How Queenie found her Woof

Diane hugged Queenie before we took her away.  - ‘So Queenie are you going to be a mouse?’ asked Diane, as our new dog stood rather timidly in the kennels which had been her home for only a few days

Indeed she was a bit of a mouse; tiptoeing about with her head held a little low with not a lot of eye contact. No signs of abuse thank God, but although she was eager to please, she was a bit unsure how to go about it 

Queenie was theoretically ‘on loan’ because Val has a history of allergies, and as a result we hadn’t had a furry animal larger than a hamster in the house for years. An afternoon’s exposure to Diane’s crew hadn’t resulted in any ill effects, so we had taken a chance on adopting a greyhound. It seems we were in luck, as the days went by without sneezing and wheezing, and we realised we could keep her.

Giving her up would have been a real struggle because, mouse or no mouse, Queenie had, in that miraculous way we owners have all found, landed ever so gently in our hearts and was now firmly part of our lives.

Through her ear tattoos, we found out she was 5 years old, and could be tracked back to 1788 in the greyhound genealogical data base. She had been placed in a few races, ended up in this country and had had a hysterectomy after an unsuccessful stint as a breeding bitch.

We very soon realised that Queenie was not going to be a bouncy dog. She gained in confidence, but play was a mystery to her. Roll a ball at her and she ran away. Throw a Frisbee and she watched it. Run around on the lawn, and she lay down. She was also totally silent (apart from a yelp if a paw got stood on) and we got used to the fact that she never barked – she had no ‘woof’.

Her normal pace was a reluctant amble. We knew she could run - and she certainly would if we let her go in one of the fenced fields around our house where rabbits were plentiful, but we soon found she had a tendency to cut her feet if allowed to run free. Road work seemed hard on her feet as well, and made her limp.

After a couple of months of ownership, we got into the habit of driving a few hundred yards over the main road to an ‘amenity field’. This was around twenty acres which had been set-aside, then had been planted with conifers and deciduous trees which are now two to six feet high.

To encourage public use, the farmer had mowed grass paths alongside the trees, and opened up some areas into lawns with picnic benches. The grass was easy on the paws and Queenie startled and delighted us by running at high speed in large circles, coming back after a couple of minutes, exhausted but pleased with herself.

One day a friend of our was round with her two spaniels, who Queenie knew and had accepted, though without much visible signs of enthusiasm. Deciding take the dogs out, we loaded up the car and headed to our preferred field. We piled out of the car, opened the gate, let the dogs off the leads and began to walk up the path.

Suddenly Queenie bounced around the other two dogs, going into a ‘lets play’ bow, running away and running back, barking and barking. With dropping jaws we watched this sudden change in behaviour – Queenie was ‘saying’ quite obviously “Hey look at this place of mine - isn’t it great – look you can run around - come on give it a go – lets play”.

So Queenie found her woof at last. She doesn’t use it much – well when you’re sleeping 22 hours a day and trying to hypnotise food off other peoples plates for the remaining time – there’s not much time for barking. But at least we know she can.