greytpups

I'm so sorry for your loss.

I'm so sorry for your loss...it is such a painful time.

i'm so sorry for your loss

I'm so sorry...he put up such a brave fight...rest well sweet Flash.

Andy was such a special boy and you captured that in every pic and I'm sure he's still taking care of Emmy

I'm so sorry Maxine and Sue I believe I met Millie when we were at the farm. Poor sweet baby...rest well sweetheart. I'm thinking about you during this sad and painful time. Jan

I am so sorry you are going through this...enjoy each moment with them for as long as you can because it never seems long enough.

I have followed the methods that I've read from certified trainers that specialize in shy dogs, and most of the methods have worked so far. She is already enjoying me petting her. They all suggest to use positive training to help the dog's confidence and she has already learned some basic commands. I got her from GRA and I take Annie to the South Simcoe run every week. For example, this is the kind of detailed methods that I'm looking for: "Your first goal is to make him trust you. One owner purchased a pound of chicken livers, cooked them and then laid down on the floor with some chicken livers on her body and the rest trailing away at approximately five feet. She spoke to her dog softly, but laid still, avoiding eye contact. When he had eaten them all, she padded him enthusiastically on his sides saying what a good boy he had been. Your dog may run away at this point, but this is a trust building exercise. " http://www.essortmen...ingtip_sbbn.htm I have done exactly this where I lied down and she slowly ate out of my hands and it worked perfectly. If I had just let her figure out things on her own, it could take her months to gain my trust. You guys seem to think positive training means "overwhelming her" for some reason. That's not what positive training is. If she does something right, she gets a reward and she learns it. If she doesn't do it, then I just keep waiting until she does and only then I click. I don't force her to do anything. I'm only helping her to learn. For example, right now I am trying to teach to jump on my bed. I just leave a trail of cheese on my bed when I leave. I can see that she ate them after I came back, which means she jumped up. I just wasn't around to click it. I don't see how this is overwhelming her in any way. Hi John, I would love to know what you've done, especially all the minor details. I will look into Turid Rugass' book. We're only trying to offer assistance. If you post on a public forum, you're going to get a variety of answers, some you will find helpful and some you won't. However, there's many of us that have shy dogs and this is what worked for us. It may not work for every dog but you asked for training tips. Secondly, reading and talking are very different, so we can only reply based on your written word. I know a wee bit of the background here because I'm also a member on the GRA forum. I expressed my concern about your expectations about Annie, not because I want to disrespect you, rather I love this breed so much, I cry when greys are pts and I've never even met them, etc. etc. I'm sure others feel the same way. We are concerned about the well-being. Many people here have years of experience and if I ask for advice, even if I don't like it, I try to keep myself open to the opportunity to learn. If someone suggests not overwhelming Annie, it may because they have been there, done that, and don't want you to experience the same thing.

Hope all went well with the treatment.

I think you've done some good work with Annie, but just a reminder, you may need to check those expectations. she may not ever be a cuddly, confident, lap dog and you may want to start accepting her for what she is, not for what you want her to be. Don't worry that she will never be comfortable, she will eventually, judging by how far she's come along...thanks to the time and effort you are willing to put in to make her comfortable. I think you're on the right track, you just might consider slowing down a bit, just to avoid overwhelming her and undoing some of your progress. Remember it took my Bailey 4 years to go outside on her own, but Bailey was much more timid than Annie is. If you want her to get more comfortable out of her crate, trying closing the door for about 5 minutes, but place a pillow near it or near a wall. If she lays down on the pillow and feels comfortable, then you can extend the time out of the crate. If she paces around, or acts uncomfortable, then you will need to go slowly for a long time. Is Annie afraid of people? Are you able to take her for a walk where people hang out or does that scare her?. Sometimes you need to take shy pups out where people are so they get used to it , feel safe, and start to feel comfortable. I'm not sure where Annie is on the comfort zone scale here though. It's worth it though, the milestones the shy ones get too are really worth it and are very heartwarming. Check and see if Patricia McConell has written about shy dogs. She's an animal behavorist and is recommended by a lot of GTers.

