
*****I read this rather arcane weekly paper about ‘countrysports’ for the lurcher, hawk and ferret info–especially the lurcher articles, which are always making offhand references to the fact that you must ensure that your working lurcher is ‘safe to stock’ so it can chase rabbits in fields full of sheep and so on. But they never tell you how. It’s not crucial in our case; my guys are never going to have to earn a living grabbing rabbits. But it would be philosophically pleasing to have a clue how one went about such.*****
Don’t you just love it when people tell you, “Do X!” “How?” you wail forlornly. They often don’t give you an articulate answer. Often they are talented dog or horse people. Sigh.
Judith
And often they don’t have a [bleeeeep] clue and don’t want to admit it.
good luck! House hunting is a nightmare.
(Comments won't nest below this level)
Its very interesting that talented people aren’t necessarily the best at communicating how to emulate the talent. Like my riding instructor. She knows what to do personally, but breaking it down into little pieces, and verbalizing them, slowly enough for a benwildered beginner to mark, inwardly digest and attempt……not so much. So we guess, and see if it works.
(Comments won't nest below this level)
I get a little nervous around dogs that are off lead and running at me–if I don’t know the dog, I don’t know what he/she is going to do (jump on me and lick my face, bite me, run up to me and howl…), and so I tend to just wing it. What are your suggestions for such situations?
Punch out the stupid owner and rehome the dog. Arrrrgh.
(Comments won't nest below this level)
What if there IS no owner present? How do I keep the dog from getting near enough to BITE me if it has that sort of temperament?
I don’t particularly like punching people out either, because however tempting it may be at the time, I’ll feel guilty afterward.
Mine was what you might call a light/grim response. The basic truth is there ISN’T a good or a single answer. You wing it. Don’t meet the dog’s eyes (an aggressive dog will react to this as aggression), don’t make any sudden jerky moves. They used to tell you to stop, but in my experience that just gives a dominant dog the opportunity to prevent you from starting moving again. I say move slowly and steadily and pretend you’re ignoring the beast. Try to *act* relaxed. This includes breathing normally! YOu’re trying to defuse the situation, just like you would a drunken yob looking for a fight.
Thank you!
And if an especially persistent drunken yob was looking for a fight with me, he’d get a lot more than he bargained for.
Yes, everything you said pretty much confirms what I have always heard about sight hounds, which is why I have so far resisted the temptation to acquire one. I know the dog would desperately want to run along when I take my horses trail riding, and I know that eventually I would give in, and then sooner or later I would lose the dog on a ride. We do have places to ride where traffic is not a problem for at least ten miles around, but on the other hand, in those places we have mountain lions, coyotes, and bears, all of which would find dog a nice snack if they could catch it. I have (so far) been able to keep my Gordon setter from disappearing, but several years ago I lost a mutt who took off chasing deer while I shouted and called, and never reappeared in spite of days of searching, calling, combing the area, and putting up posters. After that happened, I finally broke down and bought a remote-control shock collar which I ONLY use to correct momentary deafness in a setter running too far away. It’s so hard to find the balance between protecting them and letting them have fun.
Well I’m doing my best, but there’s all these people who think that Twilight is the best thing ever to happen to the genre AND IT’S NOT. I’m almost at the point where I want to buy copies of Sunshine and shove it in their faces and force them to read, but since I am mostly broke and would have to get them from a used book store, I don’t think this will help you much. I will, however, but Chalice the instant it comes out.
Well, please do a rain/sales dance in front of your nearest bookstore when the reissued SUNSHINE comes out this autumn. :)
(Comments won't nest below this level)
As soon as I graduate from university and get that first real paycheck (provided I don’t decide I hate engineeirng– a distinct possibility– and therefore don’t get a job), the first thing I’m going to purchase is a greyhound.
Get a lovely sweet retired looking-for-a-home one! :)
(Comments won't nest below this level)
Dear jmckinley,
Well, I’m an engineer, and it is perfectly possible to be literate and enjoy fantasy and not necessarily solve a bunch of tedious equations all the time (unless that floats your boat) and still be an engineer. Suggest you don’t make any irrevocable decisions before you graduate……because real-life engineering is totally unlike college engineering, but the college engineering degree provides a whole bunch of credibility/respectability which, say, a degree in Medieval economics wouldn’t necessarily (although having more fascinating subject material). I have a doctorate in the stuff, so I know whereof I speak.
(Comments won't nest below this level)
ok, I’m so far behind on reading the blog that it’s not funny. ok, yes it is, lol. I’ll catch up soon and then I’ll have loads of new reading material! :)
anyways, just wanted to stop by and say that if you want to catch Britten’s War Requiem, we’re going live with it tonight on Mezzo at 21:00 pm my time, which should make it around 19:00pm in England, I think (hope I’m not wrong).
hope everything is well with you, Peter and the hellhounds!
maya.
ARRRRGH. 19:00 is HOURS ago. And what is Mezzo? I love Britten’s War Requiem!!!!
