Fruitycake

I am sorry for your loss, and yet am happy that you found one another. He sounds like he was a great match for your family. It is so hard to have to say goodbye, but I am sure that he knew how much he was loved.

Hmmm, our nongrey is becoming very flighty at loud or sharp noises and is no longer responding to quieter noises that she used to, so we think she is losing hearing so her world is quiet except with sudden noises that frighten her. She often misses the doorbell, people coming into the house, and our calling her for food or walks. It is hard to check sight acuity and hearing in animals, but in a nervous animal I would think that changes like this might make things even more nerve-wracking. I hope you can find the cause and help her as best you can!

I am sorry that you had to say goodbye to your sweet boy.

I also add water just to slow down our dogs. It doesn't even soak for long - it is just that it makes it slippery and and he chases it around the dish instead of 3 gulps and he's done...except for the horking it onto the floor to eat again. He doesn't hork it up anymore. Also, the smaller dog, who gets about a third of the grey's portion size, is done slower because she gets closer to soup and she is no longer able to help him clean up his 'horked' food.

Please don't call him or think of him as being "aggressive" because he's showing defensive behaviors. If you saw two people interacting wordlessly in the manner in which you describe here, his strike out is actually him trying to prevent someone from taking his stuff or making him do something he doesn't want to - so he's defending against *your* aggressive move toward him (to his eyes). This does seem to be a real communication problem between you, which is going to increase the stress for all of you. Bones are a super high value item, and reaching in to take it is, well, rude. And reaching out a hand (to grab a collar or to shove a dog) is very threatening behavior. You don't indicate how long you've had him, but it can take a long time - even when there are never any 'trespasses' that you've had happen - to truly show yourself to be trustworthy in the eyes of a dog that has never had to share something super special and delicious like a bone, or have to deal with trespassing or being forced to yield a super spiffy resting spot like a bed. Any instances of 'stealing' from him will make it that much harder for him to know that you are completely trustworthy in situations where he is already worried that he might lose his prize. I know that sometimes you have to do the dangerous task of getting something dangerous from a dog, but it sounds like you expected him to just give up his great things because he should. It looks like you need to work on 'trading up' for a lot longer, and working with more valuable items, before you can assume that you can take the best things from him. I hope that's been how you have been 'working on the resource guarding' with him. I can't say that you need to give him up, but it does sound like you are expecting too much of him at this time. Some dogs are going to be more possessive of 'prizes' than others, and you have to work to minimize the chances to trigger a situation where a dog feels pressed into having to fight to keep something. To his eyes, possession is paramount, and you are a thief that is trying to take his great stuff. Oh, and defensiveness on leash is very commonly a way to make sure that other dogs, or strange people, give him the space he needs. He could well be just trying to keep others out of his personal space because he doesn't trust them when they are closer. If you've ever had someone push into your personal space, by touching you uninvited or crowding you or even being at more of a distance but maybe staring (leering) at you, I bet you've felt the rush of adrenaline and desire to push them away or tell them off. And we're humans, with language and words and decades of socialization with other people! Imagine being a dog, of a certain body type and 'language' used with others that look and mostly act like you, forced by something around the neck into a situation where another dog that looks and probably acts different (or a person) gets too close, acts rudely, and *you* risk be punished for protesting any rude or unwanted attention. Can't get away, can't redirect and avoid letting someone get too close by altering your own approach angle, and are made to actually approach another dog in a manner that you yourself feel is rude (straight on, face-to-face). It then makes sense for you to try to warn others off, because *you* can't do anything about the situation. I don't think they realize that the other dog may have the same constraints (collar, leash, and human in control), and if not, the off leash dog may have ALL of the control. Man, it is surprising that extremely dog-socialized dogs, like greys, aren't more leash reactive when thrown into that kind of situation.

I hope you have had a chance to check over the cat. Injuries from a large dog don't necessarily mean external blood and a complete investigation is in order. I hope he is ok! I'm sorry that you had this happen, and I hope you find a solution that works for everyone. Good luck.

GPA-MN has members that do dog sitting right here in town. You could sign up for their discussion boards at http://forum.gpa-mn.org- there's a link from their regular website but it took me a while to find it. I think requests for sitter services is usually in the "General Topics" forum. We've had Monty watched by one of the members. Just make sure you mention specifics like cat-friendliness, prey instinct, leash walks or fenced yard for pottying, etc. if you do ask for services. Monty stayed with two other hounds and a cat and loved the fenced yard they had! Have a great trip!