Alisha and Bib, I am so sorry to hear this...what an awful year

Welcome from Ontario

great news

Not only does she sit, she looks so adorable when she does it. I'd be smothering her with kisses

Six months...how special this anniversary is...I hope she enjoys many more days with you. it's obvious how much love you have for each other.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

Wonderful news...hope he recovers quickly and back to his old self.

I am so sorry for your sudden loss of Driver.

How sad...I am so sorry.

I am so sorry for your losses

I'm chiming in her a bit late but Bailey used to have to be carried in and out the door just to go out into the backyard, that's how timid she was. We used to take her to public places to desensitize her so she would become more social to help reduce her fear of the whole world. I would always watch though, even with Brooke who is also very timid, and if she was starting to get overwhelmed with fear, we'd leave because I didn't want to undo all the progress we made. I do that with Brooke as well. If something terrifies her, we leave. If something is mildly scary, we work through it with calm assertive voices and treats. I knew what I was in for when I adopted her. With Bailey being so afraid, I got really intuitive at knowing when was enough. I'm glad to hear she's come along so far.

aaaawwwww...poor Fixer...hope you are feeling better soon

I'm so sorry to hear this...I would have loved to have met him...he certainly lived up to his name. Rest well sweetie...you deserve it.

This article was in my inbox today and I sure could relate. I substitued Bailey, whom I had to let go on Dec 17th, for Mr. Jackson's name and gained some insight about my grief. I know initially, I didn't think I could bear the pain I was in, but I did, little by little, mainly because I have two other greys whom I love deeply and unconditionally. I hope this can help others dealing with loss. I know when someone loses a grey, I have a deeper understanding of pain and loss since I've experienced it myself. by Alex Lickerman “It isn’t what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it’s what we say to ourselves about what happens.” ~Pema Chodron I remember when I first read the pathology report on my patient, Mr. Jackson (name changed), my stomach flip-flopped. “Adenocarncinoma of the pancreas” it said. A week later, a CT scan revealed the cancer had already spread to his liver. Two months after that, following six rounds of chemotherapy, around-the-clock morphine for pain, a deep vein thrombosis, and pneumococcal pneumonia, he was dead. His wife called me to tell me he’d died at home. I told her how much I’d enjoyed taking care of him, and we shared some of our memories of him. At the end of the conversation I expressed my sympathies for her loss, as I always do in these situations. There was a brief pause. “It just happened so fast…” she said then and sniffled, her voice breaking, and I realized she’d been crying during our entire conversation. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” I told her again. She thanked me for caring for her husband and hung up. I’d known Mr. and Mrs. Jackson for almost seven years and had always liked them both immensely. I thought the world a poorer place without Mr. Jackson in it and found myself wishing I’d done a better job of consoling his wife, thinking my attempts had been awkward and ineffective. I reflected on several things I wished I’d said when I’d had her on the phone and considered calling her back up to say them. But then instead I wrote her a letter. NAVIGATING LOSS Dear Mrs. Jackson, When you called me to tell me your husband had passed away and how hard a time you were having, I found myself frankly at a loss. Conventional wisdom about how to console people who’ve suffered grievous losses includes platitudes like “be there for them,” “listen,” and “let them know you care”—all valid and useful guidelines that I’m sure have brought comfort to many suffering people. But inevitably conversations end, people go home to resume their normal lives, and the wife or husband or son or daughter is left alone with pain now occupying the space their loved one used to be. Though I don’t know how comforting you’ll find this letter, I wanted to share with you some of my thoughts about grief in hopes of making your journey through it somewhat more bearable. Why do we suffer when we lose those we love? I think the true answer is because we believe we can’t be happy without them. Knowing how much you loved your husband, I can only imagine how strongly you must feel this to be true. And yet I often think the only reason the pain of loss abates at all is that we do become convinced we can be happy again—just slowly and unevenly. Certainly, some people find themselves stuck in grief, unable to move on. Sometimes this happens because we actually become reluctant to surrender our grief even after it’s run its proper course, believing the pain of loss is the only thing keeping us connected to our loved one, or that to feel happy again would be to diminish the significance of the relationship we once enjoyed. But neither is true. Even when people we love die, our relationships with them