The Retired Racing Greyhound Who Taught Me to Slow Down

The foster coordinator handed me Arrow's leash and said, "He's very low-maintenance. Greyhounds are basically cats in dog suits."

I nodded politely. I assumed she was managing my expectations.

She was not managing my expectations. She was telling me the exact truth.

Greyhounds are the fastest land animal after the cheetah. They can hit 45 miles per hour. Arrow walked into my apartment, surveyed the situation, and located the longest couch with the precision of an animal who has been planning this moment his entire career.

He slept for 14 hours on day one.

This is, apparently, completely normal. Racing Greyhounds spend most of their lives in kennels with short, intense bursts of activity. Retirement means the opposite: slow days, soft beds, and warmth. Arrow had never been in a house before. The carpet confused him. Stairs took two weeks to master. He had never seen a television.

Two 20-minute walks per day. That was it. No marathons, no dog parks (Greyhounds have low body fat and thin skin — rough play with other dogs is risky), no backyard fetch sessions.

What he did need: a warm coat in winter (that thin skin again), a muzzle for off-leash areas until his prey drive around small animals was assessed, and patience while he learned what a normal domestic life looked like.

He figured it out faster than I expected. Within a month, he was soliciting ear rubs, learning to navigate the kitchen without knocking anything over, and sleeping in increasingly inventive positions.

I adopted Arrow during a period when I was working 60-hour weeks and moving at a pace that wasn't sustainable. Arrow required nothing from me except presence. He didn't need activities or enrichment or stimulation. He needed me to sit down.

I sat down more in Arrow's first year than in the three years before it.

He is four years old now and appears to have no memory of his racing career. He has, however, developed very strong opinions about which throw blanket belongs to him.

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*Retired racing Greyhounds make exceptional apartment dogs. Many breed-specific rescues have dogs available across the country.*