My Monday’s Music Moves Me post today is deeply personal for me as I’ve put together a playlist of Songs about Greyhounds. As most of you know, greyhounds are the loves of my life and have been since 1999.
I was recently invited to participate in a wonderful event put on by the Central Texas chapter of Greyhound Adoption League of Texas (GALT-CenTx), (formerly known as Greyhound Pets of America-Central Texas (GPA-CT)). As an Animal Chaplain, I was extremely honored to do a Blessing of the Greyhounds prior to the Great Global Greyhound Walk.
The Great Global Greyhound Walk is an annual dog-walking event that aims to raise the profile of rescued and retired (ex-racing) greyhounds, showing the world what beautiful companions these dogs make. The event primarily involves hundreds of organized “walks” across the globe, all taking place on the same day.
Originally the event was known as the Great British Greyhound Walk, which started in 2010 but in 2016, the event went global and groups all over the world were coming together to celebrate greyhounds (and other sighthounds), to raise awareness of hounds in need and to continue to promote greyhounds as pets.
Yesterday (Sunday, June 10th) our group had the event at a lovely local lake (Lake Pflugerville, a reservoir in the Austin suburb of Pflugerville) with a wonderful turnout: 66 greyhounds and 1 sighthound (or 64 greyhounds and 3 sighthounds…not sure which); that incredible success puts us at 2nd place, just behind a Cincinnati group who had 73 hounds turnout. How cool!
Pre-Walk group photo of GALT-CenTX members and their hounds
It was a wonderful day. It was truly an honor to give a Blessing to the group prior to the walk and I so enjoyed the individual dog blessings that I gave as folks returned from the 3-mile walk. I find it very intimate and very spiritual to have that momentary heart connection with the dogs as I whisper a blessing in their ear, look into their eyes and end with a “God Bless You” and a sign of the cross on their beautiful heads. I also had fun handing out the treat bags I put together for the dogs and their people: pretty organza drawstring bags containing treats for the dogs, a St. Francis prayer card and a St. Francis medal for the dogs’ collars. I also had lovely Star of David charms so folks had their choice.
I wanted to continue the mission of the event – to bring awareness of the breed, their plight and to promote greyhounds as pets – over to my Monday’s Music Moves Me post so I searched for songs about greyhounds. Who knew there would be so many?! I wanted to share my favorites here with you.
Click on my Greyhound Songs playlist to listen to some music you’ve probably never heard before. It’s rare to find songs about greyhounds specifically and I was thrilled when I discovered these! Be sure to give each a listen. And for sure check out the associated videos. They’re priceless!
Song info:
- Greyhound (Lazy Song) – this song is a wonderful video of various greyhounds set to the Bruno Mars song “The Lazy Song”
- Born to Run by Nancy Simmonds (from Greyhound, Born to Run album)
- The Race by Matt Dahan – Forever Home Greyhounds used this song for one of its videos
- The Greyhound Song
- Miami by Nancy Simmonds – a song about a retired track greyhound from Simmonds’ album Musical Tails, 3rd Litter. Greyhound advocate group Grey2K USA used this song in a campaign to end greyhound racing in America.
- Greyhound by Nancy Simmonds from her Musical Tails, 5th Litter album
A fun discovery:
Singer/Songwriter Nancy Simmonds has recently completed over 118 purebred dog songs, which are designed to celebrate and honor our canine companions. The series is entitled Musical Tails and has been made available for download from iTunes.com. Designed to reflect the individual personality, temperament and history of each breed these songs have been known to make pet owners smile, laugh and cry.
“One of the greatest rewards of producing these songs has been seeing the reaction from pet owners as they listened to the lyrics describing their pet’s breed,” said Nancy Simmonds, a long time pet owner herself. “What I gave through writing the songs I got back many times over in smiles.”
