I want to get a dog but I have to work, how does everyone on broadway market do it ?

Thanks everyone, Bosco was a little hyped up last night, likely because he ate 2 slices of white bread as well as the errant chicken wing bones.
Slept through the night without incident and leapt on the bed to wake me up with a lick in the mouth, so safe to say no ill affects from his contraband snack.

Having spend £££ on our old pup, we get very worried about how quickly vets bills can escalate.
(and that was with a decent insurance policy)}
as well as the trauma for him to have surgery, etc.

Would rather be worried over nothing than blasé about something serious though.

Good to hear Bosco is fine.

I just found a lost puppy on the main road. Beautiful black labrador with no collar, and it didn't run away, though it was clearly scared. Annoyingly, I was walking my mate's dog, which eats puppies, but despite him being a dick, I was able to get it to stay. It was right by the hairdresser, and they were happy to take it in until the owner turned up.

It's a lovely dog in great condition, so doubt it was abandoned. Reckon it slipped its collar and ran off. Hopefully its owners will turn up soon, they'll be beside themselves.

They are wee bastards for eating stuff they shouldn't. Hope he was ok

This is one of Crumpet's friends, Samson. He's been with a foster family for nearly a year now. He's extremely sweet and calm, we'd have snapped him up months ago if we had the space for him, he's an absolute whopper. It's a shame we'll never be able to afford anywhere in London big enough for a combined 70+kg of dogs. Look at those eyes! Not really much point to this post, I just love Samson.

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For a few years I've been thinking of getting a whippet/greyhound, then lockdown happened and just wanted to see how things panned out in terms of days in the office. Yesterday my partner and I went to an open day at a rescue centre for retired racing greyhounds.

There must have been around 40/50 dogs all mixing and they were all so well behaved, couldn't believe it. We took a big male out (40kg) and he was pulling on the lead a bit, but seemed to get better over time. The open day was so busy, and primarily like an excuse for owners to have a reunion, so will make an appointment when the staff have more time to talk.

Would like to get one soon but have a feeling our garden isn't quite secure enough, so could be a good push to get it sorted sooner than later. We also have some tennis courts very close so could be a good place to practice recall and play initially?

Excellent idea.

Re recall, with Greyhounds I doubt you'd ever have them off the lead in public, although I have seen a couple. Instead of tennis courts look for a secure dog paddock near you, I'm in the middle of no where and there is loads. It's possible you may need to muzzle depending on which lucky pup you take home. I love greyhounds, we ended up with a Whippet due to size, he's ok off the lead but his prey drive is only for balls and some birds.

My brother has an ex-racing greyhound (well, never made it as he was too big for the traps, he is a slimmed down 48kg these days, was hencher BITD)
Has 1 confirmed kill from a garden invader and 1 attempted out on a walk (on lead)

They are trained to chase small furry things, ignoring noise, so recall will be a massive uphill battle (bordering on the impossible)

Re recall, with Greyhounds I doubt you'd ever have them off the lead in public, although I have seen a couple.

The couple you have seen might not have been racing dogs. If you adopt a retired racer you basically have to accept the dog had no recall training when it was a pup.

As I understand it, a greyhound raised and trained from a puppy would probably end up with similar recall to a whippet. I.e pretty good unless there's a squirrel, cat, rabbit, deer or fox involved. Ex racer? No chance.

My lurcher Pheobe wasn’t impressed with the train. I wasn’t impressed with the vet bill, £250 for a cell sample from a growth.

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We have had several retired greyhounds over the years. So long as they can have a good run about somewhere safe every so often they are happy with on lead walks - like all dogs they get a lot out of just sniffing about.

