Fruitycake

If there is a window that she is jumping up to look out of, can you temporarily completely block the view? Maybe cardboard that you can brace in? If she doesn't get the view, maybe it won't be as interesting to her (like having no food for a counter-cruiser). Good luck!

As long as she is happy to eat it, I think it is a win for both of you. I had to laugh at the line about the rice making them hungrier, because whenever I eat fried rice, or any rice-intense Chinese food, I know I am starving in half the time I would be even marginally hungry on anything else!

Thus we see a very clear picture of how the high-density animal farming practices are a really bad idea. One known infection = thousands of animals killed as a precaution. Not a really sustainable practice.

Your description sounds like a sleep-barker to me. We have one dog that does this and sometimes wakes herself up (with the same confused looking around as if she doesn't know where the barking sound came from), but usually we just call her name to wake her up so she will settle again. Monty, however, doesn't sleep-bark: he sleep-growls! And holy mackerel, does he sound ferocious when he does. I have never once heard him growl when he is awake, either, and we have had him over 7 years. He has absolutely no sleep startle, no possessiveness or defensiveness when sleeping, and is a completely mellow dog. I heard him snarl at our other dog twice, when she decided to lie directly on his legs, but he didn't offer any other angry signals other than the snarl and getting up and tossing her off that way. Not even an air snap. I would always try to be aware of her as you have been, but not automatically assume that she is doing anything other than being startled and having it come out in a bark, or just dreaming and barking herself awake. Having you calmly alerting her to your presence seems like a good approach, so she may learn not to startle so much when you move. Although, if it would make you feel better, you could try waking her up before extracting yourself, so she is warned and awake and doesn't startle at all. At least for a time.

I hear your pain with the statuing. Monty, our grey, did this a lot when we got him, but we also had the problem that he was also really, exceptionally shy about going potty when attached to a human. And we have no fenced yard, so we had to be out until he produced, which was not fun when he'd freeze halfway around the block. We did a lot of tight circles into his shoulder to get him moving again, and sometimes actually get behind and push him a few feet. Alternating that with acting like we were on the other side of the galaxy if it looked like he might be thinking about doing something. If he saw us looking at him everything was cancelled and we went back to trying to go somewhere so he'd do something.... Try not to get frustrated as best you can. It will get better! He will figure out that walks can be good, not scary, things and someday you will go back to this post and marvel at how he has changed! And I agree, he's a cutie!

I'd make sure that at home you have plenty of beds for them and encourage her to choose somewhere other than right with him. Hopefully the car snarkiness was just surprise and being just a bit disgruntled at sharing *his* car with an interloper because it is such a small space. I'd definitely keep them separated, or at minimum muzzled, when you aren't there to directly supervise for a while until you see how he deals with sharing the 'castle' with her. That said, squabbles between even the best of friends can happen, and though they are related, they probably don't know each other so it's more like being tossed in with a new roommate at college: much adjustment in the beginning and the initial reaction may change when they get to know one another's likes, dislikes, and quirks. I would take them on lots of nice walks together, so they are able to move in tandem and just get used to being near and yet not truly trying to occupy the same space and navigate the social dance actively with each other. If he snarks at her for a perceived transgression, try to intercede gently by helping her find somewhere else to be (as you did in the car). Help them be calm together by ensuring that they both have the space they need, and using muzzles when you aren't sure they are comfortable.

I just wanted to let you know that I knew a cat that had idiopathic pericardial effusion who wasn't expected to live very long (months at most) but with proper treatment he lived another three years with great quality of life! They periodically had to drain the fluid from him, at first it was more than monthly and then it got more frequent (every 3 weeks then every other week toward the end), but between those vet visits he seemed to be feeling fine and only slowed down when it was time to drain again. I hope your boy has the same good luck that Red did!

