Connections/Greyhounds

My name is Gary Tinterow, and I'm head of the department of nineteenth-century, modern, and contemporary art here at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. I've had the pleasure of living with greyhounds for more than twenty years now.

The greyhound is the only species of dog that appears unchanged in western

art, from nearly five thousand years ago to the present. It's clearly one of the oldest breeds of dogs

and it's certainly the best. I've had three greyhounds, and I get them through adoption agencies, and

they come from the track. Greyhounds are the second-fastest mammal on earth, exceeded only slightly by a cheetah.

And they run in more or less the same way. They're not being propelled forward by their legs so much

as by their very flexible spines, which are contracting.

Greyhounds were used to hunt in a very particular way. Although they could catch

a small rabbit or a squirrel, or a rat in Central Park, the way they brought down

large game was by chasing it so long and so fast that the animal would become overheated

essentially have a heart attack, and then it was the hunter's job to come along and give it the coup de grâce.

Now I'm on my third greyhound, Emma. They're very personable and social dogs. They have huge hearts, not just an emotional heart, but large, pumping hearts, huge lungs

very rich blood, they have something like ten per cent more blood cells than other dogs. They're not prone to diseases, and they often live, as mine have, to fifteen years.

Because of their odd physiognomy, greyhounds have very funny poses.

When they sit, their chest always bottoms out, and their hind legs are up in the air quite high.

They can make themselves very, very small, curled up like a ball

less than two-and-a-half feet in diameter, or stretch out

six feet from one end to the other when they're lying on your bed. But, the most comical pose, and only a greyhound owner would typically see this because they have to be extremely relaxed

is when they're on their back, with all four legs straight up in the air

like Snoopy on top of his doghouse. And, in fact, that's the most comfortable pose.

They are leaners. They express affection by leaning against the person whom they want to relate to. This greyhound is said to have saved the life of the duke of Richmond during a boar hunt.

When John Singer Sargent wanted to make a rich American heiress appear noble, to our left was to have been a greyhound. But the greyhound was no longer available for posing, and so her husband was a poor substitute, I'm sure, for the noble dog that's no longer visible.

It's hard to know which came first, the greyhound, or the concept of elegance. People began to dress and look like their dogs, and dogs

began to be bred in order to look like their owners. Attenuation became synonymous with elegance.

And I remember the first time that I walked my very first adopted greyhound, Elliot, on Fifth Avenue, a woman in a very extravagant fur coat came up and said

"What a beautiful dog, so thin, so elegant."

I'm sure the reason I love greyhounds is because I associate them with the art that I love. But all dogs

love their masters, and any dog is adorable.

There's nothing particular about the greyhound when it comes to affection from its

human companion.