christinepi

I've given my grey 4 fish oil pills a day to keep his skin from drying out, which worked great; today I switched to flax seed oil (as oil, not pills), since the fish oil pills were done. Does anybody have recommendations as for amounts?

Since greys appear good candidates for bone cancer from what I've read, I'm wondering whether getting health insurance for my 3 year old would be a good idea. Has anybody had a good (and sad, obviously) insurance experience (name)? Is it worth it?

What happens generally with my greyhound (I'm very very new to this, too) is that he'll pull towards any dog he spots. Now I know about the loose leash business and tension transmission, but how do I keep the leash loose if the dog can't wait to get to the other dog? Is training then the only answer to this, like flawless heeling, which seems very hard to do, in other words, is my dog just poorly mannered no thanks to me if he pulls towards any strange dog? Mind you he's friendly with everyone as long as nobody's too excited, and even then he just walk away.

Thanks for all the replies--it really helped. One thing I failed to mention is that Tracker doesn't WALK the entire time we're out--he spends a lot of time sniffing and checking out stuff, and I let him do this as long as he likes. He also clearly slows waaaay down on the way back (we don't do loops that often since we live way out in the boonies where there is no opportunity for that--it's one way and then go back the same way), which seems to me to be saying "what, we need to go home ALREADY"? But what seems definitely to be the case is that temperature affects him. I thought living in the coastal fog in Northern California, where 68 degrees constitute a heat wave (seriously), would be amenable to a greyhound, but obviously I was wrong. So I'll keep the walks longer in the morning, when it's still foggy, and keep the later ones much shorter and let him be the guide. The thing that has been confusing to me so far is that he will get restless throughout the day and velcro himself to me (something he never does otherwise), which in the beginning always meant "take me out, PLEASE". But then when I pick up the lash and open the door, he's more like "Huh? You mean I have to leave the house?!"; he has a little fenced in area right outside the door, but he'll not go there on his own or even with me, so that's clearly not of interest. So I'm not sure what he's telling me when he's kind of restless. It's perhaps more mental restlessness, since when I then proceed to do some clicker training, he's all for that. I guess his needs then are not so much about physical but rather mental exercise. Since people always say that a tired dog is a happy dog, I ASSUMED that's what I should do, too, tire the pooch out, but that's not what he seems to need. And yes, as somebody wrote, I need to simply take into account that even though his limping has been very intermittent (he hasn't for many days now at all), there have been race track injuries plus surgery, therefore I should give him much more time. So I will; it's just so hard to know what does he need, want, and what's the right thing for him? Since everybody says greys are stoic and will do things against their own better judgement when it comes to pain... Anyway, we'll take it easy and see how it goes.

We got our first dog/greyhound, Tracker, 3 months ago. Initially, he had a fair amount of energy, but since he came with a toe injury, we needed to have his toe amputated, which of course required several weeks of taking it easy. Everything has healed, though there still seem to be some on and off limping issues that our vet will have to check him out for. But what I've noticed most since the surgery is his much lower interest in going for walks. He loves his morning walks, as long as they're not longer than 40 minutes, but for the later two walks he doesn't have much energy left, so the walks are only about 20 or 30 minutes each. So he gets a total of 80 to 90 minutes a day, during half of which he's dragging his feet. Sometimes, when I take him to a new location to walk, he'll be more energetic, but not always. Like I said, the vet will see him next week, and we'll ask the same questions; his blood panel right before adoption was normal. Medical issues aside, assuming this dog was healthy, what is "normal"?? I do clicker training with him to mentally challenge both of us; we work from home so we're around a lot; the only thing he hasn't been exposed to yet because of his foot issue is other dogs, so he hasn't really played with other dogs yet (although it took him a good 2.5 months to even show any interest in play with other dogs, which I understand is totally normal with greys), but that'll change soon. He loves people and is incredibly mellow otherwise. He just loves his sofa and clicker training--to hell with the walks. What gives?