(Does anyone else want to give the first vet a "Gibbs' slap"? Grrr.) Definitely a full thyroid panel. Expensive but worth it to be sure something is actually going on, or to verify that actually the thyroid is fine and it's something else. I also posted in your T&B post about maybe trying to dim the view through the patio doors by sticking some of the window tint sheets to them. I don't know if he's doing damage other than near the doors that he can see out of, but if there is an aspect of getting frantic at something he's seeing maybe it could help. Some people swear by the "calming cap" for dog reactivity, which works on the same principle, so maybe there is a small chance that it might help. It cannot hurt, other than your pocketbook - which is already suffering! I am sorry that you (humans) and he are going through this.

Is there any location other than in front of the window that he is damaging? If not, is there any possibility you could somehow block or at least dim the view of outside (the window stickies to make tinted windows or something)? If he actually moved the couch to do damage at the patio door, maybe it has something to do with things he is seeing outside? This would not help at all if it was sound-related, though, or if there is damage by other doors/exit areas. Some people swear by the calming cap, so maybe having tinted windows might help - even if just a little it might be another small step toward helping him and you get through this. You might need to do it on regular windows too. Just something I thought of when I saw the pictures. (And I feel sorry for the damage deposit that you won't be getting back! Ouch!!)

It sounds as if you could avoid this area (and it might be a stressful area for her since she has been stressed there often enough - so she's always getting keyed up when approaching that spot) by turning around early and avoiding that spot by not going that far. If it means that you go home and then continue a little bit further (do two shorter trips as one walk), it would be one way to avoid the spot where she may be learning to associate that scene with getting stressed. My Allie is dog reactive, and there is an area where she always goes on alert because she has been barked at by another dog there a few times - even when there is no dog there to bark at her she just has learned to expect it. So I try to avoid that area, so she cannot be reinforced in her expectations of "dog going to bark at me here" because sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't happen. Unfortunately it means that I either have to walk around an extra huge block, or go back the opposite direction (which means that Monty is on the wrong side of the sidewalk to pee), so I try to avoid a direction that might put us there if the weather is particularly cold or yucky and I might want to take that short cut. My husband will walk her there, and so she is still learning that there is a possibility of being barked at there, and she will try to go that direction with her entire being "on alert" and tail up and ears forward and little huffs and chuffs coming from her until I tell her we're going a different direction and come on. Then she will tone everything down because the different route doesn't have that "evil barker" to get her goat.

I have noticed that greyhounds, more than most dogs it seems, will enter a high stress situation and go into a "power down" mode because they just cannot handle the stress. While other dogs may whine, try to get away, try to hide, a greyhound may just shut down and become a lot "easier" because they have gone into their mind and are trying to distance themselves from the stress. Some won't, but my Monty when he is put into more stressful situations (like a grooming, or when there are excessive fireworks or they start when he's outside on a walk with us) will turn into something like a dog-shaped doll. This might be part of the reason that at the vet he was "easy" or even why he was easy for you a few times when dealing with this foot and then sometimes was not - he'd been pushed beyond the point where he could ignore. And I don't think you can absolutely say that he was feeling no pain - greyhounds can be exceptionally stoic when they are actually injured, and may be complete drama queens when merely uncomfortable or surprised. And pain is very subjective, and it's even hard for people to know what kind of pain other people are feeling and what different levels of pain would mean for you when they describe it. "Agony" as described by one person may be mere "annoyance" as described by another. Dogs are even more foreign!

This is true, but the best thing for this particular situation is completely blocking access if you cannot supervise. Baby gates aren't just for babies! They can be exceptionally helpful in a wide variety of situations: having an open door to move furniture or carry lots of groceries through, you're handling something heavy and/or dangerous in the kitchen, eg. large pots of boiling liquid or frying something and don't want to trip over a sneaky dog that comes through and gets behind you at the wrong time. It is a purely mechanical method of preventing the dog from being where it is dangerous for them or for you. A $45 babygate could save you hospital bills (broken wrist anyone?) or vet bills (trip over dog and dump something on them, or they manage to pull a chicken carcass from the counter or garbage can). It isn't in place of training, but it can be a great support for you and the dog to help with the training. We have a babygate to the kitchen, and my dogs both know the term "Out" to get them to move to the livingroom so I can lock them out. (Helpful when I am baking, or when the cat is eating his canned food and I don't want him bothered by dogs drooling over his shoulder, or when we come back from grocery shopping and don't want to have to move the dogs around our tiny kitchen when putting items away.)

