Greyhound and German shepherd rescue duo have another shot at life

“Chewy was from the Greyhound Adoption Program, and Tank used to be a stud dog, so he used to do obedience shows,” Alana said.

But since Alana’s mum has moved from Balmoral to Seymour, Alana Christensen and Jack Lowi-Genn have taken ownership of the rescue dogs, and have spent the past few weeks discovering all their quirks.

Chewy, while intelligent, seems to want to put her racing days behind her.

“She’s a bit lazy, and I don’t think she was a very good racer” Alana said.

“We went out for brunch and walked too far and Chewy cracked it — she just lay down and flopped on the floor.

“She can run pretty fast when she gets going.”

“It’s getting her going that’s the hard part,” Jack said.

But even though her racing days are behind her, some things have remained the same.

“She’s got this pretty quirky thing now where she can’t go through any partially open doors — they have to be fully open for her,” Jack said.

“And we were taking her for a walk the other day, and we saw a rabbit on the walk, and she was very interested in that,” Alana said.

Tank, on the other hand, was a prize-winning obedience dog, with plenty of ribbons to show for it.

“Tank has won tonnes of awards — I think the best you can win is ‘very good’,” Jack said.

“He’ll come, sit, drop and wait.

“You can put treats on his paw and he won’t eat them until you say ‘okay’ and let him.”

But despite being compliant in nature, he acts out in one unexpected way — chewing.

“You can give Tank the strongest balls ever, and with enough time he’ll chew the ball open,” Alana said.

“He broke an industrial strength toy in about an hour,” Jack said.

“Mum said he chewed up a hardcover book — he’s a bit mischievous for sure,” Alana said.

One dog is clearly the boss, and that’s Chewy, even though she’s almost a year younger than Tank.

“Chewy will tell Tank off and steal a toy from him, and he’s way too scared to take it back,” Jack said.

“She really throws her weight around, she’s a strong personality,” Alana said.

While Jack said Tank was just the “biggest, friendliest guy” who will lick anyone he meets, Chewy was a bit more cunning when she wanted some attention.

“You can take her out into the backyard and spend some time with her, and then Tank will come over and you pay attention to him,” Jack said.

“Chewy will pretend to step on a bindi or something like that in the backyard and limp a bit until you pay some attention to her and pat her.”

“One day she just seemed really sad and out of it, and I was patting her and thinking, what’s wrong with the dog?” Alana said.

“I was patting her for ages, and then she started running,

“I was thinking, you had something wrong with your leg, what is going on here?”

The dogs love one another, and even sleep next to each other, with their curious natures bringing them closer.

“Because they’re really good friends, if one of them sniffs something, the other one has to sniff it,” Alana said.

“You end up with both dogs sniffing.”

And in the short time Alana and Jack have had them, they have fitted right in.

“They’re just so quirky and have their own personalities and are just a part of the family,” Alana said.