Quote:
Originally Posted by BlueStreak
Beautiful dog, John. And YES they do love to run. A friend of mine has an Italian Greyhound, the compact version. That dog is incredibly high strung. I thought my Dals were hyper until I met "Vinny the Rocket", Good God!
Dave
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Yeah, Dalmatians are real athletes too. Running mile after mile beside the master's carriage takes a hell of a dog. I've always liked them but sighthounds like whippets, greyhounds, borzois and the like are pretty special to me.
IGs are wound pretty tight. Race bred whippets and greyhounds, on the other hand, are very laid back unless there's something to chase. Then all bets are off.
When Chuk was racing I used to take him and the rest (I had 5 dogs then) out to a disused naval station here, (Skaggs Island, old ULF comm site and monitoring station for whatever the Pacific counterpart to the SOSUS net was). Acres and acres of nothing but weeds and jackrabbits.
One spot was a huge field surrounded by tidal sloughs (which made it escape proof. Chuk would take off running full speed, tearing all over the place, veering left and right chasing imaginary animals (or birds) until he got all the way to the far end, well over a mile away. Then he would spin around on his hind legs four, five, six times and run all the way back. It was more a less a ritual. The look on his face when he got back was priceless.
That naval base was a dog freak's dream. The dogs could range across hundreds and hundreds of acres but were still confined. I used to take my 12x binocs with me just so I could keep track of him and the rest of the pack. It was good for me too since I'd go out 3 or 4 times a week. I'd end up walking 3, 4, 10 miles each day. Great for the old waist line!
John