greymatters

Sorry if I wasn't clear before, or if I'm stating the obvious . When you press firmly on his gums, the area under your finger should turn white, and then immediately pink-up again when you remove the finger. If he's not dehydrated, this happens really quickly so it can be hard to see the color change. If it takes more than a couple of seconds for the pink color to return, he's dehydrated. (I'm assuming his gums are a normal pink color since you said they're the same as your other grey's.) I'm focusing on this because dehydration is the main concern for a dog who's off his food - mine will often refuse water as well during these times. 36 hours or so without any water at all seems a bit long to me , but the more experienced folks here would have a better idea. In any case, as Chicocat pointed out, anorexia is a possible side effect of Comfortis so it would probably be wise to discuss this with your vet. Good luck!

Just wanted to clarify - when checking his gums, are you checking capillary refill by pressing a finger on his gum and then watching the normal color return after you remove the finger? The color should return almost immediately. I've been told that this is the best way to determine whether a dog is dehydrated. We've had our share of tummy upset with our boy so I know what you're going through. Our vet generally says not to worry too much if he's off his food for a couple of days as long as he's getting enough water. (Of course, we worry anyway!) As long as he's not dehydrated, then I'd follow the good advice already offered here, i.e., avoid treats and offer bland food etc. Hope your boy feels better soon!

First off let me say that I'm no expert - we adopted our first just a year ago. I'm sure that the more experienced folks will weigh in here, but in the meantime...ours is a boy doggie, and the words "walk, no pee" are frankly incomprehensible to me . In all seriousness, barring a medical issue it sounds like he doesn't really understand the whole "pee outside, NEVER inside" thing yet, and now that the routine has been disrupted a bit, he's not sure what to do. If you have a crate (and he's OK with being crated), now might be a good time to use it to confine him while you start over with housebreaking 101?

Definitely agree that you should get your dog(s) used to sight and sound of the dremel by associating it with yummy treats, before you try to grind (or even touch) their nails with it. See kudzu above Another tip - when you do start grinding, make sure that you have a firm grasp of the toe you're working on. If you hold the toe too loosely you'll get a lot of vibration. My boy definitely doesn't care for that!

Love love love the dremel here. Well, I love it and Merlin tolerates it reasonably well . Major pluses: great for black nails and/or long quicks, MUCH easier to avoid hurting the pup, and works for both righty AND lefty humans (don't get me started on the handedness of nail clippers ). JMO but I would suggest a hardware-quality rotary tool rather than a "pet" model, as I would expect it to have more power and last longer. I already had a variable speed corded dremel (400 XPR) so that's what we use. In addition to KennelMom's awesome pics and info above, you might check out this link from DoberDawn (see "how to dremel dog nails" on the left of the page). I found it extremely helpful when I was trying to figure out what equipment to use and how to do this (and I think I first saw the link here on GT).

Jeff! Our Merlin mastered the "down" pretty quickly, but it took a couple of months before we achieved a reliable "sit". We were fortunate to be able to attend a greyhound-only training class with our boy shortly after he came home. It was a great experience and I think it really helped Merlin to watch and learn with other greys. We humans certainly learned a lot . Hope your class is as helpful and enjoyable as ours was!

This is really interesting. Our Merlin, a racing-school dropout, likes to "talk smack" at our greyhound walks. It seems to happen most often when we first arrive and the dogs are all greeting each other, he gets all growly and weird! He doesn't do this to other dogs (non-greys) at the fenced ballpark where we take him to run, though of course the other dogs aren't running with him. But once he sees a bunch of leashed greyhounds, standing around calmly waiting for their walk to begin, he can't seem to help himself. Fortunately he doesn't keep it up once we all start walking, though he does like to be at the front of the group if possible. He's kind of a stinker, I guess.

