Greyhound

“ When the friends were beginning to long for their return, the dog came home at full speed, and by his apparent anxiety, his laying hold of their clothes to pull them along, and all his gestures, he convinced them that something was wrong. They followed the greyhound, who led them to a piece of water frozen over. A hat was seen on the ice, near which was a fresh aperture. The bodies of the young gentlemen were soon found, but, alas! though every means were tried, life could not be restored.
There is another story which places the sagacity of the greyhound in still stronger light. ”

“ To his surprise, he found that the moment when they thought no one was looking at them, the greyhound took up the iron ring in his mouth, and carrying it, they set off to the hills, and began to search for hares as usual. They were followed, and it was discovered that whenever the pointer scented the hare, the ring was dropped, and the greyhound stood ready to pounce upon the poor little creature the moment the other drove her from her form, but that he always came back to help his friend after he had caught his prey. ”

“ His diet is a matter of careful consideration, and no man would dream of giving his greyhound anything but the dainty bits he has kept for himself.
No well brought up greyhound would ever think of hunting with any man but his master, and indeed his affection and his clean habits amply repay all the trouble spent upon him. If his master is absent for a few days, the greyhound nearly goes out of his mind with joy at his return. He jumps right on to the saddle itself, and almost smothers the man with his caresses. ”

“ Look at the greyhound, that perfect image of grace, symmetry, and vigour; no natural species can boast of a more admirably co-ordinated structure, with its tapering head, slim body, deep chest, tucked-up abdomen, rat-like tail, and long muscular limbs, all adapted for extreme fleetness, and for running down weak prey. ”

“ The tail of a greyhound is his rudder and his brake, and the sight is most laughable when a whole pack of them are trying to stop, each tail whirling around like a Dutch windmill. Sometimes, in their frantic efforts to stop quickly, they will turn complete somersaults and roll over in a cloud of dust and dirt. But give up they never do, and once on their feet they start back after that rabbit with whines of disappointment and rage. ”

“ If by careful choice, however, a ranchman can get together a pack composed both of the smooth-haired greyhound and the rough-haired Scotch deer-hound, he can have excellent sport. The greyhounds sometimes do best if they have a slight cross of bulldog in their veins; but this is not necessary. If once a greyhound can be fairly entered to the sport and acquires confidence, then its wonderful agility, its sinewy strength and speed, and the terrible snap with which its jaws come together, render it a most formidable assailant. ”

“ Powerful and eager as the greyhound, man sees flying before him, [191] on the plain of life, an object which he thirsts to grasp. Taxing every muscle in pursuit, panting after it over the smooth country below the 40th mile-post, he crosses there the ravine where rheumatism and straggling gray hairs lurk, and with these clinging to him, starts up the hill of later life. ”

“ When a year old the greyhound has very nearly reached its full strength. His scent is developed, and he follows the gazelle by its slot. Nevertheless, he is kept under some restraint, and not until the age of fifteen to eighteen months is he regularly allowed to hunt. From that period, however, he is held in leash, and often with great difficulty; for the Arabs say that when the greyhound scents the game, his muscular power becomes so great that, if he stiffens himself upon his paws, a man can hardly make him lift a leg. ”

“ The colour of the Russian greyhound is generally of a dark umber brown, but sometimes black: his coat is rough and shaggy.
When the Russian greyhound loses sight of the hare, he runs by the scent. Indeed, when parties go out a coursing, this dog even endeavours to find game. He is a very powerful animal, and is frequently used either in small packs, or with other dogs, to hunt the wild boar, deer, or wolf, the latter of which a good hound will kill singlehanded. But it is the deer principally that he hunts. ”

“ They will be high of spirit, graceful, swift, and supple as the greyhound; and as keenly intent on living a full and varied life with every moment of it worth while as ever the greyhound is in pursuing its object. They will be capable of intense and passionate emotion, yet with all their eager impulsiveness they will have wills strong to keep themselves in hand, and to maintain their direction true through all the mazy intricacies of life and love.
In the bringing together of such a pair Natural Beauty will play a vitally important part. ”