What a great set of memories, thank you for sharing them with us. It sounds like you were a great match. Run free and happy, Lizzy!

Our grey is a red 'blonde' and his heat tolerance has shifted to a much lower temp than it was (he's ten, but it changed about two years ago). He used to like it best between about fifty and seventy Fahrenheit, but now it's probably thirty to fifty-five. He loved the couple-day cold snap last week (highs in the forties), and hated the eighties that came before.

I'm really tired, so forgive me if this has been suggested, but is there any way you could bring the dogs, one at a time, into your house and keep them on short leash and see what the individual dog's reastion is? Bring in the one tested as less reactive first - which doesn't really signify anything in some cases! - and after seeing how that dog does on its own bring the second one on its own and see how that one reacts. Keep the dog close on leash, I suggest that the bf holds the leash, and you keep an eye on the cat/cats to prevent them stepping too close. You may want to do this a couple of times, so the reactions change from 'new place I've never been before' to maybe reacting to cats after the new place isn't so new. And I checked your location (shucks, too far from us!) because we are beginning a search for two cats to bring into our house with our cat-trained dogs. Good luck with your introductions and further cat-testing of the bf's dogs!

Oh, and in unrelated news...today's job interview is going to suck. Hay fever/allergies are why nose and eyes are completely red. Yeah. That's why. Mmm hmmm.

I am now catless. ShadeMan had something neurologic happen this evening, maybe a seizure, maybe a stroke, maybe something to do with a brain tumor, and it was kindest to let him go. I have absolutely no regrets about what I 'should have done' for him, because since his sister passed a year and a half ago, he has been totally, 100% spoiled rotten. He got whatever kind of food he wanted, even if I had to offer two or three types of canned food to find something that wasn't deemed 'poison' and was fed whenever he wanted - even in the middle of the night - with his dish held at just the right angle for him to eat. All he had to do to ask was look at me and do a subtle single lip smack and I jumped to get him food. He could even wakeme from sleep with that little lip smack, and I would get up and carry him out of the bedroom and get him a bit of canned food. He had two bowls of Kitten Chow in areas kept safe from dogs, because he loved that stuff. He had water dishes through the house, with his main one raised on top of another dish so he didn't have to hunch over it to drink. His litterboxes were always scooped as soon as he was done (even in the middle of the night) and he had five of them around the house with three types of litter. When he wanted to use the litterbox in the basement, he got a ride back up the stairs when he told me he was done. I trimmed his backside (he was a longish mediumhair) so he didn't get too much litter stuck in it, and he purred so loudly when I wiped him when things stuck! He didn't even mind my washing his feet if he stepped in a fresh 'biscuit' after peeing and got litter clumped in his toes. He would call for me to come sit on the back porch with him in the mornings, so I would put aside everything else (or get up if I was trying to make up for lost sleep at night) and sit and color in my coloring book while he napped next to me in his chair. And sometimes he would yell at me from the porch and he would actually be demanding to go outside on his leash, so I'd leash him up and we would spend whatever time he wanted going anywhere in the yard he wanted to go. His last trip out was on his birthday, a pleasant stroll with a little grass eating, some shrub sniffing, bird watching, and walking around the house to check up on the messages from the neighborhood dogs that pee on the cedar at the corner of our lot. He had quirks: as a kitten he was terrified of a fur 'mouse' on a pole toy that my brother bought for him...until he realized it was real rabbit fur and chewed it to pieces and then dragged the remaining stick around the house wherever he went for nearly a year after that. Figuring out how to work the lever-style door handles of our first apartment, and periodically opening the bathroom door when someone was in there. Playing fetch with sparklie balls, where you could throw them and he'd chase and bring them back a few times before he bored of it. Stealing potatoes from the pantry and carrying them around the house. Figuring out that my asking 'Does anybody want a snack?' was a code for feeding time, so he would lead the way to the food cupboard, and then sit at his own dish waiting to be fed. Figuring out how to open cupboards (high and low) and requiring that we get child locks to keep food safe. It was funny that time you wanted to make oatmeal cookies while we were on vacation and the pet sitter found rolled oats and flour on the kitchen floor, and the baking powder can, the brown sugar, and the coconut in the living room. Being a bread-loving freak (he gets that from my side) and requiring all bread be kept in the fridge because even child-safe locks weren't ShadeMan-proof enough. Figuring out that the flip-down door stop on the porch door made a perfect kitty door knocker for when he was on the porch and wanted back in. Making us panic because he would become mute when in a closet or cupboard, even if we wandered the house calling out for him and asking 'anybody want a snack?' in a desperate attempt to verify that you had not gotten outside and lost. Having his sleeping spot under the topmost blanket on the bed, immediately right of my hip, and turning into a snarling maniac if I moved (that was from my side, too). Even though I'll be allowed to sleep through the night again after over two years of waking in the night to feed a cat, I don't know how long it will be until it actually happens. I don't even know if I know *how* to sleep through the night anymore. And I think I should send a thank you to my old workplace for laying me off and to every place that didn't hire me so I could be there for him and his sister at the end. What a gift it was to be able to do so much for them both.