They really do make great pets

As Haggis said Whippets prey drive is generally a little milder. With greyhounds especially ex racers trained to go after something small and furry will always have that in them. We love sighthounds and will always have them. We have a 3 1/2 year old male Saluki (un neutered) and we have worked on loads of recall in the home and in enclosed spaces and his recall great in most scenarios like calling to come indoors from the garden or getting him in close if dogs, horses, cyclists, vehicles or whatever are approaching this works 9/10 times in these scenarios but a cat, squirrel or rabbit he will fuck straight off at 40mph no matter what obstacles or hazards are in the way totally focused on the chase and totally deaf to whatever we are trying until he's satisfied one way or another. We have a gps tracker soon the odd occasion he shoots off i forget the recall attempts and i just go straight after him but i can't run at 40mph so there's usually a 2-5 min lag before i catch up with him so there's always the worry about what happens in that time frame. We meet loads of other sighthound owners out and they all say the same or worse . A 40kg greyhound is a big powerful dog with the potential to be a physical handful and a full on introduction to sighthound ownership. Any lurcher/long dog cross will be a fair bit smaller and physically more manageable. Whippets do seem generally more physically manageable and trainable. If you make the right choice they are the best dogs i am biased though but do be aware of what you'll letting yourself in for especially if you get a biggun.

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Can only echo what's been said re recall. Daisy (lurcher/alsation cross) is pretty good on the whole, regularly impressing other dog owners but there have been a few occasions lately when she's taken herself off nothing would tell her otherwise.
Also be careful with play on hard surfaces - dogs move fast and slow down fast and can skin their pads on their paws really easily. Enclosed dog parks are much better.

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prey drive

Saluki/greyhound lurcher thing attempting to chase a barn owl last week:

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Does anyone use a gps dog tracker. As Sidney is inevitably going to be fully blind in the next few months and is already rather deaf it would be good to be able to find him if he goes roaming. He is very used to having a large fenced area of woodland that he can spend hours in. Even over the last week he has rapidly developed a new sensory map of his environment and is becoming increasingly confident and independent and we would like him to have as much freedom as possible.

I've got a dog trace x20 and it's been great i always recommended it but it's the full monty quite expensive and probably more than you'll need
https://www.electric-fence.co.uk/dogtrace-gps-x20-professional-dog-tracker-for-hunters-orange.html

Did they come pick it up?
Suspense is killing me.
Recently I'd been going through a spate of finding lost dogs, 1 lab that had wandered out of its home without the owners seeming to notice (and was barking its little head off in the middle of a street), one that had lost its owner several fields back on the common (which my dog then chased for good measure) , and one somewhere in the middle of Richmond park (I can only assume after trying to replicate Fenton).
All quite quick returns, tbh, but a concerning trend.

We're on the cusp of getting another currently, whilst Dora has a sizeable , likely sialocele(hopefully) which makes her look a bit silly- awaiting for definitive biopsy results for the next step.

I was looking at one called tractive but when you pay the subscription it becomes quite expensive.

Thanks for all the really helpful info!

We came to the conclusion yesterday an ex-racer is okay for us, but Charlie the 40kg chunk we walked, might not be the one. Even with his injured paw I can imagine it's a terrifying experience when 'launch mode' is enabled. Have to think of Mrs Jambon!

The rescue centre we visited makes it clear a lot of dogs shouldn't be taken off the lead so was partly aware of this, thanks for all the views. We're both really excited about getting a rescue but want it to work, so will most likely wait a few weeks when the house is a bit more calm and revisit. Driving home from the kennels the calm feeling they gave us was really surprising, don't think I've ever said that when surrounding by 50 dogs!

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it's the full monty quite expensive and probably more than you'll need

Sounds right up his street.

A local to me has a saluki/whippet and she's the best, perfect recall, plays nicely with dogs of all sizes, just wants to run big circles at 100mph then lie down. Also amazingly soft fur.

The boys are in our experience easier in a lot of ways, so don't necessarily be put of a (big) boy. The are very often just big loveable idiots

Thank you, I'd read a few descriptions of the bigger hounds available along these lines. Never having grown up with a dog I was just catious but really appreciate the info.

Tractive is high on our list. We don’t have kids so are pretty willing to go full golf club to give our dogs the best quality of life. When we moved out of London the dogs needs were a primary motivation and this hasn’t changed.

Did they come pick it up?

Yes, fortunately the same afternoon - and I just bumped into it at lunchtime today! It was with their dog walker, who was completely unaware of the weekend's shenanigans. Now sporting a collar and a harness, and seemingly none the worse for the experience.