Sundrop

Hoping to connect with greyhound parents who have also brought wolfhounds or deerhounds into the home with their greyhounds. We always wanted a giant dog and since we're not getting any younger (hah!) I think the time is nigh. Oh, and if anyone has photos of greyhounds with either breed, pleeeeeeease post!

We've had six greyhounds since 2004 and all got a new name upon adoption. Though, our 2nd greyhound was a bounce - his first family named him Cosmo (I think he was with them around 6 months) but we went back to his racing name which was "Keota Backdraft" and called him Keota. I have a girlfriend who has a slew of adopted dogs and she insists it's too confusing for them to change any of their names - subsequently, she doesn't like the names of most of her dogs (I think she has 8 dogs now). It makes me laugh - all I do is say the new name and when they look at me, they get a treat. Literally every greyhound in my home has learned his/her new name within a few days and they are happy to respond when called. None of them seem the least bit confused and we've loved all the names! Other than Keota, we haven't liked any of the racing names at all.

I can attest that my 6-year-old greyhound is reacting terribly to her Seresto collar. It started with constant head shaking and ear itching. We took her to the vet to have her ears checked and they were "perfect" - no mites, not dirty - but they looked mildly irritated. We took the collar off and it cleared right up. However, a week ago we found a flea on her - so the collar went back on. Within a day she had itchy ears and now I see little pink sores (one was bleeding slightly) in a ring around her neck under the collar. I just took it off again because it's pretty obvious this is a reaction to the collar. Our boy doesn't seem bothered, so his will stay on. Now I need to find another solution for her. I don't like topicals, either.

Yep, snuggle while she's awake and get her off the couch and onto her own bed. I'd personally opt for snuggling on the floor and then leaving her there rather than allowing her on the couch at all. Our first boy was space aggressive - very different than sleep startling. He was pretty darn scary about his space when he was lying down, and though he got better over time, we always respected his space and never pushed it. Our 2nd and 3rd boys (3rd one is still alive) both would get startled at times when asleep. We snuggle on the floor and when we see him falling asleep, we get up so it's a good encounter for all. Our first boy taught us to respect sleeping dogs!

Our sweet girl Tilly (we lost her in 2016) had vision issues also - as others have mentioned above, I'd highly highly recommend getting into a specialist right away. We were able to help our girl retain some of her vision through medication. We put down rubber-backed runners on our hardwood floors for her and added solar-powered motion lights outside so she could see the yard at night. We also put nightlights up in all hallways, by her water bowl and by the bed where she slept at night. We also got a gate to put at the top of the stairs to close off access at night when we knew it had gotten worse for her (she was also having seizures). Lots of other things you can do to make him more comfortable and confident - I'd recommend the book Living With Blind Dogs: A Resource Book and Training Guide for the Owners of Blind and Low-Vision Dogs - it helped us a lot.

Hmmm. If over 65 is too hot to walk a greyhound, ours wouldn't get walked for 8 months out of the year! Ours get walked twice per day (morning/evening) and temps here are already mid to upper 80s for our evening walks and they're panting, but fine. When temps get into mid to upper 90s and our humidity is through the roof, we walk them later in the day and may cut down the walk time if it's too hot. They are vulnerable to heat, but 68 is not very warm... How long are your walks? We used to do three walks per day with our first greyhounds (15 years ago!) and found it was too much. They enjoyed it, but we would have to kind of drag them by the third walk of the day and that was only taking 10-20 minute walks. We cut back to morning/evening. It took a couple weeks to get them used to not having an afternoon walk, but they adjusted just fine.

I am so very sorry. We lost our dear, sweet Tilly @ 8.5 years old to bone cancer. Originally we were told she'd had a stroke, but after several weeks of rehab and an intensive neuro consult with an MRI - another x-ray was done and they found the mass. We lost her only a couple weeks later. We initially took her in right before Christmas due to limping, which quickly turned to complete lameness on that leg. We lost her on 5 February and she would've turned 9 on 1 August.

