Loved Hound

Your hound can be featured as a Loved Hound, too. Just bid in Greyhound Gang's on-line auction (during the first two weeks of every month) for your chance to be spotlighted. Or bid to feature a friend's hound, as a present. Once you've won, you'll email me pictures and text, and the following month, this is where you and your hound will be. Loved Hound. Our wish - love for them all.

Tipperary - written by Sue Lawrence

Tip

Tipperary was our first dog, first greyhound, and my heart dog. Although we have had many cats before and after, and many other greyhounds and other dogs since Tipperary, no one will ever fill the hole he left in my heart. He was not perfect, but he was perfect for me.
Tip

Bill and I had cats for many years and were happy with their company. But, our then-eight-year-old daughter, Elisabeth, had been asking for a dog for four years and we thought maybe the time was right.

I had read about greyhounds almost ten years before and thought that they might be the breed for us.

Tip We went out to a local meet and greet to see if we could find a greyhound for us. After meeting the dogs there were two we were interested in – a beautiful brindle boy, and a big black boy. When the big black boy leaned up against me, I was won over.

Tip I was headed off on a two week business trip right after Tipperary arrived, giving him a chance to bond with Bill and Elisabeth. I thought that by the time I got home he’d have forgotten me and become all theirs. Instead I was surprised at how much he had missed me. He had decided that he was my dog and I just would have to accept it.

He didn’t like it when I travelled for my job and always took something of mine to show his displeasure after I returned. He would show me his prize and I would take it back and everything was alright between us again.

Tip Tipperary taught me many things.

One of the first of them was that while most greyhounds love to run some truly love to race. To him every door was a starting gate and every run in the yard was a race. Watching him run in the yard was unique. He would stay just ahead of whomever he was running with, so that he could watch them in his peripheral vision, and us Tip e no more energy than needed to retain his lead. He also taught me that running could be used to assert dominance. When he felt another dog needed a lesson in pack position Tipperary did not tower over them, or growl, or fight – he “strafed” them. His “strafing” was a lot like the aerial dog fighting you see in World War II movies. He would get up to speed and run by whoever he was teaching a lesson, knocking them off balance with his sheer speed.

Tip
The most important lesson I learned from Tipperary is that the bond between animal and human can be strong but not dependent. The cats are always pretty independent and let you know that another human would do as well for them. While I might enjoy their company and they might enjoy mine life would still be good if we were separated. With our other dogs there was always a sense that they needed me. In some way I gave them safety and security that they otherwise would not have had. With Tipperary the bond was different. I never felt like he needed me, but he chose my company over all others. There was a comfort in that which I have never had with any other cat or dog.

I could probably tell little stories about him for hours…

We lost him to the dreaded osteosarcoma when he was only 11 years old. I wish he didn’t get it or that he could have been a survivor of it, but that just wasn’t to be. Truly, it didn’t matter how long we had him it would never have been long enough.

Tipperary (February 18, 1994 – March 29, 2005)