You’ve never seen this kind of display in TV ads, have you? (Start at 5 minutes in.)

If you’ve come here from Instapunk, read what follows all the way through. There’s more here than there.

Let’s face it. Dogs are some of the top sellers in the advertising world. Greyhounds are the most exotic of all dogs, but Madison Avenue has no use for them. Why?

1. People think Golden Retrievers and Yellow Labs are handsome, friendly, and intelligent. But there’s a problem with that. People also think they’re superior to Golden Retrievers and Yellow Labs. You know. And French bulldogs, Boston terriers, and pugs. They make us feel better about ourselves. We love them, they love us. Greyhounds are God’s arrows. They love, but they hold much in reserve. They know who they are. Frequently, they prefer their own company. They make us feel smaller. When they launch, oh, Jesus. We’re just spectators. Not what the ad world wants.

2. Greyhounds don’t do cute things on cue. Not that they don’t do cute things. They do. Mostly when they’re lounging on a couch. They have, well, a conscious relationship with stuffed toys. They don’t chew them. They gather them up and hold them close, sleep next to them. Doesn’t lend itself to 30 seconds of selling somehow.

3. Greyhound faces. A subject unto themselves. Smooth, pop-eyed but not startled, endowed with eyes that see everything, even what we don’t want seen. The faces are blank fronts of bodies usually scarred by their own obsession with speed and our willingness to exploit it. Always open when we talk but so often closed in slumber on the floor or sofa. They don’t show emotion the same way other dogs do. They’re not in the business of reacting to us. No matter how close a bond you have, you will never see it in their faces. You learn it from the need for a greyhound hug, which is usually brief but intense, emotions flowing both ways. You look at them straight on, and you see no emotion except what is in their eyes. Faces mild as children’s dolls. Eyes you can fall into. They can see a change in your expression fifty yards away. Sighthounds. They live through their eyes. Even with you. TV can’t do that.

No God? Really?

4. Beauty. Ads are more about comedy and connection than anything else. Especially when dogs are involved. But greyhounds are principally, overwhelmingly, about beauty and awe. We love the dog in the Traveller’s Insurance ads with the floppy ear and the soulful face. Greyhounds don’t offer that. They stare like impassive gods at everyone who doesn’t have one. They don’t entertain. They just are. And they are everything opposite to advertising — remote, gorgeous, utterly uninterested in seduction or approval. When the moment comes, they will explode into action and chances are, your cameras won’t be able to record that moment with any fidelity. No one can keep up, no one should try, and that’s no way to sell insurance, cosmetics, or Fritos.

Whereas, you can see how winning Scottish deerhounds are in their ads, winsome, engaged with the camera, and all around humorously charming:

Excuse me, Rae? You have a comment?

Like we care.

OH. THE COMPLICATION. Raebert is somehow guarding me. He refuses to leave my side. At all. If he can be induced to go outside, which he can with the leash, he pees and/or poops immediately and returns to me. He insists on lying next to me on the couch, or on top of me. It makes me think I’m ill in some way he knows and I don’t. (Sorry, Brizoni, don’t think it’s so…) It makes me think about what the “next step” might be. Not believing in God because it’s so much easier that way? Or wondering what the fuck is going on with this amazing animal I’ve already been through so much with. One or the other of us is in peril, I’m convinced. I have to tell you I’d prefer his safety to mine. He’s only three.