I am so very sorry for your loss. It's evident that you love Raffle very much and I completely understand how you feel. We had a somewhat similar experience with our 13.5 year old first greyhound - she was my heart dog. I adored her. We took her to the vet for testing, as she had stopped eating and they said we should leave her overnight. Turns out she had some masses in her belly and overnight they gave her too much fluids, the masses moved and it caused hind-end paralysis. By the time we got there (we missed their first phone call that morning, so she waited even longer than she had to) - she had been suffering all morning, unable to get up, terrified by her surroundings (she hated being in cages and strangers) and we had to say goodbye on the spot. It was honestly one of the worst moments of my life and 8 years later, I'm still sometimes haunted by it. That said, your vet probably didn't have the equipment there to diagnose a stroke so they went with what they suspected - it's not something a normal vet would have. The girl we lost 2 years ago lost the use of her back leg and we were told it was a suspected stroke. Even after taking her to a neurologist and spending thousands of dollars on tests, MRIs, etc. - they still couldn't definitively tell us whether it was or was not a stroke. We lost a lot of time & money going to appointments and having tests done, only to be told at her final vet visit (where I asked for another x-ray to be done) that they found bone cancer (we had still thought it was a stroke until that moment). They then told us they couldn't rule out that it was a stroke and bone cancer. It was crazy. My point in saying all of this is that you'll always second guess yourself because you love, adore and miss Raffle. She was your sweet girl and you would've done anything for her - and you did everything you possibly could and in the end, did what you believed was best for her. Strokes are not an easy thing to recover from and when there is paralysis on an entire side in an older dog, it's pretty much impossible. We learned a lot about strokes with our last girl and we were told, even though she was only 8 and it was just one leg, that it would be an uphill battle to regain and retain use of her leg and it would likely never be 100% normal again. Raffle's last few hours wasn't great for either of you - but spend more time thinking of all the hours, days, weeks, months and years before that of happiness and love you shared.

Our boy goes on periodic hunger strikes (especially in the morning), and with the added bonus of having bilious vomiting syndrome, which means he tends to throw up when his stomach is empty. I imagine he probably just feels like crap so he doesn't want to eat, which makes him feel worse. Normally a little warm chicken broth mixed in does the trick and he'll at least take a few bites. The only times I'm concerned with not eating is with this guy, since he'll throw up - or when it goes on longer than a meal or two and/or when they also refuse afternoon treats. Obviously you want them to like their food, but definitely don't switch too much or add too many crazy things in. I've been known to sprinkle a little cheese or add a spoonful of pumpkin if I'm trying to entice, but I add warm water every day anyway, so the chicken broth is an added treat and doesn't cause any stomach distress.

Bring her to Charlotte and let her play with Kira once a week? (Seriously, Kira has A LOT of energy!)

I searched high & low for a standard size stainless steel bowl that would fit in our raised feeder & had that slow-eater center and never found one. Seems like an untapped market. We've had 6 greyhounds and all of them, except our current girl (Kira), eventually "calmed down" on eating so fast. I swear, Kira is absolutely NUTS when it comes to her food. I ended up buying two things to try - one was the plastic "suction" "Gobble Stopper" - and it worked okay for a bit. The problem was that I include warm water with their food and it would seep under the suction cup on the bottom, which eventually made the suction stop working. I cleaned it after every meal b/c it got super gross. She would also try and grab the edges of it and pull it out of her dish. She ended up flipping her bowl out of the feeder twice because she grabbed the Gobble Stopper and tried to pull it out (but couldn't because of the suction). Ugh. I then got a big stainless steel "ball" (it's the large "Omega Paw Portion Pacer Ball" on Amazon) and I love it. Our girl still eats pretty quick, but it slows her down and she's able to lick the ball (which she loves) without taking it out of her bowl. It's super easy to clean (toss it in the dishwasher) and it has a little weight to it so she can't flip it out of her dish.

I will say, in response to fannysmom above, this isn't really a "greyhound" thing and can happen with any dog, any breed, any age. "Let sleeping dogs lie" wasn't coined because of greyhounds... I would agree to just use caution with your pups - we've only had one truly space aggressive hound and he let us know early on. He was also a bounce, returned because of this. We have no kids and our other greyhound wanted nothing to do with him when he was lying down - we respected his issues, always made sure we didn't touch him while he was asleep and woke him with claps and calling his name when we needed him to wake up. He accepted my husband sitting on the floor petting him, but never while asleep. He would let me sit with him, too - but I would typically sit on a footstool or something to give us more separation - it seemed to make him more comfortable (but mostly we just left him alone). We've also had two other hounds that would sleep startle and have reactions like you've explained. Two very sweet hounds with no aggression and it really never seemed directed "at" us - only at the world when they wake up barking/growling. But...we always respected their space while sleeping and watched them closely for signs of stress while sitting with them. Seems like some good teaching moments for the kids! Good luck and keep us updated!