Perhaps that's what has me coming back to this thread again. I limited my earlier comments to specific training techniques because I was confident that the experienced folks would weigh in on the timing and patience issues - as they have done, and very nicely. Over and over, people who have adopted dozens (hundreds?) of greyhounds are offering you their best advice: relax, take it slowly, give her time to adjust. I honestly don't get why you are so resistant to this approach. 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...If I had just let her figure out things on her own, it could take her months to gain my trust. But it probably *will* take months, and so what? Real trust takes time. Training can help her to cope with her fears, but I don't think that's the quite same thing . Again, please consider that your girl is already overwhelmed by the newness of, well, everything in her life. Asking her to "learn" more new things might just be too much at this stage. (Scare quotes because I have no way of knowing how much she is truly "learning" at this point. ) As Batmom, robinw, KennelMom, and others have pointed out - training only works if your dog is in a receptive frame of mind. If she's not (because her brain is full!) then pushing her to "learn" might be counterproductive. The worry is that she'll withdraw further, which is exactly the opposite of what you want. As a relatively new greyhound parent, I completely understand your desire to connect with your new girl and the urgency you feel about starting her training off on the right foot. We felt the same way when our Merlin first came home and he is most decidedly not shy! But he was overwhelmed and unsure at the beginning as most seem to be - sometimes the hardest thing was to do nothing, ignore him, and let him explore at his own pace, when I just wanted to fuss all over him. We hope to have a lot of years together, though, so we figured we could well afford to be patient.

Hi tuff, I just wanted to say congrats . Sounds to me like you and your new hounds are making terrific progress in your first couple of weeks together! We also struggled with the stairs when our Merlin first came home. We have 4 steps from our back deck and 3 from the front porch, so there was no way to potty without learning to navigate these few steps. We used most of the tips mentioned here - stinky treats (especially to entice him up), "suitcase" method to get him down, all the while moving his feet one at a time. He learned up more easily than down, but it still seemed to take forever! We didn't even *try* the 15 indoor stairs to our second floor for several months - I was worried he'd get freaked out by the big staircase and then balk at the deck stairs again . Eventually he (and we!) learned how to do it, and now 9 months later he scampers up and down our stairs all day long. It's clear from your posts that you're already having a blast with your new pups. In my (very limited) experience, it only gets better - enjoy!

I would NOT play tug of war with a chew treat, or with any food item. Food is not a toy IMO. If your pup is shy and is still very new to your home, she might not be ready for this type of play yet. In any case, we like rope toys for tug games with our boy.

ITA that "watch me" is a great command to teach in the early stages of training and that it helps build the connection between human and dog. It was really easy for my Merlin to learn this one, and I used it a lot to avoid giving "free" treats. I also use this now when we're training a new behavior and he's not quite getting it - that way the session always ends on a positive note and he still gets a treat, but he had to do *something* to get it. I taught it initially by holding the treat between my eyes, clicking the instant he made eye contact, and then giving the treat from the other hand. (We made sure not to push for extended eye contact, since as greysmom says this can be a dominant or threatening behavior for dogs.)

Excellent point. Our boy sleeps through the night with a coat or jammies on. Without - not so much - lots of nesting and moving around. I've been thinking this too - seems like we're seeing a definite increase in the frequency and intensity of our boy's nesting behavior now that the cold weather has arrived.

It's a pretty simple procedure - Merlin had his chip implanted during his most recent vaccination appointment. I stood at his head to distract him while the vet gave him his shots and then implanted the chip, under the skin between his shoulder blades. The needle looks big but it's a subcutaneous injection (doesn't go into the underlying tissue) and it didn't seem too painful for him. He gave a little flinch but that was basically it. Our boy tends to bleed a bit so the vet and I watched him for a couple of minutes to be sure the bleeding stopped, which it did. We had no issues or problems at the injection site then or since. I would do it again without hesitation. Following advice from folks here and elsewhere, we ask them to scan for the chip whenever we're at the vet's office, just to be sure it's transmitting properly and hasn't moved. Since it seems that dogs often get lost by slipping their collars and thus are without tags, it really adds to my peace of mind knowing that he could be easily and QUICKLY identified by virtually any ACO or shelter personnel, etc. This is especially important to us when traveling - many of the places where we might go for vacations or to visit family do NOT have no-kill shelters.