“ The tail went up at once and stayed there; when it could go no higher, it curled over. But promotion breeds conceit only in base natures. The greyhound is a gentleman, respectful and self-respecting, and it shows that by the very carriage of its tail. Only a snob at heart, petted and pampered for many generations, could have produced that perfect incarnation of smug self-satisfaction, the pug. ”

“ These dogs, by their superior swiftness, are soon at his haunches, and worry and impede his flight, until their heavy friend the hound comes up; for the strongest greyhound could never manage a wolf, unless he was assisted in his meritorious work by dogs of large size and superior strength. The huntsmen, well mounted, follow and halloo on the hounds; every one runs, every one shouts, the forest echoes their cries, and wolf, dogs, and sportsmen pass and disappear like leaves in a whirlwind, or the demon hounds and huntsmen of the Hartz. ”

“ I will serve you and help you as a friend may.' Then the master of the greyhound answers that in seven days he will make up his mind whether he will part with the puppy or not, and till then the man must wait. This is because in every litter of greyhound puppies, one is always better than the rest, and in order to find out which is the cleverest the owner will take it away from its mother's side before it is seven days old, and see if it can get back by itself. If it can, he believes the pup will turn out a great prize, worth the best negro slave that could be offered him. ”

“ The kind of dog used for coursing the kangaroo is, generally, a cross between the greyhound and the mastiff, or sheep-dog; but, in a climate like New South Wales, they have, to use the common phrase, too much lumber about them. The true-bred greyhound is the most useful dog. He has more wind; he ascends the hills with more ease, and runs double the number of courses in a day. He has more bottom in running; and, if he has less ferocity when he comes up with an 'old man,' so much the better, as he exposes himself the less, and lives to afford sport another day. ”

“ She was then supposed to be the only Persian greyhound bitch in England."
The Persian greyhound is very handsome. "One of the finest species of dog I have ever seen," says an interesting writer, "is a sort of greyhound which the Persians rear to assist them in the chase. They have generally long silken hair upon their quarters, shoulders, ears, and tail; and I think them as handsome, and considerably more powerful and sagacious, than our own greyhounds. ”

“ I have done a good deal of coursing with greyhounds at one time or another, but always with scratch packs. The average frontiersman [Pg 134] seems to have an inveterate and rooted objection to a dog with pure blood. If he gets a greyhound, his first thought is to cross it with something else, whether a bull mastiff, or a setter, or a foxhound. ”

“ During the two days, after passing El Ajdabiah, we saw immense herds of gazelles; but they were too shy to give one a chance of getting within shot of them; and there was too little cover to stalk them. The greyhound which I had with me was young, and far too frightened to do more than run after them for a short distance; when she thought she was getting dangerously near, she would stop, and look round. There is a race of greyhounds peculiar to this country, generally of a pale fawn colour, with very short hair, and limbs almost as fine as those of the Italian pet greyhound. ”

“ LESSON XXIII. Maida, the Scotch Greyhound.—Altered from Bingley.
1. A hound is a dog with long, smooth, hanging ears, and long limbs, that enable him to run very swiftly. The greyhound is not so called on account of his color, but from a word which denotes his Grecian origin. [Pg 91]
2. The Scotch greyhound is a larger and more powerful animal than the common greyhound; and its hair, instead of being sleek and smooth, is long, stiff and bristly. It can endure great fatigue.
3. It was this dog that the Highland chieftains, in Scotland, used in former times, in their grand hunting-parties. ”

“ It may be perhaps imagined a chace between these two creatures could not be long, yet I have often seen, in a large inclosure, or court-yard, the greyhound employ a quarter of an hour before he could master his nimble adversary; the small size of the creature assisted him much, and had not the greyhound been a practised one, and made use of his feet as well as his teeth, he might have killed two antelopes in the time he could have killed one Jerboa. ”

