This is a story about my sweet greyhound Ruby, and her elephant hunt. Now, as most sighthound owners know, sighthounds have a extremely long history as hunting hounds, and in many of these hounds, the instincts are still very strong. They are absolute sweethearts with humans and other sighthounds, but they can be absolutely ferocious with prey animals. The degree of this instinct is what is referred to as the "prey drive" of the hound. In my case, I believe Ruby has the strongest prey drive of any hound, past or present.

The story goes like this:

We take our hounds to Renaissance Faires to promote adoption of retired racing greyhounds with the Greyhounds of Fairhaven. Every day at the Arizona Renaissance Faire, there is a parade, which we send a couple of fewterers and hounds to. The "muster" for the parade is just outside the grounds.

On the first day of faire, I had Ruby with me. Immediately, she went into "hunt mode", ears up, scanning the horizon, and pulling like crazy. Each day I took her to parade, it was the same thing. On the third week of faire, I, being the simpleton that I am, decided to let her lead me to what she was after, figuring that if she found it, she might get over it. (Note that this has never, ever, worked before.)

She immediately set out, dragging me through the crowd of folk waiting for parade. At first, she was pulling toward the open desert, so I figured there was a jackrabbit or a coyote or something out there that got her attention. However, as we started passing a very tall wooden fence, she veered off and stuck her face through the boards, obviously having found her target. So, I took a look. Sure and wouldn't you know, it was the area where they give children rides on elephants and camels and such. And here was Ruby, absolutely fixated upon the elephant.

Astonished, I pulled her back and had a talk with her:

Meself: "Ruby lass, you canna hunt the oliphaunts!"
Ruby: "No worries da, I can take it."
Meself: "No Ruby, he's huge!"
Ruby: "Ah, it's not so big, I can take it!"
Meself: "He'll smush you flat!"
Ruby: "Nah, he's not that tough, I can take it!"
Meself: "No lass, ya dinna understand, even *lions* don't mess with oliphaunts!"
Ruby: "Ha, lions, what a bunch of scaredy-cats, let me at it!"

As you can see, trying to dissuade my dear Ruby is a complete exercise in futility. She's unbelievably confident, and very persistent. Well, I could hardly let her make a try of the elephant, they being notorious for having no sense of humour where such things are concerned. So, I had to drag her back to the group for the parade. For half the distance of the parade (about a quarter-mile) I had to literally drag her, with her facing behind us, trying to get free to hunt the elephant. And, of course, every day afterward, she tried every trick in the book (and she's got a big book) to get loose so she could make a go of the elephant.

Of course, Ruby does not limit her hunts to elephants, she's also tried draft-horses, camels, llamas, small dogs, cats, rabbits, birds and mice. In fact, other than people, greyhounds, and some other dogs, she'll try to launch after just about anything living that moves.

Ruby's a very sweet, very happy, very athletic, and extremely confident old (9yo) girl who just happens to have the prey drive of a Nile Crocodile, the persistence of a terrier, and the long memory of the elephants. Life with Ruby is never dull. :)