Nancy began composing dog breed songs in the early 1990’s in Carpinteria, California, after discovering that no similar music existed. “I began madly writing about the popular breeds,” she said. “I loved the process of learning the history of each dog, its terrain, the purpose for which it was bred and then in many cases, I tried to study the music that came from the country of the dog’s origin. After years of writing ‘real songs’ in the music business it turned into a great big fun adventure.
To date Nancy has completed songs for many well-known breeds like the German Shepherd, Golden Retriever, Labrador Retriever, Pug, Dachshund, Poodle and Shih Tzu. Her collection also includes song for rarer breeds like the Kuvasz, Basenji, Afghan Hound, Rhodesian Ridgeback, Norwegian Elkhound and the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever.
While Nancy has had a successful musical career for over 35 years, her passion has always been for her dog songs. “I think these songs help pet owners celebrate & appreciate their four legged friends,” Nancy said. “It seems I could be busy for a long time recording all the registered breeds – and that that makes me one lucky writer!”
Just for your enjoyment, here are some other cool and comical greyhound videos. All of them are short so you have time to watch them!
Cal the Greyhound – Looking for a Long-term Commitment: In 2008, the Greyhound Project produced a series of public service announcements to promote greyhound adoption. One of the spots, seen here, featured a black greyhound named Cal who was looking for a long term commitment. Fortunately for Cal, he was adopted soon after filming.
A Greyhound named Mosley does zoomies in the snow while wearing his Batman pajamas. I crack up every time I watch this video! And I am totally on the hunt for these Batman pajamas as I want to buy some for my boys…so if you ever come across them online, email me immediately!
Greyhounds Playing in Leaves: Greys Bree & Bit play in a pile of leaves on a sunny Autumn day.
Lemon the Greyhound: a greyhound named Lemon described by her owner. Hilarious!
Greyhound sings to the HALO theme song: This is River, a 7-year old greyhound who sings to the theme song of the HALO video game. Per his owner, “River won 7 of his 34 career races. He spends most of his retirement time doin’ nothin’ … and singin’ every now and then.”
Greyhounds Home Alone: This is a time-lapse video showing greyhounds home alone activity…
I hope you enjoyed my Songs about Greyhounds post. Do you have some favorite greyhound songs or videos that you want to share? f you attended the event yesterday, I’d love to hear about your experience and your favorite part. Tell me in the Comments section below.
Monday’s Music Moves Me (4M) is a blog hop hosted by Marie of X-Mas Dolly, and co-hosted by Cathy of Curious as a Cathy and Stacy of Stacy Uncorked Two other co-hosts recently joined the fun: Alana of Ramlin’ with AM and Naila Moon of Musings & Merriment with Michelle. Be sure to stop by and visit the hosts and the other participants listed below:
Angels Bark 
Hi, Michele!
This post brought tears as I watched the videos and gazed into the soulful eyes of those intelligent greyhounds. It was indeed an honor for you to officially give a Blessing at your local Greyhound Walk event. I am happy to know it was a tremendous success. Thank you for doing so much to raise awareness and help rescue and find forever homes for these wonderful animals!
I am surprised at all the songs that were written specifically about greyhounds. I liked the “rooing” in “The Greyhound Song.” I am also in awe of Nancy Simmonds for composing more than 100 songs about various dog breeds. As an advertising professional, I was not surprised that the PSA for greyhound adoption featuring Cal the “talking” greyhound was effective and resulted in his finding a home soon after the spot aired. At the same time, I feel badly that people need to project human traits and characteristics upon an animal in order to feel more attracted to it. It should be enough to show the animal and hear its natural “voice,” not create a lovable “personality” for him with a character actor doing a voice over. For the same reason I tend to dislike it when a piece of music like the Batman theme is edited onto footage of a dog happily running around, even if he was wearing Batman pajamas. It should be enough to listen to the natural sound as the dog enjoys his freedom and exercise. That is why my favorite video here is the one with the two dogs romping through the pile of fallen leaves, although I vehemently object to people characterizing their pets as “The World’s Stupidest Dog!” Captions and memes that are supposed to be funny but only diminish the dignity of an animal are another pet peeve of mine.
