By Dennis McKeon
Copyright, 2024. The original posting can be found here.
Each of us, at one time or another, must surely have borne the burden of great expectations. Whether in our school days, then later in our personal or professional lives, we may or may not have fulfilled our own aspirations, or the great expectations of others. It may have begun for you, as it did for me, with the expectation that I would actually read the entire book entitled Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens. And it may have ended for you, as it did for me--and for the long-suffering Sister Mary Virginia--with great disappointment.
Alas, most greyhounds are saddled with similar burdens of great expectations, from whelping box, to starting box. And like us, they may or may not entirely fulfill them.
I once trained for a kennel owner who had great expectations for the foremost as well the least of the greyhounds in his kennel. To the point where on a night that they had won an embarrassing number of the races in which they took part, his question for me, post racing, was why had they not won the only race they hadn’t won?
I notice, from my excursions through greyhound related social media, that some adopters aspire to similar great expectations of their greyhounds, as they re-habituate from kennel colony to forever home. Seemingly in search of instant gratification, despite the impediments of radical environmental and existential change, and their own contagious upsets and anxieties, projected upon their already upset and unsettled adoptees.
Greyhounds, in the popular context of social media discourse, need to learn how to “furbaby"---they already know how to dog, with unparalleled expertise. And they behave like most dogs would, when confronting unprecedented, great and abundant expectations.
Trainers are there to prepare the dogs for racing, which is a 24/7/365 affair. It is the adopter's job---if they choose---to turn them into "furbabies". Not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with that, if a greyhound is kept reasonably active and fit. It’s just that it can be a big ask for certain greyhounds.
Every dog, regardless of breed, evolves as an individual as they age. Some of that evolution is a matter of genetics, and some of it is a result of experience. It’s very important to remember, and to inform the adopter, that greyhounds are not bred to be pets. They are bred to chase after prey effigies, with all abandon--and with every bit of feral tenacity that nerve, blood, muscle, bone and sinew can express and endure.
A high-strung and hot-blooded greyhound may not be the best candidate for an inexperienced adopter, but he/she may have been a very high class performer on the racetrack, with all the desirable attributes and intangibles that would spotlight them as a most promising breeding prospect. In the latter case, like will always tend to produce like.
Most greyhounds, after adjusting to their adoptive situation, unstressed by human anxiety or behaviors, will revert to being the same characters they were within the colony—whether a lone wolf, a stoic, a gent, a lady, a rascal, an agitator, or a shrinking violet. They're allowed to express themselves, whatever the case, in that environment, both cordially with their handlers, in play with the group, and finally, as performers.
When adopted, they must learn when, where and to what extent their natural and genetically hard-wired self-expression is acceptable, minus the opportunities, and outside the environment with which they were quite familiar. It's mostly all about the prevention of sensory overload, and application of simple, human common sense to the equation--or, as we often infer, the lack of it. Sometimes we just need to temper our own great expectations.
The false, cliched, pop narrative of each greyhound as the miserable victim, and his human connections as his brutal and unthinkably cruel oppressors, has led to many of the troubles adopters and their adopted greyhounds endure in adjusting to radical life changes. When we begin by accepting the fallacy that the greyhound must be viewed and treated as an object of pity, the webs of re-habituation can become exponentially more entangled.
It is not easy to tell well-meaning and good people that their dog may not be happy yet in his new situation, or is perhaps grieving for his old familiars--or that he is bored out of his mind, and in dire need of rigid routine, physical stimulation, and an endorphin rush, rather than being overwhelmed and smothered with cloying physical affection.
Greyhounds, as we have learned over the decades, have their own great expectations. My experiences with them have convinced me that foremost among these, is for their handlers to demonstrate patience and understanding.