Absolutely - and some will never roach no matter how comfortable and happy they are. We've had 6 greyhounds over the years, and they've varied in their roaching. Four of them roached all the time and started very quickly, one would roach sometimes, but it took him a few months. We had one with us for over 5 years and he almost never roached - maybe 5 or 6 times that we ever saw. He was also our space aggressive hound, so I think he was always wary of it, even though he was a really happy boy! I think for our one boy, it was just not very comfortable for him, as he showed some signs of discomfort with his back (in general). So don't be upset if your girl takes some time, or never roaches at all. It varies by pup!

Our angel girl, Tilly, hated the sound of things spraying! She would run when she heard spray pumps or aerosol cans! No clue why, but she never got over it.

First off, definitely get a harness for him. We got one (Freedom harness) for our high prey-drive girl and we make sure to attach the leash on the front so it pulls across her when she pulls, and at first we also looped it through the top to act as a "handle" almost (so she couldn't bolt). We invested A LOT of time in leash training using only positive methods (check out Victoria Stilwell) and we never, ever make a big deal of anything we see out on walks. No, "look at the kitty!" kind of stuff and we never let her fixate on things (sometimes not easy) - we just keep walking normally as much as possible. We don't try and get her attention first, we just completely ignore it and act like it's no big deal. Also, we took her on the same walking routes consistently so she wouldn't also get too excited about her general environment (which she also did). It's not easy, but it's doable with patient and consistent training. Even now, a year and a half later, she still sees every bunny, squirrel, cat, etc., but we just keep on walkin!

We use 2 parts peanut butter and 1 part pumpkin puree. We had one hound that hated peanut butter and we used cream cheese mixed with pumpkin and she loved that. We've also used string cheese - just cut off a piece and make a little hole, put the pill and smoosh the piece you drilled out with the hole back in.

We've had 6 greyhounds - 3 boys, 3 girls. Our first two almost never barked - I can honestly say, combined it was maybe 5x in 5+ years. Our next two (boy/girl) were barkers - our boy was a big guy, about 85 lbs and he sounded very menacing, and he actually brought out the barking in our girl. Both were great at alerting us when someone came to the door, or a car/trucked parked outside, but were quiet other than that. It was pretty perfect - our girl didn't sound quite as scary, but still sounded like a big dog. We currently have two and one is a barker (our boy) - he's about 76 lbs and sounds scary - again, only barking when someone is at the door or he hears something. Our current girl barks very infrequently - and mainly at our boy when they play, hah! As others have said, do NOT get a greyhound if you want a dog to deter people outside. You might be able to work with a group who has a barker, but I wouldn't count on them being a barker when they come home with you. All 3 of our barkers have honestly scared the crap out of people at the door (we had one UPS man who was running away when I opened the door, haha) - but I'd never count on a greyhound barking when you want them to.

We do twice per day, as well. Our boy sometimes turns his nose up at breakfast, so he gets a cup of dry w/ warm water, mixed with maybe a 1/3 cup of wet and in the evenings he gets a little more - 1.5 cups dry w/ warm water and another 1/3 cup of wet. They also get a decent sized lunch snack and a bedtime snack to supplement. We've had issues with two (out of the six we've had) who would throw up bile early in the AM (including our current boy), before we were up, and when I started doing a bedtime snack, that disappeared. They basically get food every 4-5 waking hours. I would never go to one big meal per day, personally.

Great update!!

Hah! She is a booger. I swear, we've had greys that like to tear stuff up - our first boy was really destructive - but we have never had one that eats what they destroy... She's one of a kind, eh?

Kira slipped on the front steps this morning and tore the skin off the back of her leg. I cleaned it and put a little Neosporin on a non-stick gauze pad and wrapped her lower leg with vet wrap. She's had it on all morning, but decided to remove it and eat everything, gauze pad & vet wrap, while I ran out for 20 minutes. My husband thinks she'll pass it - but I am concerned. I have to watch her "go" every morning and evening because she's still a bit neurotic about bathroom time - so I will know right away if she can't/won't go. Should I take her to the vet, or wait? What are signs of intestinal blockage I should watch out for? She's such a weirdo...