It is definitely unfortunate that the word "placebo" has become synonymous with "quackery" or "lies" or "fake medicine." It would be great if they could come up with a different term and not use the term "placebo." Since it is a conditioned response, I think that would be a better term for it (unless we want people to disregard it as just more "woo woo" or "magical thinking" on our part). It is interesting that it works with animals as well as people. I had never thought of that, but it does make sense. If ringing a bell can cause dogs to salivate, then learning that they can be calmer in a situation given a certain association to feeling better after a certain routine is set up does follow. It has been shown that drug addicts can easily overdose if they administer even the normal amount but the situation is different (location, company, etc.) because their body doesn't properly prepare for the "hit." So a positive outcome would be great - get dogs to know that they can be calm, and wean them off of the mood modifying drugs carefully as long as the routine is set up properly. Sounds like another great tool in the animal behaviorist or trainer's toolkit. (And that issue actually has a few articles that I find to be intriguing, so I'll have to read them as I get time. The journal is full text in the ScienceDirect (Elsevier) database for any of you that work at academic institutions with a subscription to that journal package!) Thanks for linking to this! I used to read her blog all the time but have wandered away from it these past few months.

Welcome to Greytalk! I'm not nearly local to either location for you though (St. Paul, MN - not nearly as snowy as Chicago, ironically!).

Welcome! I love to hear from greytalkers from the "international" side of things. And yes, your greys are gorgeous!

What a happy, beautiful girl! Welcome home, Kaylee!

I know that loss isn't solely felt by those that owned the pet in question, so you have my condolences. Tell Gill that the greyhound community is mourning with her family at the loss of this beloved girl.

My response (which got my dogs' attention because I said it aloud) was No! No! No! I am so very sorry to hear about your loss of your beloved boy. I knew that he was having trouble, but never imagined that I would see a post here from you so soon. I am heartbroken for you. I know that words here cannot truly heal your heart, but know that many of us here hurt for you and with you at your loss. I am so sorry for your loss, but also happy for the both of you that you found one another and had so many years of love. It doesn't really help much, but hold onto those funny and happy memories, and eventually your sorrow will lighten. He was a lucky boy to have you.

Did you take the opportunity to "load the clicker" before even starting to use it (in a calm, familiar environment)? I cannot imagine either of my dogs learning that a click means treat when in a stressful environment with other dogs and people and where there are different smells and people talking and everything is new and strange - and one of my dogs is exceptionally smart, not a greyhound, and is about as food centered as you can get. I would hope you would have been instructed how to do this and told to do this at home before ever attempting it in a more chaotic class environment. ("Loading the clicker" means associating the click noise to immediately afterward getting a treat. It's the first step and most important foundation you can lay for clicker training. If they don't already strongly associate that noise with immediately getting a treat, and you make a random loud sharp noise when training, he may be viewing it instead as a punishment! - I just wanted to make sure this was clear, not that I thought you didn't know it. I don't know what the non-dog behavior/training populace knows about clicker training, or how it is being taught in class.)