Is there any way to try making the gardens less attractive, like scenting the area with vinegar or citrus or something else cats dislike? I have strays that like the shade garden, but our yard isn't fenced so no chance for our dogs to partake. I am glad they actually stay our of the food garden, and think they like the other one better because there is catnip in the shade garden. Hmmm, maybe try to entice the cats elsewhere as well as making the 'snack bar' more unpleasant? I wish you luck!

Wow! It looks like she's able to pick up signals from Mars wearing that thing! She does look amazingly happy, I must say. I hope she heals soon, and she stops removing her stitches/staples.

In our house that's a release command indicating the game of 'find the treat' is on! The blending of our pets into one household would not go smoothly, I bet!

I've heard the neighbors tell their dogs to 'hurry up!' but here Al has 'boulevard' for going pee, and Monty's poop command is 'bag is ready.' (I always talk to my dogs as if they understand, and I catch because often Monty's is not easily picked up and I was sick of leaving divots when picking it all up instead of leaving smudges. Catching is easier, especially when he's ill. So...I started telling him, conversationally, when I had a new bag ready after tying another one off, and it was only later that *I* realized it had apparently turned into a command/request/trigger for him to poop. Yay for accidental training!) Al has no 'poop' command, because she hasn't caught on that 'will you just pick a spot!?' is me wanting her to stop getting distracted and just drop something instead of testing sixteen different spots and turning, shifting, turning the other way, backing up, deciding this other spot looks better, turning and shifting and twisting and turning and finally getting ready, then staring off into space or at a leaf or at a distant squirrel or at a person driving by...and forgetting why she adopted such an awkward pose and why we were all just standing there and she will look up at me with complete confusion in her eyes. Man, that gets old. And Monty has no pee command, because his urine is precious, precious stuff and cannot be put just anywhere and he has to judge the possible locations with due diligence to make sure it is worthy of going where he is inspecting...sometimes adopting the pose but then, like Al with her poop, he has to check again and decides it just doesn't have the proper level of value and walks away. Also old. I did start to try to train him to command, but it is hard when even lifting the leg and adopting the proper pose does not mean he is actually doing anything, so pairing a command with the act was too frustrating and I gave up.

You may also want to walk with her on a shorter lead. Not tight, but with your hand closer to her collar than just holding the loop end. If you're close enough, you should be able to resist the leap before it is fully executed, even if you just provide some resistance before she hits the end and is stopped by hitting full resistance. I tend to walk my more squirrel-intense dog with the loop around one hand, and the leash held near the middle in the other hand just for this kind of thing. Then she doesn't get up too much speed and she doesn't get her neck jerked on as harshly and I don't lose my arm.

Another common thing is that it takes movement to properly get the plumbing going, so would it still be possible for him to get a short walk in the mornings? It may help getting his digestive system moving so he realizes there's something he should be doing other than enjoying the day. I know walking in the morning before going to work is a hassle (we have no fenced yard) but a brisk 10 minutes might help!

Oh, man! What a horrible thing to have happened and I can understand why you couldn't sleep. I hope you did eventually get some rest, and the surgeon feels confident about surgery. Good luck to you and your boy.

