The funeral for Greyhound lover and coursing enthusiast Clarissa Dickson-Wright was held in Edinburgh, Scotland today. I have been reading her book Rifling Through My Drawers, which is a sequel of sorts to her autobiography. I came across this passage about her favorite Greyhound, and the story she tells put me in mind of the extra time we were able to give Admiral. I hope you enjoy it: I had an interesting and entertaining day with my fifteen farmers and received a delightful present from Mark Adams for my pains. He collects meat skewers and has an interesting array of all different shapes and sizes and ages, but the one he gave me, which was presumably for cooking hare, was a small game skewer with a Greyhound running along the top. Coming back to Greyhounds, March of this year will always remain for me Sonic’s extra month. Those of you who have read my “Clarissa’s Comfort Food” will perhaps have noticed that it is dedicated to a Greyhound named Sonic. Her running name was Holyground Girl and in 1999 she won the Anglia Cup and three weeks later went to the Waterloo Cup where she was sadly knocked out in one of the earlier rounds, but she was, I think, the dog I loved most all my life. She didn’t belong to me unfortunately, but to my friend, Sally Merison. She was the most enchanting dog: witty, soft, consoling, and at this point very consoling, because I was as still struggling to write “Comfort Food” and, not having a kitchen as you know, I went to Sally’s to practise recipes. I don’t say invent, because most of the recipes in that book I had already invented years before. Sonic’s only vice to my mind was that she was a thief; most Greyhounds are thieves, most lurchers are thieves too, probably through their Greyhound blood, but she was one par excellence. She could whip a pheasant with all its feathers on off a table and when you turned again she had plucked the bird and was happily eating it. At my sixtieth birthday party she sneaked through the crowds waiting to hurl themselves at the buffet and was seen bearing off a very splendid steak. This was particularly amazing because she had no teeth. They had been removed earlier for her own good to prevent further infection and it was amazing what she could do without teeth. Devour a hamburger in its bun, for instance. Anyway, Sonic’s place was on a bed under the kitchen window. If she wasn’t outside, happily wagging her tail and barking greetings at passers-by in this fairly remote part of the country, she was sleeping peacefully on her bed. By now she’d become an old dog and Sally had made the decision that the time had come to send her to the heavenly coursing fields in the sky. So we were sitting around rather glumly because the vet was coming the next day, but Sonic, being unaware of this, was quite happy. She had lost condition because she had cut her foot which had got infected and hadn’t responded to antibiotics and although it had healed up, she’d become very lame. Sally took her up the river for one last walk before the vet was due and because she was so lame didn’t put her on lead. At this point, a roe deer got in front of her, and off went Sonic up the towpath in hot pursuit, moving as lithely and enthusiastically as she had in her running days. Sally came back and told me this and I said, ‘For heaven’s sake, ring the vet.’ So she rang the vet who said, ‘Well, we won’t do it today then, will we.” And Sally collected some painkillers, and Sonic had an extra month where she was incredibly well and energized and flirty and silly, back to her old self and playing with her little friend, Kipper. Sonic was not only a prize-winning Greyhound, she was also the mother of, in total, twelve pups but in one litter she produced ten. They all lived and she actually grew a pair of extra nipples in order to feed them. I think by the time they went to their various homes she was quite glad to see the back of them, but she was the most brilliant mother and the pups had a wonderful time, running riot all over Sally’s paddock and garden. Anyway, Sonic had a lovely extra month. She was much spoiled by Sally and myself and given all sorts of nice things to eat and on 24 April she went to her rest; it was a great privilege to have known her, and she runs through my dreams. If you have the room, and you really don’t need too much room, Greyhounds make the most perfect house pets. Contrary to expectations, they don’t need a large amount of exercise: one good walk a day is quite enough. And having been bred for the great Halls, they’re happy to sit or lie around all day greeting visitors. They have excellent people skills and they look sufficiently alarming to scare people off with a surprising deep bark. Coursing Greyhounds tend to be re-homed either with their owners or with their owners’ friends but the racing world produces quite a large surplus of Greyhounds so if you’re looking for a dog, get on to one of the Greyhound re-homing centres and treat yourself to the company of one of these charming dogs.
Posted on: Tue, 08 Apr 2014 01:34:12 +0000
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