Thank you very much for all your caring, Michele, and for presenting these delightful songs about greyhounds. Have a great week, dear friend!
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Good morning Tom. Happy Monday.
I too was very surprised at the number of greyhound songs that I found. I’m sure there are more but my time was limited. Like you, I am in awe of Nancy Simmonds and her pet project of writing songs for specific dog breeds. Fantastic! I’m so glad to have come across her talents.
The woman who runs the Animal Chaplain program feels the same way you do about anthropomorphizing animals in commercials and films. Honestly that’s not an issue for me. I often find it incredibly cute. The hamsters in the Kia commercials, the Geico gecko, Aflac’s talking duck (and the “Duck Does Yoga” commercial cracks me up every time!), the Friskee’s “Dear Kitten” spot (below), etc. I like them, I think they’re very entertaining and I don’t think they’re exploitive. Now circuses, dog racing, horse racing and the like: THAT’s exploitive, barbaric and WRONG! But the cutesy commercials don’t bother me in the least.
I understand people have widely different opinions on these issues and I can appreciate yours and that of my Animal Chaplain program director.
Ironically, yesterday after I came home from the GGGW event and was working on my blog post, guess what I was watching on TV? “A Dog’s Purpose” ! I found that to be a perfect wrap-up to the day.
There were several movies I wanted to see the week before my shoulder surgery but never had a chance to indulge. One of those was “Peter Rabbit”, the 2018 live-action/computer-animated comedy film directed by Will Gluck and written by Rob Lieber and Gluck, based on the stories of Peter Rabbit created by Beatrix Potter.
A few weeks ago it became available for rent via Vudu and my Mom and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The film stars the voice of James Corden as the title character and he was wonderful. We got a ton of chuckles out of that movie.
As for the YouTube video of Mosley the greyhound zooming in the snow in his Batman pajamas, there is indeed a video without the music and you can hear Mosley’s sheer delight at doing what comes naturally to a greyhound. I’ll post it here for you. I made the decision to use the one with the Batman theme song music because I LOVE that theme song. I found it to be a perfect fit for the video in light of those very cool Batman pajamas coupled with the fact that the sheer hearing of the song brings back feel-good memories of days gone by when I used ot watch Batman. Here is the video with nothing but Mosley sounds:
Adorable!
And I so agree with you on the title of that video with Lemon the greyhound. Although I thought the video was very funny I have no idea why anyone would refer to their dog as “stupid” and why on earth the owner titled the video “World’s Stupidest Dog” is beyond me. Frankly I had a hard time typing the title (and I went back in and changed it to “Lemon the Greyhound” because it didn’t sit right with me either). Like you said, sometimes people attempt humor and it falls flat. I think this is probably the case here because obviously this guy adores his greyhound. (and what a cool name for a dog: Lemon. I love it! I had a friend back home who named her dog “Askim” so when people would ask “What’s your dog’s name?” she would answer “Askim” (Ask him). That cracked me up then and it still cracks me up to this day. THAT was quite clever, in my opinion.
Thanks so much for stopping by this morning Tom. I’ll be heading over to your place within the next few days. I know you have a new Shady Train installment post and I’m anxious to dive into it. I was crazy busy this last week and my blog visiting time was limited. I’ll see you over at the Shady Dell in a day or so…
Have a good week my friend…
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I had no idea there were so many fine tunes about greyhounds. I used to have a friend who was involved with saving them. Thanks for sharing these.
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Thanks for stopping by Cathy K! I know, me too: had no idea there even were tunes about greyhounds! In what state did your friend live who was involved in greyhound rescue & adoption?
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What a wonderful species! This was a great post about your beloveds. I wasn’t familiar with any of the songs (no surprise there, right?) But I did enjoy them. I’ve got a dog themed battled planned for the 15th – see you then!
~Mary
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Thanks Mary. Hope you had time to check out the videos that went with the songs. Sometimes I just listen to the playlist but in this case the videos were worth watching.