As others have said, I think you'll be fine. We've had 6 over the years - three were directly off the tracks (no in-home experience) - one was fostered and two were bounces (in homes but later returned). Honestly, the ones that were previously in homes sometimes had the same issues that the ones right off the track had, and if I rank them in order of "easiest to toughest" - I'd say 2 of them off the tracks rank as the easiest in our home. It doesn't matter. That said, I remember getting our first greyhound. She was an ex-brood, just turned 8 years old and had been fostered. I was IN LOVE from the second I saw her photo online and I know that we moved way too fast. We were so enthusiastic and so wanted to make sure her life was fabulous - we made loads of mistakes and rushed her too much. Luckily, she was the easiest, sweetest and most amazing greyhound on the planet. We totally lucked out! Regarding slippy floors and such - I don't think you need to resort to grips/booties/etc. just yet - give her some time to work it out and never force her. Our current boy hates hardwood floors and I actually thought about those toe grip things - but instead, I just put rubber-back area rugs down in specific areas. I put a runner going from the dog dishes to the back door, so he would feel secure while eating and running out/in. I also put a runner in the (tiled) hallway downstairs (leads to the back door) to make him feel secure running in & outside. That was really all he needed in the end. We already had a huge area rug in our living room and our stairs were already carpeted. We also added non-skid treads to our deck stairs. I think adding area rugs in crucial areas and adding them to your stairs (treads or a runner) would be ideal instead of putting something on her feet. It's so difficult, but the best advice I can give is not to try and rush the process. It's amazing to see new greyhounds blossom and watch their personalities develop. Give her time and space, let her come to you when she's ready. Teach her gently but resist trying to do any real "training" at this point. And most importantly - take lots of photos!

For those of you who use them, I assume you get the large size for your greys? They seem so huge...can someone post a photo with their grey wearing one so I can see what it looks like? We've been considering these also, as I hate using Frontline on them (it works, but hate the thought of poison absorbed into their bodies). We mainly need it for fleas.

I'm so sorry you're all going through this - it's such a tough decision. We've had to make it 3 times now and it never gets easier... I think it's a very good decision to do this at home. We had to make this horrible decision in an emergency situation at the vet's office - and they were responsible for the emergency situation. It was horrible and 7 years later, I still feel sick to think of it and what our girl went through. Doing it at home wasn't easy, but it was so less stressful for our babies. Having said that, I'm not sure I agree with the sentiment that "you'll know when it's time" or that doing it a day early is better than doing it a day late. I agree that you have to look at his quality of life as objectively as you can (so hard to do) - but I can tell you, that is not easy. I firmly believe that you also have to think of yourself in these situations - it's okay to be a little selfish. You do not want to do this and have regrets later, but you also do not want your baby to suffer with no end in sight. For me, the key is "no end in sight" - we had to deal with a grey that stopped eating and we had to feed him with a syringe. We did that to see if he would recover after surgery, thinking if we could keep his strength up, he would get through it. After about 2 weeks, it was evident that he was only getting worse and we had to say goodbye. Our girl at the vet - she was in a lot of pain and paralyzed from the waist down. We had to say goodbye. The last time we had to do this, I still have a few regrets...she had osteo and no use of her bad leg. It was aggressive, her leg was swollen with lymphedema. She was still eating, still seeking cuddles and sleeping on her back for belly rubs. But...she couldn't walk well, or get up and down on her own. It was scary when she had to relieve herself as we were terrified she'd fall and shatter her leg. We changed our minds every day with her - should we, shouldn't we? Some days she seemed better. When she had many bad days in a row and the leg got more swollen, we made the call. We made the appointment for the next day, hoping she'd turn around a little overnight (we were prepared to cancel). If you feel that Lou is stable, or showing improvement, then I'd say wait. If you see that he has been "bad" for days/weeks - and is only getting worse, I'd say to have the discussion. Of course, you do not want him to live a life of suffering that will never end, but you also need to be able to live with your decision after-the-fact. The first greyhound we lost died in his sleep after suffering a heart attack. We were shocked & heart-broken and I remember thinking how awful it was. I only wish now that they all went like that...

We've lost 2 birds, 2 chipmunks, 3 opossums and a squirrel (that I know of). I was able to thwart what I now call "bunny-pocalypse" when our current two discovered 3 sweet baby bunnies in the backyard. They each picked one up and ran in opposite directions...I have no idea how I stopped that. It's horrifying - but I only really worry about scratches/bites. We did see a scratch on one of our greys after an opossum attack - vet said he should be fine since he was up-to-date on vaccinations, but we should monitor. He was fine and still hunted those darned critters every night when we'd let him out.