(Comments won't nest below this level)
well, it was pretty good, I think. it’s such a gorgeous piece! the Lacrimosa and the Tenor’s Agnus Dei are so beautiful! *sigh* and we had a great brass section, so the Dies Irae was fantabulous!
Mezzo is France’s classical music channel on tv. I thought everyone in Europe had it, lol.
we get it over here. I’ve been told it’s going to be rebroadcast on June 26th at 18:00pm my time, which should be about 16:00pm over where you are. (that also happens to be the date of my recital. coincidence? I think not ;)).
I’m sorry I didn’t get around to posting this earlier, it’s just been the craziest month…
Rebroadcast on Mezzo again? I’ll ask if I can get this and if so HOW. I listen to Radio 3 . . . or CDs.
I have border collies. They are more into control of things so more likely to stick close to me (thus controlling my every move), or so I thought. Turns out that they feel that everything needs guidance–birds, rabbits, cars, bicyclists… Sigh.
I bought two copies of Sunshine (1 paperback and 1 hardcover), a hardcover of Dragonhaven, and will be preordering Chalice–all so you can go buy your acreage and fence it. ;)
Thank you! :)
(Comments won't nest below this level)
You are so right about why dogs shouldn’t run loose. And running dogs especially–I was talking a few years ago to someone with Afghans–one of hers got loose, slipped a collar or broken leash or something–promptly disappeared, and when finally discovered was 10 miles away. My guys would be off like rockets if I didn’t have a fence between them and the critters. And no matter how well-trained they are, the right stimulus will trump the training. Your UDX dog may come back shamefaced, but he will still have gone (a real-life example, happened to a friend, blame a rabbit). Doing rescue, I hear from people who live in rural areas or on farms who don’t worry about not having a fenced area, since they’ve got tons of acreage etc. etc.–if they were looking for puppies and I had any, they wouldn’t get one of mine. All it takes is one car/bear/moose/wolf/inebriated hunter and it’s all over.
That being said, I hope you get your fenced acre. Danes don’t entirely forget the sighthound side of their ancestry and will go out and run flat-out in circles just to GO. We have enough space that they can really build up speed, and it is splendid.
Do you have lure coursing as a sport in Britain? It’s a performance event open to sighthounds here, fairly popular, and the dogs of course love it.
Inevitable comment from a lurking peanut gallery member – You know, I bet if you wrote the actual sequel to SUNSHINE you could probably buy TWO acres of good running land :-). Just Kidding! (Though I would certainly contribute to that fund).
They NEED to run free. They aren’t safe running free.
Head hurts and heart hurts with this dilemma, and there’s no easy answer. Stock training is best done very young – weeks rather than months, so lessons are well learned, with stock used to dogs who won’t run, or who will even “tell the dog off” – this method is used by farmers and gamekeepers, people with suitable stock available and oodles of experience.
And there is no guarantee that that old chase instinct won’t still kick in with extremely chase motivated individuals. Many people fight strong instincts with strong measures – electric shock collars for example.
Not only do I abhor inflicting pain to this degree in the name of training, but a different connection to that desired can be made by the dog when it is shocked.
Dogs learn by association, and they may associate that shock with the tree they are running past or even with you. In the case (true) of the dog who made the tree association, they refused to go near trees for over a year, but still chased livestock.
An enclosed paddock is probably the best solution available – in town I might look for a tennis court in a park, where I could release a dog at times when the court is empty. I know lots of owners who are saving for their own acre of paddock :)
I have wondered about the stock training. Thanks. As I say, it’s not crucial to my hellhounds; I don’t ever NEED to let them off lead with stock around; they’re pets. But their chase motivation is stronger than our whippets’ was–or maybe it’s just that my hellhounds WEIGH MORE and I translate that. . . . I also keep wondering how much of their over-exuberance about things that the whippets were more laid back about–and, mind you, our whippets were NOT dull dogs–is to do with the fact that they’re entire. The whippets were all spayed bitches.
(Comments won't nest below this level)
entire males are (obviously :)) indviduals, but to generalise madly here, most speyed bitches have a totaly different take on life and your boys added “rampage” factor is absolutely typical. Long may they enjoy themselves – and I’ll keep buying your books to support the hellhound exercise paddock fund lol
Useful to know. I’m a trifle nonplussed at certain things NOT just working themselves out by as-it-comes-up repetition. I thought this was one of the advantages of having them underfoot all the time! I didn’t know I was going to have to WORK at it! :)
I think you’re right about hormones and intensity. I certainly noticed the difference with mine when we got involved in showing and stopped spaying.
I’ve certainly been told this. And the difference between stallions and geldings is like different *universes.* And maybe the real reason Rowan spent her last thirteen years mad at me is not because I brought her to England but because I spayed her.
Huh, this makes me wonder. In all the reading I’ve done to prep for eventually adopting a retired racing greyhound, thieves have not been mentioned as a problem. I imagine here in the States it’s the trendy mutts with the bizarre names that are most at risk for theft, but I could be wrong.
