I’m entertaining the idea of adopting a retired (racing) Greyhound.
Should I expect to spend significantly more in vet bills then I would a regular pup of 3 to 4 years old?
My sister has adopted 2 retired greyhounds and I don’t recall her saying anything about their vet bills being any more than any of her other dogs over the years. In fact, her only complaint was how long it took her dogs to figure out how to use the stairs.
Both were very sweet dogs. Well, Otto still is sweet. Max went to his doggie reward some years ago.
My gf’s aunt has had several retired Greyhounds. Her biggest expense is on dental bills. The dogs often need yearly prophylaxis, extractions, etc.
I’ve had retired racing greyhounds since 1993. Their bills are pretty much the same as for any other large dog.
As kayaker says, some of them (just like some people) can have teeth that require more care. We’ve never had a problem with any of ours, though. Brushing their teeth and giving them the right kind of chews can help quite a bit too.
Hip dysplasia is virtually non-existent in greyhounds, so that’s a big plus over labs, goldens, etc.
They are more prone to bone cancer, though - that’s the one big minus health-wise.
My parents adopted a retired greyhound. Sadly he passed two years ago, but great, great dog! Came already fully trained, in 10 years he never barked even once (so not a good watchdog), was always friendly and gentle with my small nieces and nephews, just a great dog all around. If I had the time and space for a dog that big I’d get one in a heartbeat.
I believe we have someone who works in greyhound rescue on the Dope. Checking to see if I remember the user name now. Yep, it’s JcWoman.
Here’s a Thread she started on the topic.
You might want to send her a pm.
Hi! In general the vet bills won’t be any higher than any other dog, with some caveats:
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Racers aren’t bred for any AKC-type conformation but only for speed and “heart”, so they don’t have any physical illnesses or defects resulting from inbreeding. They are outstandingly physically healthy on average because they are athletes.
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On the other hand, they do seem to be prone to bone cancer and that can cost a lot. There’s no test or predictive ability for which dog will have osteo, so it’s a crap shoot. But not every dog gets it.
One thing to know about vetting greyhounds (and any good adoption group will tell you this) is that you should have your dog cared for by a greyhound-savvy vet. They have unique metabolisms and blood chemistry as a result of being bred for racing. Their hearts are almost as large as a human man’s, and their lungs are huge too. At rest their blood pressure and pulse are super low, and when sprinting, their hearts pump like mad to keep those leg muscles oxygenated. That’s normal and correct, but they also put out a lot of the chemical markers for cardiac arrest during a sprint. This special chemistry is normal to them, they’re not actually having a heart attack. But any vet who doesn’t know that greyhounds do this will freak out and try to treat your dog for heart attack. They also tend to have lower thyroid levels than other breeds, so don’t let your dog be incorrectly treated for hypothyroidism.
Ugh, thank you for reminding me to talk about this also. It’s better to brush their teeth instead of letting them go until a yearly dental. Greyhounds are used to being handled by everyone and sundry, so it’s easy to teach them to tolerate having their teeth brushed. I do my dogs every night.
The other reason to not rely on dentals is because they have to have general anesthesia for a dental and you don’t want to do that any more than you absolutely have to. In addition to the normal risks of anesthesia, greyhounds (because of their blood chemistry mentioned above) often have strange responses to the anesthesia. They may spontaneously go hypothermic or other bad reactions, so the vet must be 100% on top of things at all times. Sloppy vets have accidentally killed greyhounds during dentals.
Now, if you know a place that does laser dentals or other methods that don’t require anesthesia, go for it! I very much recommend Dutton Road Veterinary clinic in Philadelphia, they’re co-located with the National Greyhound Adoption Program.
Awesome! JC has joined the thread! 
Thank you to everyone for the input.
Couch potatoes they are, but their athleticism shows up in surprising places. The other day, my husband let our dogs (our female and a foster male) out to pee and when he let them back in again, was greeted by this:
Male foster ran through the door, jumped and pivoted in mid-air to lay a flying hip-check on hubby. He’s a young punk (the dog) and makes us laugh almost daily with antics like that.
Are you working with an adoption group, or getting a dog from a farm or track? If you’re not working with a group who will give you tips and warnings for the early days, I’m happy to do so here.
A friend of the family keeps ex-racer greyhounds, and I once saw two of them off the leash in a large empty field. Bloody hell they were fast - it’s like they were barely touching the ground as they disappeared into the distance. Very sweet, gentle and friendly dogs though, and true to type total couch potatoes as long as they got a bit of a run out every day.