Does he seem cold, or do you think he should be cold? If he doesn't seem to mind the temperature when he goes outside, he might just not need it. I know that my Monty is a "chillbug" and he is like a thermometer for when the house is too cold (most of the winter - we keep the house at 63 in the daytime and 58 at night) and I can tell by how he is curled up on his bed. He doesn't care for the static, but he seems to understand when he wears his housecoat he doesn't get as cold, so I make sure to dry his jackets with fabric softener sheets, but do not fully dry them in the drier - let them air dry the last bit - and will rub fabric softener sheets on his jacket if it looks staticky. Using something other than fleece, which I swear was made specifically to be staticky, might help. If he's going for a quick out to potty, he may not need a jacket at all. If you, like us, have to walk, you can watch him for signs that he's getting cold and figure out how long it works for him to be without a coat. Some dogs just run warm, and don't mind the cold though we would think they'd be icicles! Does he respond negatively to the sound of the velcro? Some noises can put dogs on edge, and I would think that something like that, so close to their ears, might be extra troublesome to them. If you have the jacket with you, and fastened, when you're sitting at the couch or something and he's just hanging out, how does he react when you tear apart the velcro? If he reacts negatively, that may be part of the problem. You could try to desensitize him to the sound by tearing it open partially and then treating him, then letting him relax and tearing it a bit, then treating him.... I have to admit that it took Monty months to get comfortable going potty when wearing his jacket. I don't know if he thought he wasn't supposed to or what...but he also seemed to think that he wasn't supposed to when he was on a leash at all when we first got him, so there's that. He was a serious work in progress for a long time for a household with no fenced yard! Sometimes that first winter we would go out for walks with the jacket and then come in and go back out and come back in with nothing produced...and eventually take the jacket off and he'd go potty for us. That was a brutal winter for all of us. Good luck!

Please don't call what he is doing to your children "bites" when they are actually "mouthing behavior." Bite has such a huge negative connotation, and a real aggression behind it, that they are not even close to the same thing. He's playing, unfortunately his playing involves his mouth (it could be fierce pawing behavior, bouncing up on people, pushing them down, etc.) - not appropriate, but not meant in a mean way. And I don't think this involves any "switch" in his head, I think he just watches and gets more excited and then his resistance to joining in just is overcome with the desire to be part of the playgroup. That said, I understand how his excessive "mouthing behavior" when playing is troublesome for you and your children. I agree that he should be blocked entirely from deciding that when you are playing with them in a physical way that he can decide to join in on his own. His method of playing unfortunately includes his inappropriate (for *you*) mouthy behavior, which is how a lot of dogs play. I think his "aiming for the weakest" as you put it, is merely his choosing someone who is closer to his size and more available to him. She was lying on the floor, a place that to most dogs means "time to get up close to the face that I usually cannot reach" and he was keyed up by watching the play going on in front of him, which he thought meant playtime for him too (and mouthing). You directing him from you and your son didn't mean that he understood that he was uninvited from the entire playing field, and your daughter was just another possible playmate. Does he have other ways of playing with you and the children, which doesn't involve roughhousing? Tossing him toys to run after and getting him to mouth them instead of putting his mouth anywhere near a person? Playing with him in that manner, with an associated indicator word or phrase "playtime, Bogey!" or "let's play, Bogey!" can tell him that he is specifically being invited to play, in a manner in which you have set rules (no teeth on person, mouth is only for the toys, any misplaced mouth means playtime is over) and yet lets you bond with him and give him an opportunity to use his mouth in a way that is natural for him and many other dogs. Then when time is up, you tell him that it is over and he is no longer playing (another phrase like "time's up" or "all done" or something that works for you) and then everyone gets time to calm down. Even if he continues to try to get you to play after you're done, doesn't get you to play. And if he does make a mistake, puts a mouth on you - the game is done and he's told so with whatever word or phrase you use, and playmates calmly leave the playing field completely (leave the room preferably, for 20 seconds or so). Then they can come back in, but if he's still too keyed up, do not resume playtime. Give him time to calm down, because he might not be able to contain his excitement because he is still too keyed up. And when you want to play roughhouse with the kids, make sure he's in another room and can't get all excited and join in. And if he gets keyed up knowing that you're playing even if he can't join in, give him time to calm down before letting him join up with you and especially with the kids. He might think that he's being invited in if you're playing and dinner is called and everyone stampedes where he is - "Yay! My turn to join in!" and any potential resistance to his urges may falter or fail. As for prey drive or the going after other dogs, I think your wife absolutely needs to properly hold onto the leash. It should have a loop on the end, and she needs to hold onto that loop tightly enough that if he does see something (rabbit, squirrel, outside cat, small dog) he cannot just jerk out of her grasp and get to it. Any time he has the opportunity to reinforce his chase behavior and catch something, it will make it that much harder to restrain him the next time because he's succeeded before. If holding the leash loop over the wrist and holding onto the leash itself is considered too dangerous because he could pull her down, I don't think she should be walking him. If the leash doesn't have a loop, get one that does. If she was having trouble (pushing something else, or walking other dogs at the same time), don't try juggling that much at once, because it's not enough to hold him back if he takes off. (There are also leashes that can attatch to a belt around the waist, if that would work better for her.) If the dog ever did manage to catch someone's pet, and a child was on the other end of the other dog's leash and tried to intervene, you could easily have a bite to a child on your dog's record. And that would be tragic for everyone! Good luck! It seems managable, but will require work and cooperation on everyone's part!