It sounds like you have been doing a great job of trying to make the household addition as easy on your cats as it can be, and now the cats get to decide in their own good time that they can handle the 'intruder'. It may take a while, but you can't really hurry a cat, just try to smooth their way to making the decision that you want them to make. I don't know if you feed kibble or canned food, but if they usually eat kibble you might up your 'treat' game by introducing canned food as a treat, or maybe getting new and different flavored kibble as treats if they've been eating one food type. My old man (almost 19 now), really likes a bit of a food change - and his favorite kibble right now is Kitten Chow as a treat, and his canned foods alternate flavors every time (Fancy Feast tiny cans). His favorite canned flavor changes regularly, and suddenly a former fave will change to a nose-wrinkling head-turning 'that's poison!' designation and then then it falls out of rotation for a month or so. My cupboard looks like the FancyFeast section of a fairly well-stocked pet food store. (Eyeroll)

It sounds like a success! I know that Monty would have followed people around (hoping for treats, no doubt), too.

Is there any way that the grey could be kept even farther from the stairs to the basement (asks the person who has 4 babygates and one ex-pen blocking various areas depending on the need - two permanent to block litterboxes, 2 others closed at need)? If I was nervous about something scary and multiple times my size, I'd be freaking out if it watched me through my access portal! Our house is perfect for this, since our stairs lead to the kitchen (which has one of those babygates able to block dog access from the main house). But if my cats were in our basement, I'd be blocking dog access to the kitchen so if my cats wanted to investigate that area on main floor there would be more space for them to be in a dog-free zone. Then if they ventured up they could be given the treats and still be safe from hungry greyhound nosing in, and they could look in on the dog doing normal dog things. During our 'new dog' introduction, the cats stayed on main floor and during the day the cats had the bedrooms, bathroom and hallway while at night the dog was kept in the main bedroom by babygate and I slept in the other room with them - husband stayed with the dog. Part of the need for separation was litterbox, and at least we did have two people and I could 'babysit' the cats at night.

When we got our first dog we had older cats that had never interacted with dogs before, and it took them a while to adjust as well. The dog was *exceptionally* cat safe (she didn't even seem to see them), but it took my more easygoing cat about two months to consent to hang in the same room as the dog, and my spookier cat took about six months. The Feliway may help your cats, but so might rewarding them for being on the main floor when they do decide to come up. It sounds like you got a great dog to acclimate them to dogs, though! I hope you are spending some time hanging with them in their chosen safe area. Maybe that could remind them that you love them too, even though you brought in the big scary animal that they are avoiding.

'Touch' is a very easy one, and useful for getting a dog to move itself to your hand instead of you physically moving them (to turn them, get them to shift their body a few steps out of the way, etc.). Monty picked that one really quickly! Good treats in the hand and of course he wants to put his nose on your hand! Instead of 'sit' I would try training 'down' (or 'lie'). They do that easier than a sit, and it can more easily be trained by either luring them down into position or rewarding them after they have adopted a lying position. There are some great videos on training a down/lie, using a treat under your hand and waiting them out, or by doing successive approximations and expecting them to work a bit more and get closer to what you want in the position before getting the treat. Monty still doesn't sit for us, and I really don't expect him to need to do something that looks so uncomfortable for him. He does a great 'down' on command, and also has the best standing 'wait' of any dog I've personally worked with (even better than our non-grey when she is in the sit). I've worked on this since day one, so I really see no need for the sit. (Also, I have to admit that I don't want to have to push my dog to do things. He will freeze and tense up and learning doesn't happen for him if he is 'positioned' by pushing his butt or sweeping his back legs. And I'm too lazy to take him outside with treats to find a hill to back him up to to make the 'luring' into a sit easier because the ground is higher under his hindquarters and a squat more easily becomes a sit.)

That is quite a personality-type change! As he settles in you may start to get a more relaxed character in him, though. As for the difference in reaction to your floors, most pet dogs learn very early on about how to handle the slippery floors in houses, stores, and other areas. I doubt that many kennels have floors that have the same tractionless character in the dog areas, especially where they may move uncontrolled (off lead) where they might be more prone to fast, sudden movements that would reduce traction to nil. So imagine a dog that's never been on something like ice to them suddenly slipping and either fearing falling or actually falling. And then they tense up, try to dig in with claws - which would work on slippery grass or dirt but it only decreases their toe-pad's contact, and overall traction - so it gets worse. I'd be tense, too! They will have to learn a new way to navigate, like those of us with areas that get icy in winters have to re-learn driving and even walking when it gets slick outside. After learning to go slow, and not slipping and sliding, he will *probably* start to relax and be easier on slick floors. Just try not to push him or stress him too much. Rubber-backed rugs can really help the learning period.