Do we really care about the difference between a greyhound and a whippet?

I’ve never been a dog person. I feel more comfortable holding a newborn baby than being around a dog. Which is strange, because when I was a toddler, we had a dog, he was a black poodle, slightly aggressive but quite entertaining, and his name was Velours, which means velvet in French. I don’t remember walking, cuddling or even petting him. I have a vague recollection that I tried too many times to ride him like a horse. I don’t think he was very happy about that. This poodle was probably my furry big brother who tried to avoid my baby presence as much as possible, and I get it now. Some could even say that he didn’t like me, and the reality is it might be, but it might be not. And I’m sure he was loving me in his own poodle way. One of the reasons he might not have liked me is because I ate his fancy food one day. I was sitting in the garden and I was a curious toddler. I would eat everything except the contents of my plate : the whole tube of fluor-a-day tablets because I loved the taste of it, the table toilet – let’s just hope it was an unused one – probably because of the blue colour, and dog food. I remember pretty clearly myself, with the bag of dog food, holding the big ring in my little chubby hand – not true, I wasn’t chubby in any way – in my tiny hand and putting it into my mouth while thinking this is actually very good the dog is very lucky to eat this food on a regular basis. I was fairly disappointed when I realised eating dog food wasn’t socially acceptable, and this is probably why it took me so long to make friends. One evening, it was dark and cold, probably during winter, my parents came back from somewhere. From that night I missed something, but I couldn’t figure out what straight away. It took me some time to accept that the dog was missing. The dog is not there. The dog left. I thought that the dog just left me. I assume he got upset and bored with me and that he decided to move forward. I think my parents tried to give me the we sent the dog to the farm bullshit, but I didn’t believe them. Or perhaps they told me the truth, they told me they had to put the dog to sleep, but I didn’t believe them neither. I thought they didn’t want to tell me that the dog got fed up with me and went to another child who wouldn’t eat his food. Probably just a chubby kid. Why is it related to the difference between a greyhound and a whippet? It’s dog innit.