I've had my greyhound, Tracker, for 7 weeks now. He's met kids of varying ages over the course of this time, and there's never been an incident. He's fascinated, and stops to watch, but doesn't get particularly excited. Today, however, he met a 16 month old boy who was being held by his father (in his arms, outside in our yard), and Tracker started getting real excited and wanted to get to the kid, pulling strongly on his leash, wagging his tail slowly (something he doesn't do much of at all otherwise), and in every way was intent about either meeting or eating this kid. He didn't try to jump up. I never let him get too close, obviously. He's done this before when my husband held one of our cats in his arms, as well (this was before he knew any of the cats very well, but he didn't respond the same way to them when they were on the ground, just when he held her). He's also shown this behavior when seeing a baby goat (on the ground) a while ago--he whined and pulled and obsessed, too. A number of weeks ago he's had one nice interaction inside our house with a different kid, more like 1 year old or less, with the kid sitting on his dad's lap--Tracker poked his nose into the kid's face and sniffed and sniffed, but it was very obvious he was calm doing that. The fact that he was that way with the goat makes me think if he's the same way with at least this kid he thinks it edible. He's otherwise, with adults he doesn't know, a very friendly, calm dog, and also mellow with strange dogs, including small ones. Or is he just particularly fond of certain small kids and is dying to greet them?

I give my greyhound 1,000mg pills of fish oil each day for his dry skin, which seems to help (he's on a raw meat diet with steamed veggies, oat flakes, apple and garlic--ugh). It's still dry-ish, though. When I shampoo him with oatmeal shampoo (ca 1x/month, and I only wash him once with it, not twice) though, he really sheds dandruff like mad for two days or so and his skin on his thighs is super dry. Should I up the amount of fish oil, or use a different shampoo, or use some moisturizer, if there is such a thing? Any other supplements?

We've got our first greyhound, Tracker, 5 weeks ago (I've never had dogs, my husband had two "regular" dogs many moons ago). After he came off the track in November of last year he went to a home that had two or three other dogs and some cats. After 3 months there tensions with one of the dogs (a male, neutered) there culminated in a quite serious fight and he was given back to the adoption agency, and soon after that we took him (we have no other dogs, just cats). He's a lovely guy, well behaved, confident, calm. No need to ever be even stern with him, he's so easy and mellow. Several observations: 1. He is comfortable sleeping in the living room by himself (he made that choice); he also sleeps there when we are in the kitchen during the day, which is often (we work from home). 2. He has next to no interest in other dogs (even in our friends' grey). He's confident with them, and will stand his ground when other tall dogs are in his face or just generally too high energy for his taste. He seems not to care at all to play with any of them, even the grey. 3. In the very beginning he was interested in squeaky toys, but no more. Tossing balls elicits no response, no interest in chew toys (except for marrow bones--they keep him busy for up to 2 hours), or tug toys. He doesn't steal shoes or socks or anything else. Doesn't chew on anything but bones. 4. When he's resting on the sofa during the day between walks, he's mostly unresponsive to talking to him or petting. Just lies there with his eyes open. Also hardly ever wags his tail (with the exception of when two different people came to visit--he even jumped up on them in excitement, which I had never seen him do until then). 5. He doesn't seem to ever get playful, goofy or silly with us (in the very beginning squeaky toys would make him go silly temporarily, but since he's not interested in them anymore, no more silliness). 6. He loves his food and his many walks per day, that much is obvious, and petting solicits often in the morning after his meal. On walks, he'll often stand and just take in and listen (we live in a rural area) for minutes at a time with great calm. He also loves training sessions. My question: if this is all in a perfectly normal behavior range for greys, I'll be happy and stop worrying. I'm just concerned he's sad or even depressed for some reason. I have nothing to compare it to.

So I live on the California Central COast where we have a pretty long tick season. It seems most people use/have used Frontline Plus. My question is: does Frontline also leave behind presumably toxic residue on the dog's back for 5-6 days? If it were no different from Advantix in that way, I'd be reluctant to try that route.

I just came across this thing on the web (http://wolfcreekranch1.tripod.com/defaq.html) that food grade diatomaceous earth, given daily with food, helps get rid of any worms (apart from heart worm) that dogs may have. Anybody have any experience with that?

So I've heard conflicting info on flea/tick products for greyhounds. Advantix vs Frontline, or rather pyrethrins vs Permethrins. We got our hound Tracker 4 weeks ago and used Advantix on him recently. I can't stand the stuff how it sits on his back for 6 days, looks slimy and ominous and I feel I can't touch him there; also I heard after I applied it that there can be a seizure connection. Then there are natural products like Bug Off and Flea Free. So two questions: Does the poison work best, and if so, which one is the safest for everybody involved? Or do the natural ones work really well also, and if so, which ones? Thanks.