By Dennis McKeon
Copyright, 2024. The original post can be found here.
An idea I see promoted virtually all over the Greyhound social media universe, that greyhounds are these fragile, spindly, inflexible weaklings, in perpetual need of strict calorie counting, lest they suddenly and irreparably just break apart--as if they were an experiment with the Hadron Collider--is far from the truth.
Greyhounds easily handle launching and loading stresses, centrifugal and centripetal forces, and impacts and strains upon their bones, joints and ligature that far exceed those with which most dogs will ever have to cope.
A fit greyhound is a rip-snortin’, muscular, rugged, resilient and remarkably consistent, alpha athlete.
The increasingly expressed idea that a mere few pounds gained in retirement is a death knell for their skeletal, ligature, condylar soundness, or for their general overall structural integrity, is patently absurd. For heaven’s sake, they’re retired.
One only need peruse the hundreds of photos of extremely valuable greyhound sires in retirement (via: greyhound-data dot com), whose longevity, virility, and continued ability to earn stud fees are critical to their success and to the success of those who breed their females to them, to get a sense of how experienced, professional breeders and handlers maintain their precious charges’ body image and working viability; and in what sort of flesh they are kept.
We must be very careful not to project our own body dysmorphia onto our retired greyhounds. We should try to be consistent in daily checks of their hydration---far more important than bone counting---and try to achieve, in our retired greyhound(s), at least a moderate level of aerobic and anaerobic fitness, and muscular, not skeletal definition.
You can easily check your greyhound’s state of hydration, by what we call “hide pulling”. Simply grasp a fistful of their skin at the widest part of their back, which should be right above the waist tuck. Stretch the “hide” as far upward as it can be stretched. Then quickly release it from there.
If your greyhound is not in a shapeless, formless, perfectly smooth state of overweight, and if your greyhound’s hide snaps right back into form, your greyhound is properly hydrated, and most often, at a good and healthy weight.
If the hide slowly sags back into form, or does not return to form at all, or if it is difficult or even impossible to comfortably grasp a handful of your greyhound’s hide, he/she is underhydrated; or in the latter case, likely dehydrated--and just as likely, underweight. I cannot stress strongly enough, the crucial importance of proper hydration to your greyhounds, in all phases of their lives. Checking your greyhound for hydration is the first step one should take in assessing or evaluating what should be your greyhound's ideal weight.
Greyhounds, we should remember, are an extremely power-adapted breed. That power and its development come not only from genetics, but from their training, diet, and the overall level of care they receive. Sharp handlers know, in an athletic contest where leg speed and extreme acceleration are aggressively sought after power aptitudes, lighter does not necessarily mean faster. More often, just the opposite is the case.
As a retired greyhound adopter, it is very easy to become confused with the litany of misinformation and disinformation that exists in all media, concerning greyhounds, their lives as performing athletes, and their care afterwards.
As the retired greyhound adjusts to his/her life as a personal or family pet, minus the activity, hustle and bustle of life in the performance dog colony, it is not unusual for them to lose a few pounds. If the greyhound was not too lean to begin with, and if he/she is still properly hydrated, this is not a cause for alarm, provided the greyhound is being fed and consuming adequate amounts of nutritious food and water.
Likewise, should the greyhound begin to gain a bit of weight as he/she adjusts and settles in, it is not a bad idea to let them fill out some, and to carry a slight amount of excess, in case of sickness or other trauma where weight loss might be rapid and not desirable.
It is quite likely, and minus a cosmic event of unusual effect, that they are not going to break.