Hi Everyone.I've been thinking about adopting a greyhound for awhile now but always thought that my life/work situation wouldn't be fair for adopting a greyhound(or any dog for that matter).Then I thought well maybe my situation isn't all that unfair if these greyhounds are needing a new home.Here's a quick run down of my situation and of what I could offer to a greyhound looking for a new home.
I live on my own in a medium sized house with a small garden and have a job working from Mon -Fri from 430pm until 1230am (8hours).Usually I am home for 1am.I sleep until 9am in the morning. The time I could spend with the greyhound would be from 9am until 4pm and from when I came home at 1am Mon to Fri and at weekends I would be free to be with the dog. I also have 5 weeks off per year.I have two kids aged 8 and 9 whom I see every second weekend, they would like for me to get a greyhound and so would I but I've always said to them that I didn't think I would have the time due to my work(as above)and sleep off course.I have owned high energy dogs in the past but always with someone looking after the dogs at night time.
I've read that greyhounds don't need as much exercise as other dogs but not sure how they would cope being on they're own for the period that I would be at work(and sleep). Would a greyhound being left on it's own for long periods be detrimental to it's well being? Is my situation if I adopted a rescue dog worse than the way they are the moment?(By the way I'm not saying the dogs are being ill treated, I can see they are being well looked after). I would appreciate any advice from knowledgable greyhound owners if it would be possible to adopt a greyhound as I would not want to make a mistake of adopting a dog that would not be happy in my environment.
The two things that I would comment on would be as follows;
1 - if you're out at work at 4:00pm your dog will be having an early dinner, although I'm sure they would adjust to a new routine
2 - leaving the dog shut in your house from 4:00pm til 1:00am is a long, long time. I reckon the probability of returning to an 'accident' or two on a daily basis would be pretty high which won't be much fun for you to deal with, and will distress your dog because they do not like it either. If you have a reliable neighbour who could help out while you're out at work then that would be another matter.
I think your best bet would be to call Celia and have a good chat.
Hi Steve, thanks for the advice....yeah i think it would be unfair to keep a dog for that length of time in the house. I think my heart was ruling my head there for awhile.Hopefully in the future my situation will change and I'll give Celia a call.
Take care of your dogs everyone, you don't know how lucky you are!!!
