Thursday, April 15, 2004
Gentle, lazy speed demons
Greyhounds are shy, smart, easygoing dogs
VICTORIA ALDRICH
The Daytona Beach News-Journal
STAFF WRITER
| News-Journal photos by Joanna Kaney Olivari  Kathleen Gilley encourages her retired greyhound, Chey, 8, as she jumps over Safire, 9, Mist, 6, Beauty, 6, and K.C, 4, during the sixth annual Greyhound Reunion and Fun Day at the Daytona Beach Kennel Club in Daytona Beach last week. The dogs are the Dancing Greyhounds owned by Gil and Kathleen Gilley, who travel the United States with their act.  Christina Shenbanjo, 12, of South Daytona, wraps her greyhound, Molly, in toilet paper during the toilet paper wrap at the Daytona Beach Kennel Club. The toilet paper wrap was one of a dozen greyhound games played.
 From left, Lee Belanger's retired greyhounds Pippy, 9, Chick, 10, Katy and Belmount, both 11 years old, enjoy the sixth annual Greyhound Renuion and Fun Day at the Daytona Beach Kennel Club last week.
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Greyhound burning up the track defines “dogged determination” but, in the car, the wiry dogs curl up and become as shy as housecats, according to Gil Gilley.
Gilley and his wife, Kathleen, crisscross the country 10 months a year in a mobile home they’ve converted to an educational mobile with six of the gentle giants, who perform as Gilley’s Girls Greyhound Drill Team.
Formed in 1996 to promote the adoption of retired racing dogs, the team performed April 4 at the Daytona Beach Kennel Club during the Greyhound Pets of America Daytona Beach chapter’s annual Greyhound Reunion and Fun Day.
“They are so easygoing. We start the engine and they lay down and go to sleep,” Gil Gilley said. “They are cat-like. They’ll play with us but not each other.”
The slinky dogs can stand 30 inches at the shoulder and weigh 85 pounds but they dance and jump through hoops like graceful felines, stunts Gilley said they improvise themselves.
Safire leapfrogs over the other dogs while K.C.’s specialty is “The Porpoise.”
“We’re going along on a morning walk and she jumps straight up about 4 feet into the air with her feet pointing down, just like a porpoise jumping out of the water. We put that in the act,” Gilley said. “They know when we are going to a show and they get excited.
“Every show is different, it depends on what they want to do. They’re off leash, we don’t force them to do anything. You find out what they like to do and you praise them for it when they do it.
“When the audience is laughing and clapping, they put on quite a show but, if the audience is really reserved and quiet, they just want to go home," Gilley said. "Greyhounds want to please everyone. They're very agile. They're everything a dog should be."
Docility and speed were traits prized by ancient Middle Eastern hunters, who bred the ancestors of modern racing hounds to hunt stags and other large prey, depicted in Turkish temple drawings dating to 6,000 B.C. Revered in ancient Egypt, the breed neared extinction in the Middle Ages and was revived by European monks, who bred them for the European nobility.
You don't have to be a queen to own one now but you do need patience to teach a "45-mile-an-hour coach potato" to live in a home, according to GPA chapter vice president Sheila Hancock. She explained that they sleep up to 18 hours a day, living in kennels and crates before retiring around age 5.
"They don't shed much or run around much. If you have a couch, you have enough room for a greyhound. They are more of a companion animal than a pet. They don't want to fetch a stick, they just want to be with you."
GPA does not euthanize healthy but aging ex-racers, a stance that attracted current chapter president Chris Miller to the group when she came here from Hawaii, where she had served with a successful feline rescue program.
She said that placing an older dog is hard, since they can suffer costly health problems and work-related injuries, something she knows from experience. She has two, a male with heart problems and a female that is undergoing hydrotherapy to treat severe leg fractures. It's been worth every penny to her.
"They're like children, they all have different temperaments and personalities. Greyhounds are one of the most sensitive breeds out there. You can melt one of these dogs just by crossing your arms and looking hard at them."
In the last year, the chapter has adopted out 500 dogs and has 200 awaiting placement, more than triple the normal number at this time of year. Miller said she's lost sleep recently worrying, since some team sponsors didn't renew their kennel leases this month at the track, leaving only 10 kennels available instead of 18 but the track's management stepped up to provide some extra living space.
"We didn't have to turn down a single dog," Miller said.
In their native Panama, the Gilleys trained large breeds including Pharaoh hounds, St. Bernards, Newfoundlands and Afghans for 15 years before retiring stateside in 1989. In 1992, they adopted their first greyhound in Iowa after seeing an ad for retired racing dogs.
Supported only by Gil Gilley's pension, they travel at their own expense to animal awareness events around the country, plus nursing homes, prisons, juvenile detention facilities and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, their favorite place.
"The dogs stay in a group when they're older, they don't retire. We suit them up and take them out and let them get jumped over and participate in the act. They want to stay active, it's their job."
The trips also give Kathleen Gilley a chance to discuss non-violent dog training techniques through personal instruction and on their Web site, www.geocities.com/Petsburgh/8332.
"She talks dog, and dogs understand and bond with her," Gil Gilley said. "In Panama, we trained some pretty mean dogs but she never had a problem with them. It's a respect thing."
Did You Know?
The ancient sport of coursing — where a dog chases a game animal — was the precursor to the sport of greyhound racing.
* Greyhounds have long been a favorite among nobility — in fact, commoners in medieval England were forbidden to own greyhounds.
* Greyhounds have exceptional vision and speed — they’re able to run up to 45 miles an hour — but do not have a keen sense of smell.
* The first artificial lure in greyhound racing was used in England in 1876.
* The first Florida greyhound racing track was built in 1922 in Humbuggus — now known as Hialeah.
* Greyhound racing grew in popularity when parimutuel betting was legalized in Florida in 1932.
* In America, 46 greyhound tracks are in 15 states.
SOURCES:www.gra-america.org, Encyclopedia of World Sport
— Compiled bynews researcher Karen Duffy
Serial story: THE MOUSE AND THE MOTORCYCLE