This is our boy's first summer with us so he's still learning about water. He seems to like it well enough though (With thanks to the person who shot this on our GA walk a couple of weeks ago - we really love this pic!)

I read that hookworm is extremely common in puppies but that most adult dogs develop resistance. My vet also sounded really surprised when Merlin's fecal showed hooks. It made me wonder whether maybe greyhound puppies don't get exposed to hookworm like other pups (who often get it from mom) Maybe the pros here know something about this... I've been told that worms are really common in kennels, so I suspect that's where our boy picked up his. Of course, it's also the time of year when weather conditions (here at least) favor larval development in the warm, moist soil, so who knows? Anyway - so glad to hear that your girl's problem is treatable! It only took Merlin a day or two on the meds (same ones: panacur, flagyl, pepcid) to start showing significant improvement.

Another vote here for intestinal parasites such as hookworm. I would definitely take a stool sample to your vet. We just went through this with our boy Merlin. We adopted him about two months ago - he had really loose stools when he first came home, but two fecal tests done within the first month were negative and we did a round of dewormer anyway, just in case. His digestive system seemed to settle down after the first few weeks and we thought everything was clear. Then last week, he started showing the symptoms you describe: grumbly tummy, terrible gas, mucousy/bloody diarrhea, and then vomiting up undigested kibble. Went back to the vet and this time, the fecal showed hookworm. Good news here is that he's feeling much better after one round of dewormer and several days of flagyl (to help soothe his irritated GI tract). This prompted me to do some quick research on the life cycle of these beasties, from which I learned that the incubation period for hookworm, from ingestion of infectious larvae to mature, egg-laying adults ravaging the intestine, is anywhere from 5 to 9 weeks. The fecal only detects eggs (= adults in intestine), and the dewormer only kills worms once they've reached the intestine - migrating larvae are unaffected by the meds. So our boy probably came to us in the early stages of this infestation, which was undetectable and resistant to treatment during that first month. My lesson learned echoes greyhead's moral: a negative fecal doesn't mean no worms. When in doubt, wait a few weeks and then re-test. Good luck at the vet - hope your girl's feeling better soon!

I'm hardly an expert since we've only had Merlin (our first) for about two months, but fwiw here's my experience: our silly boy would go nuts when I came home from work. If I made it inside he would jump all over me, but if he heard my car in the driveway first he would come running and jump all over the door in his excitement (DH says he's a mama's boy, but it's really just that I'm the Food Lady: mom's home = dinner ). Anyway, we dealt with the excited jumping by me simply turning my back on him (arms crossed) and standing there until he settled down. If I was already inside, I'd just walk past him and keep my back turned or ignore him completely - so hard to do when your new pup is excited to see you! If he was jumping on the door as I approached, I'd walk right up to the door, so he could see me, and then turn around and just stand there until he settled down. Basically, we were trying to follow the NLIF principle: he only gets rewarded (in this case, my presence/attention and then his dinner!) once he starts exhibiting the desired behavior (no jumping). He's a smart boy and learned this pretty quickly - I still get the excited prancing and helicopter tail but he doesn't try to jump on me or the door. As jaws4evr said above, if the behavior has already been rewarded then "reprogramming" it may take some time and practice/consistency - good luck!

