My Gear

Padded leather half-check collar

A sighthound’s head is narrower than its neck, so an ordinary collar comes off over the ears on exactly the day you cannot afford it. A half-check, or martingale, closes just enough under tension to stay on and cannot fully choke. Sits high on the neck, two fingers flat underneath when the dog is relaxed.

Hand-stitched double-ply leather on a solid chrome chain. The 16 inch fits a 12 to 14 inch neck, the 18 inch fits 14 to 16, which covers most greyhounds.

Short traffic lead

Eighteen inches with a soft neoprene-lined handle. Fixed length, held in a wrist loop. That is what a lead is actually for: close control at roads, doorways, the vet and anywhere a hound might spook. Nothing that pays out, nothing that stretches.

Leather training lead, carabiner clip

The shorter, tougher sibling of the one above, at 35cm. Two things earn it a place: leather softens with use instead of burning your palm the way webbing does when a hound goes suddenly, and the carabiner is a proper screw clip rather than the little sprung trigger hook that is the first thing to fail on a cheap lead. This is the one I would hand someone walking a strong dog.

Bungee coupler for two dogs

For walking two hounds off one lead without the two of them winding round each other and round your legs. The short bungee section sits between the dogs and takes the jolt out of one moving off a half second before the other, which saves both their necks and your shoulder. That is a shock absorber between two dogs, not a lead that pays out: the lead in your hand still stays fixed length.

Tractive GPS tracker

This goes on the collar before any off-lead work, every single time. Live tracking you can share with family or a search party, so a bolt becomes a retrieval instead of a night with a torch. Charge it before every session: a flat tracker is no tracker at all.

Educator ET-300 Mini Educator

The e-collar I condition dogs to on the Residential Recall programme, and the one clients buy at the end of the stay so I can set it up on their hound before they go home. A hundred programmable levels is the point: you work at the lowest level your dog can feel, which is usually far lower than owners expect.

Sized for whippets, lurchers and greyhounds. Toy sighthounds such as Italian Greyhounds need a smaller unit, so ask me first rather than buying this one.

Bungee e-collar strap

The upgrade that makes an e-collar behave. Contact is everything: a strap with any slack in it means the contact points come and go, so the dog feels nothing at a low level and then jumps at a high one, and you end up blaming the collar. A bungee strap holds steady, comfortable contact as the dog moves and breathes, which is what lets you work at the lowest level your hound can feel.

Fits Educator, Dogtra, Garmin and SportDOG. Three sizes, so measure the neck before ordering.

Educator comfort pad

Reach for this before you reach for longer contact points. It swaps the two standard studs for a soft wing pad that spreads the same contact over a wider area, so the collar can sit snug enough to work properly without pressing two small points into one spot. On a thin-coated sighthound that difference shows up quickly.

The CPAD-010 fits the ET-300 and most other Educator and Dogtra receivers. The ME-300 Micro takes the CPAD-015 instead.

Lightweight racing muzzle

Not a punishment and not a badge of shame. An open basket muzzle lets the dog pant, drink and take food, and it buys you safe training opportunities you could not otherwise risk. Condition it gradually, well before the day you need it.

Zipper-pull thermometer

A sighthound carries a thin coat over almost no body fat, which cuts both ways: they chill far faster than a thick-coated breed, and they overheat faster than people expect on a warm day. This clips to your jacket and tells you the temperature where you actually are, which is rarely what the phone said before you left town. The max and min memory also tells you how cold the garden really got overnight.

Not an affiliate link, I just rate it. Ships from the United States, so order it before you need it rather than the week it turns cold.

Sheepskin tug on a bungee

Real sheepskin on a shock-absorbing handle, so a hard grab does not jar either of you. A sighthound that will tug with you gives you a reward you can carry, and that matters enormously at the moment a rabbit moves and cheese suddenly means nothing.

Flirt pole

The closest thing to a lure machine you can run in your own garden, and the best way I know to feed a sighthound’s chase drive somewhere you control instead of on a field full of rabbits. Used properly it trains the two things chase work is actually for: a dog that lets go when asked, and a dog that can leave a moving thing on cue.