Lovely! Another thing to worry about thanks to you, along with harnesses vs. collars and whatever else that I can’t think of at the moment. :)
HARNESSES. I’m told there’s hardly a sighthound on the planet, that wears a collar, that does NOT have spine problems.
(Comments won't nest below this level)
The offlead thing is a major “thing” why I have hesitated getting a whippet. I know people who have them on farms but we are a little close to the road and I would hate to see them run full tilt and hit the fence….. Bad enough that Belle tunes out to everything else when she is running and sometimes runs into things… or trips over hillocks….. LMAO
I have to share this with you. It rained the other day and I thought of your poor Souvenir.
So take a deep breath and imagine the smell……
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21742944@N05/2552004021/
(and yes it was *after* the rain had fallen. Which is why I felt so bad for you.)
“oncoming vehicles in middle of road” is my own personal favourite too. No indication as to what to do about it, or why the vehicles should be in the middle of the road… wonderful!
Oooh ooh, Favourite Road Signs of Britain – my favourite was the one that simply said, “Change Priorities”. It seemed more a philosophical statement than indicative of anything useful to a driver.
LOL!
(Comments won't nest below this level)
Dog thieves are one my greatest fears. I have a very adorable mini pinscher (looks like a Chihuahua sized Doberman) named Penny. I have had several unsavory people stop me on our walks to try to buy her from me. One person was VERY pushy and tried to physically intimidate me. Fortunately I’ve lived in West Philly (not the greatest neighborhood) for many years and have developed the necessary attitude. I can use language that would make a sailor blush. It also take a lot to scare me now.
Several apartments have been broken into in my building lately. I worry about that happening to me. The thieves might leave the door open and she would run out or they might take her. Panic attack!
I never let her off lead. Penny thinks she is the size of a Doberman and is not scared of anything.
Um. I’ve lived in bad areas too, and what you need more than language is self-defense training, which I hope you have had. Fearlessness can be counterproductive.
Mini pinschers ARE adorable. :)
(Comments won't nest below this level)
I have a feeling that Chalice might well do it–it sounds so lovely. And I know from the stats my own blog (which is a small fish), where I mentioned it, that there are 100s and 100s of people already drooling in anticipation…
Oh good. :)
(Comments won't nest below this level)
What beautiful hellhounds!
And I do hope that Chalice is an immense bestseller, because then when I go to the bookstore I will be able to find it and start reading it immediately (and then buy it, and walk out of the store carefully, still reading), without having to wait a bit for the bookstore to get it in. And also because a Place to Run Safely for hellhounds sounds like a splendid thing…
-Nema
Thank you!
(Comments won't nest below this level)
In terms of teaching reactive dogs to ignore distractions (i.e. livestock), the best book I’ve found is called “control unleashed” by Leslie McDevitt. One exercise is the “look at that” where you click and treat your dog for looking at the distracting object, preferably at a distance where the dog remains under threshold (i.e. keeping some brains in their heads). Sooner or later your dog (or my insane border collie) will fixate on something and I say, “good look” — his head whips around to get a treat. then we get to the point where he starts turning back automatically for the reinforcer, and self-controls the level of arousal. This works nicely if you have very high quality treats (bits of organic chicken breast, stinky cheese, leftover roast) but also works on my guy with a squeaky ball — use whatever reinforcer your dog really likes.
Short explanation of something explained much better in the book, but its worked on my insane BC, so maybe it will work on hellhounds too. regards Jeanine
Yes, this is an excellent book, and a useful “calming”/attention exercise which I have also met in other formats – Turid Rugaas, Kay Laurence,etc.
I just wonder how food/reward motivated the hellhounds might be – I think perhaps the chase might BE the reward lol.
(Comments won't nest below this level)
Hellhounds are NEGATIVELY interested in food. (Sigh.) They rather like being fussed over, but they get fussed over ANYWAY. Darkness now puts his harness on *himself*, pretty much, and also gets up into sitting position again–he’s never liked sitting, and sits so stiffly I suspect there’s a physical reason for it, so I’ve always let him collapse so long as he, you know, keeps his butt where he put it–when I make the upsweep arm gesture, so that he can raise his forelegs to put them through the harness. Chaos can still raise one forepaw sometimes. ARRRRRRRRRRGH. And I’ve got NOTHING to catch his attention with . . . except his jealousy when Darkness gets praised.
My father-in-law will never be convinced that I’m not doing wrong by my greyhound by not turning him loose out the back door to do his business, but in addition to all the concerns you’ve mentioned, we also have wildlife to contend with in the US. Totally aside from the standard stuff (poisonous snakes, rabid foxes, etc.) several people saw (and one person took a number of pictures for proof) a full-grown black bear not twenty miles from my house: http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/2938091/.
Your hounds are adorable, by the way, but I’m sure you know that. :>
Yes, wildlife is one of the things that needs to go in the Perils of Off Lead, Part Two. But we don’t have bears. We had bears in Maine. Twenty mles! Piffle! We had them in the back yard. :)
(Comments won't nest below this level)