Mad Running

Being a Saluki/Greyhound mix Henry is a fast dog. In fact everything he does seems to be at 100mph, eating, chewing a dog chew, moving round the house, exploring the garden.

Another thing about being a Saluki/Grehound mix is that Salukis are renound for not coming back if they get off the lead. Fergus was the worst for this, for fourteen years I took him about on extender leads, learned how to build dog proof fences and stressed like mad everytime we had visitors in case they left the front door on the latch. He absolutely refused to come back, in fact I found out that he could run at 42mph by chasing him up the road in my car (probably a rather dangerous thing to do but at the time that was the only thing I could do to get him back as I'd open the back door and he always jumped in to be chauffered home). I did try, and try and try to be able to let him off, even paying a proffesional dog trainer £30 and hour but in the end after spending half an afternoon trying to persuade him to come back from chasing the rabbits on a railway line I gave up.

So, as the lovely lady who runs the local dog training club where I take Henry says 'You pass your mistakes from your first dog onto your second dog' and what a true saying that is. I know Henry isn't my second dog, he is actually my third after Fergus but he is my second Saluki mix and most of the time it's like having Fergus around all over again. But I just can't summon the courage to let him off the lead.

Every time Henry escapes I feel the old panic rise inside me, it's like a terror that's very hard to control and if people knew how scared I feel they would lock me up! But I have to say that Henry has always come back, even the time that I didn't even realise he'd escaped (by squeezing himself through a square of stock fencing and nearly castrating himself all over again) he came back so why do I worry so much.

So imagine how I felt yesterday. We took the dogs up into the forest for a nice long walk. It was a lovely day, the sun was shining and everywhere was covered in snow. It really looked like a Christmas Card, especially the snow that was stuck to the pine trees.

As we were walking along a deer bounced accross the track. This was excellent to see as we'd seen deer the day before as well. But of course Henry and Molly went absolutely mad and when that happens they are a bit hard to control. Henry was doing his usual howling bark and started to jump about trying really hard to get out of his harness, he's actually so bendy and bright that he knows how to get his front legs out of the harness so we've had to link the harness to his collar so that it's impossible for him to get out of both.

Well yesterday that theory failed. Henry struggled and bended and pulled and jumped, all at the end of his long extender lead so there was very little we could do from 25 feet away and he managed to wriggle out of his harness and then yanked his head out of his collar.

And he was off up the track.

At 100mph.

And I was having a heart attack.

It was bad enough that he was off the lead but pine forests are planted really densely so I knew that if Henry ran into the trees I'd have very little chance of ever seeing him again and he'd probably end up getting shot by a game keeper or injured and we'd never find him as the forest is literally miles big.

Other Half and myself started yelling at Henry to come back, hoping against hope that he wouldn't run into the trees which so far he hadn't done. But he wouldn't come back, he just kept running about like a mad thing but staying a fair distance away from us.

Then he did it. He ran into the trees and my heart dropped.

I actually threw my arms in the air and turned around thinking this was it. We'd have to walk home with just two dogs and wonder forever what happened to Henry.

But then Henry re-appeared. And started to run towards us and I though it was all over and he was coming back but no, he scooted round and ran further down the track and then over the brow of the hill and once again disappeared.

So I shouted at Other Half, blaming him for all this which wasn't really fair so Other Half shouted back at me and the I realised this wasn't really getting us very far so I started sprinting up the track trying to catch up with Henry or at least try to see if I could see him.

And once again Henry re-appeared, over the brow of the hill doing probably more than 100mph, with his head down and his legs going so fast they were a blur, and best of all he had a big doggie grin all over his face.

He ran towards Other Half who managed to grab him, but then he let him go and Henry actually just stood there while I (by now a snivelling but happy wreck) put his harness and collar back on.

So it goes to prove that my lovely dog training lady is right, you shouldn't pass the mistakes you make with your first dog onto your second dog, even if they are a Saluki mix.

And I'm going to get really brave and find a field with a big fence and try letting Henry off the lead so he can run. After all he was built to run.