Fixpert

Pizza was picked up as a stray, so I don’t know for sure what kind of dog he is. I’ve been told that he looks just like a whippet from the neck down, including his brindel coat. After hearing this, I did a bit of research on the breed. Whippets are apparently the fastest animal of that size on the planet. They can get up to 35 mph in a few seconds. This would explain a few things as far as Pizza is concerned.

It’s tough to tire him out, he won’t even pant after you take him out on a 3 mile run. The best exercise he gets is either chasing us on mountain bikes — long fast descents down mountains — or letting him chase deer. Luckily, I sort of live in the woods, and there is a large trail network behind my house. Until recently, we would let Pizza out into the woods and if he disappeared for 30 minutes after some deer, he would always return to the back door of our house happy and exhausted — no big deal.

But, last week Pizza caught a deer! Pizza is not a large dog, he’s 45 lbs. and the adolescent deer certainly outsized him. Poor Jim was there to see this whole thing go down (I was not). It was 30 minutes or so of Pizza chasing the deer down, tackling him, biting him a bit, then the deer would run away and Pizza would chase him down again. This went on until the deer was exhausted and either gave up or tried to play dead. Eventually, Jim was able to grab Pizza and tie him up, and when he returned to check on the deer it was gone, so presumably it was ok. Bambi lives on.

We’re still reeling, and we don’t really know what to make of this. Our dog is fast enough to catch deer! I’ve only had retrievers in the past, they generally enjoy chasing squirrels but are not terribly fast, and will even back off sometimes if they have the opportunity to catch something. So, we’re still looking for ways to run Pizza and tire him out, but maybe without putting Bambi at risk — anyone know how to exercise faster breeds like Greyhounds or Whippets?