I can’t wait to participate in your dog-themed battle! Could it be a “Hair of the Dog” battle, to see which cover band can say “son of a bitch” the most times during the song?? I love that song! It is one of my favs from the 70s (of course how many times have you heard me say THAT??! lol) Here they are on a European TV show “Spotlight” performing it, apparently sometime around 1976:
See you later in the week…
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Wonderful selection of songs. I especially liked the first one that showed all the dogs on their backs, spread eagle….
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That’s a very typical pose John. They’re not at all bashful about letting it all hang out, that’s for sure! Modesty, what’s that?? 🙂
I have a photo to share with you of one of my guys, how he likes to sleep, and I can’t figure out how to add a picture in a comment here. Is that possible? I just asked the WP community but figured you might know…
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MICHELE ~
It was fun seeing how much that one greyhound loved running through the leaves. In dog years, he must have been about 8. 🙂
I couldn’t think of any songs specifically about greyhounds, but below is one of my very favorite songs that mention dogs. In this case, a bulldog:
~ Stephen
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Hey Stephen,
Thanks for stopping by today! And thanks for sharing that Jim Stafford song. It’s totally new-to-me. It’s good! I’ve listened to it three times already. 🙂
See you in a few days…
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That is so cool. I always learn something here. Keep it up.
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Aw, thanks Patrick! What a nice thing to say… I appreciate that!
Big hug to you {{ }}
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Oh my gosh, you got everyone in on this… I feel left out, but first I love your first tune with Bruno Mars & being Lazy! hahaha~ Great choice there! hahaa & the next one “a long term pet” hahahaha love it!!! Oh my gosh, look at those Greyhounds run! They’re awesome & they run so fast it’s like they’re going to take flight any minute! hahaha~ Loving this! Oh my gosh, and they run so darn fast… Batman? More like Batdog!!! LOL Great job my friend! THANK YOU! hugs
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Thanks Marie! Greyhounds are so much fun! I’m on #7 (Picasso) and #8 (Luca) at this point. There is nothing more majestic than watching them run and seeing the pure joy they get out of it. I have some pics of two of my former dogs running a lure course, pics taken by a professional photographer. I’ll post them one of these days and let you know when they go up. They’re amazing! I wanted to have all my dogs photographed by that pro but he never came back to the lure coursing facility again. I would’ve loved to have professional pics of all my babies.
RE: Batman, ie Batdog: I’m dying to get those pajamas for my guys!!! Please keep your eyes peeled for them for me and if you see them, get in touch right away! 🙂
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Michele,
WOW, that’s totally interesting mewsic with the “Greyhound” theme. I haven’t seen too many greyhound owners in my area. But, it seems like on one of our recent visits to the mountains there was a couple that had two of them which seemed a bit odd to me because well…I rarely see them. They are purrrty recognizable animals. Anywho, I’m impressed with Nancy’s ability to write song lyrics about specific dog breeds. I can’t even write a song about my kids. My favorite video clip is the one “looking for a long-term commitment”. It not only cracked me up but a great way to spark interest with pet owners. Right off, I can’t think of a single song about a greyhound but here’s a good one for ya…. https://youtu.be/hUNbX_6MYUY
If that doesn’t put a smile on your face then I don’t know what will. 🙂 BTW, maybe you can go with a dog song theme for October but I bet you already thought of that, right? Thanks for sharing the dance floor with me, my friend!
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This is wonderful, Michele! ❤ Love the greyhound songs. "The Race" brought tears to my eyes and I enjoyed all the videos of these beautiful dogs! And, what a terrific event to be a part of! Your work with these wonderful animals must be so fulfilling. Thank you for sharing this.
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After a hard day of stuff, I sat lazily in the front yard,. You never cease to amaze! I do agree about the title of the Lemon video, but those facts were so fascinating that I forgive him The greyhounds playing in the leaves was a Wow especially towards the end where one really took off. I was never a runner. Great glimpse into your life and your passions.
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