This is the key issue here, IMO. According to the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, thyroxine preparations (for humans) from different manufacturers exhibit differences in potency and - perhaps most significantly - stability or shelf-life (link to pdf). For this reason, the AACE recommends that patients stick to the same brand or generic supplier throughout the course of treatment, and that dosage adjustments be made without switching brand/manufacturer. This is important because the optimal therapeutic dose for a given individual has a relatively narrow range. (The FDA was supposed to be tightening their specs to address this issue, but...) Assuming that the above is also true for manufacturers of pet medications, then IMO it would make sense either to ensure that your vet/pharmacy is using a single supplier for generic thyroxine, or to go with a brand name (e.g., Soloxine). IOW, generic is probably just as good as brand name, but the "correct" dose may differ depending on preparation so the generic should be from a single supplier. If you need to switch suppliers at any point, then repeat bloodwork would likely be in order to verify the correct dose for the new preparation.

Hah, we've been thinking how lucky we are, too! We've had our boy for just over three weeks now, and in that time we've had one pee accident in our house (totally our fault, misread a signal during the first week), and one marking "accident" in a friend's house (we credit that one to said friend's three kitties, who were doing their best to drive our poor befuddled greyhound bonkers). Otherwise, he hasn't shown the slightest inclination of going inside the house. Even when we were battling the big D during his first week with us, he would go to the back door and whine to let us know he needed to go. We've taken advantage of his prior crate-training and are quite vigilant when he's out of the crate, which is basically anytime we're at home and not sleeping. We've also tried hard to keep to a regular schedule for potty walks - no fenced yard here, so all business is on-leash - and so far the housebreaking has seemed almost too easy. Still knocking wood every day, but mostly we just think our guy is, well, *perfect* - at least for us. Sometimes I think he's just trying to make it easy for us newbie humans!

Not meaning to be disagreeable but pepcid and zantac are H2 blockers(end with -ine). Drugs like prilosec and nexium (end with -ole) are proton pump inhibitors. Welcome to GT! Ayup - brain hiccuped and swapped the histamine blockers and PPIs. Apologies for muddying the waters here...

Disclaimer: I'm not a veterinarian. But ranitidine and famotidine work in basically the same way - that is, both are proton pump inhibitors that decrease production of stomach acid. Famotidine is a much more potent drug, so the dosage (in humans) is generally about 8-10x more for ranitidine, which is why one ranitidine tablet is 75mg vs. 10mg for one famotidine tab. I might double-check with my vet ('cause I'm like that - if it were for me I'd just take it), but ranitidine is used in dogs for some indications so you're probably fine giving it until you use it up.

Hi Everyone - as you can see I'm new here, and we just adopted our very first greyhound 2 weeks ago. His name is Merlin and he's a little over 2yrs old. More on his general awesomeness and antics later, if anyone's interested ;-)... I've been following this thread, and also twhitehouse's below on "boarding your greys", for info and suggestions re boarding and day care. My OH and I just learned that we need to attend a funeral in CT next week. Since we've only had our boy for a short time and weren't planning on going anywhere for a while, we hadn't yet made any arrangements for his care should we need to leave town. Fortunately, we think we've solved our immediate problem (whew), but now I feel some urgency to identify good options so that we're better prepared next time something comes up. Like bluefawn, I also tried to register at greysitters.com, but found that the registration link is not functioning - from reading this board it seems to have been down for some time. Bluefawn, please do let us know if you get a response to your inquiry! We're in the greater Boston area - I'd be grateful for any recommendations for overnight or day care in metro Boston or Metro West, or even further afield for overnights. Thanks in advance!

Fair 'nuff, and thanks for clarifying - I've been scanning the help section and forums to try to figure out how this member status thing works...

Sorry to be obtuse, but I don't have any idea how to access PM either. And I don't have the "Messenger" option under my username - just Profile, Settings, Manage Friends, etc. Is PM a feature that doesn't get activated immediately for new members (like me)? Or am I missing something else obvious? I've been wondering how to contact another member without posting to all....

Our newly-adopted guy had terrible gas and diarrhea after we brought him home a week ago. Per our vet's instructions, he's now getting FortiFlora for the diarrhea and long-term GI health, together with famotidine (Pepcid) for the gas. I can't say for certain whether it's one or the other treatment, or both, but by the second day his gas had all but disappeared!