do not. We continue to have feelings about them, memories of things they did, imaginings of things they might say were they with us now. Just because the pain of losing them diminishes with time, their importance to us need not. Normal grief is like a roller coaster: there are ups and downs, moments of pain intermixed with relief. If, however, after the first six months or so there seem to be fewer periods of relief rather than more, normal grief may have changed into full-blown depression. If you think this might be happening at any point, please let me know. I can help. Everyone grieves differently. Don’t ever let anyone tell you how to do it. If you want to talk about your husband with others, do. If not, don’t. There’s definitely something mysterious about the human psyche–some intrinsic force within us that continually seeks to engulf pain and suffering the way our white blood cells engulf viruses and bacteria. It’s an elixir we seem to swallow at the very moment our loss occurs that immediately begins to work on our suffering without us even knowing it but which nevertheless somehow eventually cures us of it. After experiencing a devastating loss, if you’ve allowed yourself to feel the legitimate pain it’s brought and not sought to avoid feeling it, things slowly start to improve. We wake one morning to find there’s something in the day we’re actually looking forward to; or someone says something funny and we actually laugh; or we find ourselves able to plan things again, even if only a trip to the grocery store. But there’s no definite timetable for this. Don’t allow anyone to hurry you along with their expectations about when your grief should end. Just know that it will. It may seem to you now, while in the middle of the worst of it, that it won’t, that your happier self was only a dream and that this grieving self is here to stay for good. But that’s an illusion brought about only by your current life-condition. Nothing is forever, including the pain of loss. Don’t grieve alone. I worry that you have no one with whom to share your grief (you’ve told me in the past how you were all alone except for your husband). While you may not have much energy for this, I find myself hoping you’ll join a support group, either at your church or by looking online. There’s something often magically healing about spending time with others who’ve had or are having painful experiences similar to your own. It may seem an overwhelming prospect now, utterly beyond you, but often by holding someone else’s hand, by becoming their support, you’ll find your own pain lessens just a little bit. When you shine a light to guide others on a dark road, your own way is also lit. Forgive yourself your failures. You said on the phone you “felt guilty,” but not what you felt guilty about. I wondered about that. I wondered if you felt guilty about having spent time doing things like seeing other people or watching television rather than spending every moment with him; or about feeling tired of caring for him; or about not always having a positive attitude when you were around him; or for wishing the nightmare of his illness had actually ended sooner—or any of a myriad of things family members have told me have made them feel guilty, too. Or maybe you feel guilt about the decisions you made when your husband was no longer capable of making them himself. The end of a person’s life is often composed of gut-wrenching choices that land squarely on the shoulders of family members: to put in a feeding tube or not; to use mechanical ventilation or not; to use heroic measures or not; to decide not to press forward with an intent to cure but rather with the intent to palliate. I know you struggled mightily with the decision to stop treatment and bring him home to be comfortable, but you must know your decision did not cause his death. His disease did. His disease is what thrust you into a situation you didn’t ask for or want, but accepted with grace, making every decision with as much deliberation and wisdom as you could muster, even when you were exhausted, and always with an eye towards his comfort. Forgive my presumption, but if you feel guilt over any of these things—or over other things I didn’t mention—you must forgive yourself. There was never a need for you to be a perfect caregiver—only a caregiver who cared, and that you most certainly were. The person who gets sick is never the only one whose life is deeply affected by their illness. This was your experience, too. I want you to know that watching the way you were with your husband always inspired me. I can only hope to face losses in my life with as much courage, acceptance, and humor as you and your husband did both. While no one knows what happens when we die, we can say with certainty that we lie between two equally inconceivable possibilities, one of which must be true: either the universe has always existed and time has no beginning, or something was created from nothing. Either case makes every one of us a miracle. Alex Lickerman is a physician, the former director of primary care at the University of Chicago, and has been a practicing Buddhist since 1989. He blogs at www.happinessinthisworld.com

Awwww poor Phene. no advice just