Not Your Wolf: My Greyhound
When I was a child. I was told that a dog is “merely” a domesticated wolf. A wolf we bred this way and that, for this need or want, until we had hundreds of breeds for every need. We made dogs.
As time progressed, the dogs became increasingly different from the wolves they descended from; even as the modern grey wolf also adapted to a changing environment. The end result: Dogs are to wolves what humans are to chimpanzees and bonobos. Sure, they might be similar in many ways, but they also differ in many aspects, such as dietary needs & ability to digest starches, growth & ‘fear’ periods, social structures, and the ability to look to humans for help and cooperation.
Among those early dogs was the prototypical sighthound: the greyhound. A dog that can be easily recognized in thousands of years of art. You can easily find the long-nosed dog, with delicate back-slicked ears, a deep rib cage, long legs, and a whip-like tail. These dogs are made for speed; bested only by the cheetah; an animal with which they share a ground-eating, double-suspension run. The focus on running has impacted everything from their sleek looks and running style to the results of various blood tests.
As a child, and avid reader, I had wanted a wolf for my first “dog”. I read everything I could about wolves in the wild, and naively assumed I could handle a wolf with a mere copy of Of Wolves and Men! My mother, luckily, did not let this plan for a ‘pet’ wolf come to fruition and got the family a more mundane dog.
Eventually, the time came for a dog of my own. After much research, I ended up with not a wolf, but a greyhound. Instead of traveling 30 miles a day in search of food, my dog would run in 40 mph bursts of play, between sedate walks and long naps with legs sticking out in odd directions that folks call “roaching”. While wolves howl and greyhounds roo, my boy merely looks on with a look of bored disappointment, as if ashamed of the ruckus some of his peers can make. To protect his paws, with their thin pads, he often wears boots; and in the winter he wears a coat — something I can’t imagine a wolf doing, or needing. But like the wolf, he was raised with his family, surrounded by a pack and almost never alone. He gets a mischevious twinkle in his expressive eyes when he sees rabbits or other prey animals, and I have no doubt he could catch one with or without aid.
Over the years I’ve read a great many books, about wolves and dogs and many, many different animals, and learned many things that’s proven common knowledge if not wrong, then woefully oversimplified.
Yes, my greyhound may be a wolf: but not as you know it. He carries in him the DNA traces of extinct canids, molded by selective breeding and environment and thousands of years of life with people who wanted a speedy hunter and a keen companion, well-adapted to modern life. A grey wolf would be bored to distraction and cramped in an apartment. A greyhound, with a pile of blankets and a selection of toys to ignore or throw at whim, is fine.