I hope that one or both options works for her (and you). It would be nice to have a fix for it, I'm sure. Fingers crossed here for you!

I'm glad he came through the procedure well, and I'm sure he's enjoying his many meals a day! I hope you can help him put some more weight on.

I agree with using treats to train the dog to accept things going over his head. You may need to do a lot of sessions of progressive movements toward what you finally want (show the jacket or collar and treat a few times, then bring them closer to his head or touch his head and treat a few times...then when that's not so bad try to give him a treat through the hole in the collar or jacket a few times...). If you have a food crazy hound you might want to make this his meal - "treats" are his regular meal of kibble, but rewarding what you want and showing that it isn't that bad. If you have a fussier hound, you might want to bring out really great treats and use those for the more advanced steps (eating through the collar, or after his collar is on giving the great treat). Do short, frequent training bouts and between them he doesn't get the great treats at all. Someone else here said that sometimes making them close their eyes (holding the muzzle and just gently making them close their eyes as you slide the collar or jacket from off your arm over their head) can work wonders, too. And I hate static and so does Monty (it makes him stop and shake when we're on walks and everything is dry and crackling with static), so doing something for static control can also really help. Good luck! I hope something works for you.

I think that Chad has a great, very detailed and careful plan for being extremely careful for the health of cat and hound. I also agree with the poster that said that you should never hold a cat and try to introduce (holding things makes them way more interesting, and holding a moving thing even moreso!). It may well look like a toy or something for them (we carry their food to them, carry toys for them, carry leashes, so how would they know that this moving thing isn't something fun and exciting and just for them?). That said, we already had dog-trained cats (have your cats had experience with dogs, so you know how they will react?), so when we brought Monty home we did a more relaxed muzzle and leash and constant surveillance for the first 24 hours or so. Monty was somewhat curious about them, but in a "what the heck is that thing?" perplexed way, not reallly interested in them. The muzzle came off, but not the leash, and he still showed no real interest after a few sniffs in their direction when they would stroll right past him (a sniff-of-opportunity, as it were), and he only lifted his head and cocked his ears with perplexity when Fruity would go flying past after using the litterbox (post-pooping zoomies), so he was pretty darned cat safe. It helped that Fruity was also pretty certain in her ownership of the house and our laps, and when she was in our laps he was slapped if he even came near. ShadeMan was a bit more nervous (always has been), but I think that at first Monty thought that he, the larger black longhair, had to be some sort of crazy dog thing because Monty tried to get ShadeMan to play with stuffies with him. He would grab a stuffy, toss it around, and if ShadeMan was somewhere available he would go into a playbow and shove the toy toward ShadeMan and look at the toy like "let's play!" ShadeMan thought it was a trap and would carefully get up and mosey out of the room, and Monty would just plop his head and butt back down and sigh and look at the abandoned toy that he just could not convince ShadeMan to play with. Monty never once looked at one of the cats as a toy, though. We were prepared to do a longer introduction if needed, but Monty was so easy we didn't have to. We did, however, have him crated every time we were out, and at first the cats were also sequestered in the bedrooms with the door closed between them, just to be extra safe. We stopped the barricading the cats probably a week or two into it, and Monty was kennelled for longer just because of housetraining issues and a bit of SA that was doing some damage to some window frames.