“ Both the greyhound and the war-horse—whichever may be here meant—are characterised by swiftness of foot and great sagacity. They are ready at any moment to set forth on any errand, and are always on the alert when danger is near. ”

“ Now, in the high plains of Kordofan, which lie to the west of the White Nile, the greyhound or wind dog, as it is called by the Germans, is held in great honour. If you walk through any of the villages, you will see three or four greyhounds lying before the door of every hut, each one more beautiful than the other. They are the village policemen, and guard the people from the fierce leopards and hyænas which steal down at night from the caves where they sleep all day, and prowl round in search of a supper. ”

“ Of all manner of greyhounds there be both good and bad, nevertheless the best hue is red fallow with a black muzzle. The goodness of greyhounds comes of right courage, and of the good nature of their father and their mother. And also men may well help to make them good in the encharning158 of them with other good greyhounds, and feed them well with the best that he taketh. The good greyhound should be of middle size, neither too big nor too little, and then he is good for all beasts. ”

“ It took all my resolution to stroll towards Trafalgar Lodge about half-past nine.
On the way I got a piece of solid comfort from the sight of a greyhound that was swinging along at a nursemaid’s heels. He reminded me of a dog I used to have in Rhodesia, and of the time when I took him hunting with me in the Pali hills. We were after rhebok, the dun kind, and I recollected how we had followed one beast, and both he and I had clean lost it. A greyhound works by sight, and my eyes are good enough, but that buck simply leaked out of the landscape. ”

“ The modern smooth-haired Greyhound of England is a very elegant dog, not surpassed in speed and endurance by that of any other country. Hunting the deer with a kind of greyhound of a larger size was formerly a favourite diversion; and Queen Elizabeth was gratified by seeing, on one occasion, from a turret, sixteen deer pulled down by greyhounds upon the lawn at Cowdry Park, in Sussex. ”

“ There is some truth in the imputation; but, in fact, the greyhound has, far less than even the hound, the opportunity of forming individual attachments, and no other exercise of the mind is required of him than to follow the game which starts up before him, and to catch it if he can. If, however, he is closely watched he will be found to have all the intellect that his situation requires. ”

“ Renewing his attacks, he now obtains an abundant supply, and at length, when quite gorged, searches for a place on which to alight, unseen by any other of his tribe more powerful than himself. When on wing, its beautiful long tail-feathers seem at times to afford this bird great assistance in executing short sudden turns, which have often brought to my mind the motions of a greyhound while pursuing a hare. By sudden lashings of its tail, it can instantly turn, or arrest its flight. ”

“ Although, in general, greyhounds are not so ingenious as other dogs, now and then one shows himself surprisingly clever in getting what he has set his mind on. A story is told of a little Italian greyhound who lived at Bologna in Italy, and was a great favourite with his master. Bologna is a cold place, and greyhounds are often delicate, so a jacket was made for him to wear at night. ”

“ Their bodies are distinctly greyhoundy in form, but not their heads. The last-mentioned fact does not preclude the possibility of a remote cross of greyhound, as colour is a truer indication of blood, although not of paper pedigree, than is head formation. By “paper pedigree” no suggestion of false testimony is intended, but reference is made to the recently ascertained facts that two of a litter may be widely different in root origin. Some of the self-coloured pointers of Mr. Arkwright’s kennel have been fawn colour, a well-known greyhound shade. ”

“ It is about the size of a Greyhound, usually of a white colour spotted with black, and its hair is quite short. The Danish Dog is a large sub-variety of the same breed.
THE GREYHOUND.
The various breeds of this Dog (see figure on p. 117) are the most elegant in the whole species. The expression “a line of beauty is perpetual motion,” hackneyed though it be, occurs to every one in [Pg 131] thinking of a Greyhound, the shape and movements of which are so perfectly graceful. ”