I have a friend big in the racing adoption circles. There agreement is that the dogs are never offleash in a non fenced area. And I don’t think they permit dog parks either. They are fast. They are trained to run. And they don’t usually have a lot of recall.
Very sweet dogs though.
Our current hound will be 13 next week.
He still runs in our yard almost every day, and likes to play chicken with me.
Yeah, osteosarcoma ain’t no joke. I’ve rescued several over the decades and lost one to it.
Greyhounds are preternaturally healthy dogs because, as mentioned upthread, if they show any abnormalities at all they tend to be culled and not bred. Do that for 50+ years and you’ll be astonished at how healthy the gene pool is.
This does show one issue, though. Unlike most big dogs, the odd greyhound can live a long time (I had two that made it to 14) and that can run up the cost late in life. But that’s a small price to pay for some of the most laid back, easy-going dogs ever.
On the other end, my late brother in law had maybe fifteen greyhounds over the course of fifteen years (he sometimes had three at a time). Some of them wouldn’t arrive until after a racing or breeding career - and so each dog would be with him for a relatively short time.
With a few exceptions (a few puppies who won’t be racers, dogs who are injured early), you are adopting a middle age dog - it isn’t unusual for the dog to be six or seven years old. So while they could live another seven or eight years, it seems like the modal experience (and this is from observation of my brother in law and my friend) is more around having them four or five years).
That also means that if you are diligent in vet care, you are adopting a Senior dog - blood work every six months rather than once a year. It isn’t a ton of additional expense, but its some.
They are awesome dogs, and if you want a more mature dog - its perfect - but both my brother in law and friend have (had) a lot of heartbreak watching dogs die.
(I agree on the teeth thing. If there is one thing I’d change about greyhounds is that during their racing career they’d get their teeth brushed! Every single one of my friend’s and brother in laws dogs had horrible breath - and tooth issues.)
I like to say that they levitate and spin the earth under them. Here’s a gorgeous slow motion video for your delectation:
And a similar one, front view and alternates between slow motion and real time:
Ah yes, the Game of Chicken is something to warn newbies about. Greyhounds are still dogs and have a mischievous sense of humor. Which means that if they’re in a yard large enough to run (we call them zoomies) and see you out there, they love to run straight at you and veer off at literally the last second. It can look like you’re about to be hit by a train. Protip: stand still. If you move, there’s a chance the dog will veer off in the same direction and collide with you. It’s safer to just stand there and let him veer around a stationary object (you).
It varies from time to time, but lately I’ve been seeing more younger dogs being retired/adopted. They have lots of dogs that just don’t even pass the muster in schooling races, so those get adopted at 1.5 years old. Been seeing more of those than older dogs. YMMV.
Ours are a twelve year old female and an eleven year old male. Very healthy and always have been.
Overall very healthy. Greyhound mouth is however a real thing. The boy came that way and has had foul breath with chronic gingivitis forever no matter how often I brush his teeth while the girl is fine no matter how much I ignore her mouth. She’s needed hardly any dental cleanings; during his last dental he had ten teeth that had to go. Snaggletooth now. Fits his personality.
She had raced a long time, has some arthritis now, and is on Rimadyl chronically for pain relief. Her only other thing though was a broken toe from running in the yard that ended up needing to be amputated. Has not bothered her.
He’s been more prone to anxiety and is on fluoxetine chronically. Has been for years. He’s younger but we had him longer as his racing career was like one or two races - no focus!
She we got after she bounced from another household as she could not handle being left alone at home. With housemate dogs (when we got her we also had a whippet who died last year at 16) she’s been great. The classic elegant lady greyhound. Refined and calm.
Just additional anecdotes.
Yeah, if I wind up adopting, it will be from a Greyhound rescue agency.
Curious though, I was glancing over their online application. One of the questions asked was if I had a staircase in my home. Do Greyhounds have an aversion to stairs or something?
They don’t encounter stairs in their racing lives, so often they need to be taught to go up and down stairs.
Some agencies that use foster families for dogs coming in to their program will have the family teach the dog to do this, but others may not have the time/resources/setup to do it, so whether your home has stairs or not is an important piece of info for them.
Most of them have never seen a staircase before, have no idea how to negotiate one, and have an unfortunate tendency to try to jump to the bottom in a single bound, similar to how they jump out of their kennels.