Telescopic, with a fleece lure already on a non-bungee line. Run it low and away from the dog, never in tight circles, and keep sessions short. Not for a youngster whose growth plates are still open.

Rabbit fur lure

Take the fleece off the flirt pole and put this on instead. Fleece is a toy. Fur is the thing your hound was built for, and a dog that will barely commit to a fleece rag will lock onto rabbit fur the moment it moves. That gap matters, because the whole point of lure work is owning a reward strong enough to compete with a real rabbit on a real field.

Ethically sourced rabbit fur on a webbing tail, about 55 to 65 cm overall. Tie the webbing to the pole line, or hold it and use it as a tug. The fur mats down with use, that is normal and it still works.

Waterproof car bed

A flat waterproof mattress for the boot, which is the only sort that survives a soaked hound after a winter field. It wipes clean instead of soaking up mud and drool, and it puts something between a thin-skinned sighthound and a hard boot floor, so the dog lies down properly rather than bracing all the way home.

Large is 90 by 70 cm, extra large 130 by 83 cm. Measure the boot floor, not the dog.

Groomi deshedding brush

A fine coat over thin skin needs a tool that lifts the loose undercoat without dragging. This one does, and it is the brush that stays in my kitchen drawer rather than the one that got tried once.

Petsmile toothpaste

Greyhounds, whippets and their crosses get some of the worst dental disease of any dogs, and gum disease never stays in the mouth: the bacteria reach the heart, liver and kidneys. This is the one toothpaste with VOHC acceptance behind it, and it works even on the nights nobody feels like brushing.

Finger toothbrushes

Easier to get away with on a suspicious hound than a long-handled brush, and far easier to reach the back teeth where the trouble actually starts. A two-pack, because one always goes missing.

Bella & Duke raw food

Complete, balanced raw from a registered producer, delivered frozen and portioned, which takes the guesswork out of the part of raw feeding people get wrong. Raw is included in every boarding stay here, and it is what my own pack eats. Meals go in a raised stand, never a bowl on the floor.

Raised double feeder stand

A deep-chested hound eating off the floor has to splay its front legs and drop its head below its chest for every mouthful. On a stand it eats with its neck straight and its head level. This is not a nicety, it is how every dog here is fed, and a bowl on the floor is the single most common thing I change in a new owner’s kitchen. Stainless bowls lift straight out to wash.

Two heights: the 220 mm stand suits whippets and smaller lurchers, the 370 mm suits greyhounds, deerhounds and anything tall. Measure to the dog’s chest, not its head.

Vet wrap, twelve rolls

Cohesive bandage that sticks to itself and not to the coat, the wound or your fingers, which matters enormously on a breed with almost no hair to spare. A bramble split or a fence catch on a thin-skinned hound bleeds far more dramatically than it deserves to. Cover it, keep it clean, get to the vet without a trail through the car.

Buy the multipack. You will use more than you expect, and never at a convenient hour.

Leucillin antiseptic spray

For the small stuff that does not need a vet: nicks, grazes, hot spots, itchy patches and the raw bits between the toes after a wet winter. It does not sting, so the dog does not learn to dread the bottle coming out, and it is safe around eyes, ears and paws. The 500ml bottle is better value than the small one and it does not go off in a hurry.

RenaSan antiseptic eye drops

A sighthound has large, prominent eyes and takes them through long grass and undergrowth at thirty miles an hour, so grass seeds, dust and small scratches are an occupational hazard rather than bad luck. Alcohol free and non irritating, which is the difference between flushing an eye out calmly and wrestling a hound who now hates you.

Flushing helps a foreign body or a bit of grit. A closed, weeping or cloudy eye is a same day vet job, not a drops job.

Anti-slip grip socks

Two jobs, both of them sighthound problems. They keep a dressing or a healing paw covered and stop the licking that turns a small wound into a fortnight of it. And the grip pads give an older or wobbly hound traction on laminate and wood, which is where long legs and bony feet go out from under a dog. Worth having in the cupboard before the day you need them.

Sizing runs small for a deep-chested hound, so measure the paw rather than going by the dog’s weight. Ships from Amazon US, so allow a little longer.