sarabz

Oh, Tricia, my heart aches for you & Burke. I'm crying hard for your loss - although I never had the joy of meeting her, you brought her personality through to the GT family. Many hugs to you both and Murray. Rest in peace, sweet girl. What a tremendous post.

Can George teach Bella that? She likes to take raw things and be anywhere BUT the towel I lay down for her Will try the turkey necks, thanks!

Hmmm... thanks! She had her dental 18 months ago (just before we adopted her) and her teeth were looking very good at her checkup in April. The loss of interest has been longer than just the past couple of months, so I'm thinking it may just be that she's getting picky She'll also go bannanas for something new to chew on so it's not that she's not intersted in chews at all, just that her interest in a particular type of chew waxes and wanes.

We really haven't given Bella many chews, but have been trying to give her more for her teeth/gums. Occasionally we'll give her a raw meaty bone, but with the mess that creates and no outside, we generally stick to chews. The challenge is that now Bella is losing interest in chews. At my parents, there are usually rawhides lying around and for a while that was a big deal and she looooved snagging one and chewing on it. Now, not so much. We discovered bully sticks and those were a super-high-value treat. A few months later (now that I ordered a big stock from Best Bully Sticks) they're not as interesting. Tried Sam's Yams which she loves for the moment, although the resulting gas means I won't be reordering She is very food motivated, loves cookies of all kinds (hard, soft, different sizes, different flavors) and inhales her kibble with no additives - she's never uninterested in any of those. Chews, though, she gaines & loses interest in. Any thoughts? ETA - sorry about the typo in the title

Deb, you made me laugh. Your accidental omission of the word "gate" makes this statement so funny! Are you sure the omission was accidental? We found with our Bella that she didn't really like being confined to the crate all day, so we babygated the bedroom. That wasn't as fun, either, (more because she'd find things like books to shred) so now she has the run of the apartment and we only babygate if we know someone's coming to do some work on the apartment. She will voluntarily go into her crate - I've often found her sleeping in there when I come home from work - and we use it at night otherwise she bounces on & off the bed. We were quite lucky in that we had no separation anxiety issues with Bella so I unfortunately don't have a whole lot of advice, just hugs. In fact, I think Bella's happier being an only dog and commanding all of our attention

Nope, Bella never chews. We put water in her food so that she laps it up versus chewing. Before we put water in she would still inhale it but choke and gag and worry the heck out of us. Large enough treats she chews but nothing she doesn't have to.

Oh, no - so sorry to read this

LOVE this!! DH doesn't like that Bella has a bare butt, so we've given melatonin, salmon oil, changed foods, etc - nothing. She has absolutely no symptoms of a low thyroid other than this (and I'm awfully sure my group would have mentioned it the last time they saw her if someone thought this was an issue). I really don't care - actually, my theory is that the baldness is in direct proportion to how much heat a particular area of her body generates. Her butt is ALWAYS warm to hot, even in freezing cold weather. The rest of her that doesn't generate much heat has gorgeous coat, e.g. her back, shoulders, top of her neck.

Thanks! I did soak it in warm water and epsom salts - she was awfully tentative at first and then it was like a lightbulb. Oh! This feels GOOOOOODDDDDDD - she sighed and leaned against me and settled her foot more firmly into the water. I'll keep an eye on it, soak it again in the morning and then maybe go to the vet.

This!! Especially living in the city, "Leave it!" is invaluable. I watched a woman scold, yell at and beg her spaniel mix to open his mouth the other day. She was trying to pry open his jaws to get something he had picked up. So glad that I'm not in that situation - Bella will rarely even try to pick anything up anymore, including pizza crusts, chicken bones and even dropped a live pigeon she had caught when told "leave it"!

Bella has been limping off and on for about ten days. I've learned not to panic as she's pulled a muscle a couple of times while doing zoomies in the hall - the first time, after reading waaay to much about osteo, I ran her over to the vet... and, well, pulled muscle. So, now I know to keep her quiet, short walks, baby aspirin if she's really uncomfortable, etc. She's was getting better and is now limping hard again. Turns out DH let her do more zoomies over the weekend AND took her on a fairly long walk! Argh! So, I'm not really worried, BUT - this time she occasionally stops and licks at or bites at her paw. I found a small cut between the toes, but nothing major. Nothing stuck in the pads, no cuts, no sores, nothing out of place, nothing swollen, nothing tender to the touch other than this small cut.

To me, it's not worth it with a grey or any other dog. When I was a kid, living in a very rural area, we had various breeds of hunting dogs who would take off for hours and come back muddy, exhausted - and leaving my mom and I worried. (Why we didn't fence an area of the yard I don't know, but that's another story). I later had a cocker spaniel who was glued to my side and never would have considered going anywhere - she was almost never on leash. She would watch rabbits, squirrels and birds romp across her path and couldn't be bothered to chase them. But, I look at off leash like I look at riding a horse without a helmet - it may feel good for a few minutes and you might be able to do it hundreds of times without a consequence, but when something goes wrong, it can go REALLY wrong. It's just not worth the money and heartache, in my opinion. I've been riding for 30 years and only a handful of times have I been without a helmet for various reasons - I really don't like it, no matter how uncool it may look to wear an english riding helmet while riding in a Western saddle Now, I will say that Bella has gotten out a couple of times while at my parents - they have four dogs, one of whom is adept at opening doors. She's stayed with the pack, I've realized immediately what happened and have taken steps to not let this happen again. I also ALWAYS carry high value treats with me when I'm there and have made it a recall game so that she knows I have treats and that she gets a BIG reward when coming to me. I'm not about to walk around the property with her or anything else silly, but am trying to make small steps toward a chance of her coming to me if she did get out again. There are people who have extremely well-trained greys - Jennifer of Never Say Never Greyhoundsshows some amazing videos of recall work with her dogs. But, this is from a person who has spent a LOT of hours training recall and other exercises and holds herself and her dogs to strict standards. Direct quote from her website, under "Recalls" - As you know, greyhounds are safest when on leash or in a fenced yard. It is foolish to believe that greyhounds with none, some, or even a lot of training can be trusted off lead. In my experience, it takes a special greyhound, overall respect for the human's authority, daily training and reinforcement, and a lifetime of ongoing practice to gain reliable off lead work. And even then, it is never 100%. Ultimately, I don't trust my or DH's training (or untraining ) of Bella to be comfortable letting her offleash in an uncontrolled situation. We have hounds to be their caretakers and guardians, and to do this we need to use our best judgement, not what we think they would like. Kinda like kids, or so I'm told!

Bella is SO food motivated that she bounces around the apartment in the morning between her last walk and when she gets her Kong. I'm convinced that she now only goes on her second morning walk just to get her Kong, since she really just walks out the door, pees and beelines back inside. We started it when we first adopted her and now she knows that if she gets a Kong, we're going to be gone for a while. If we're just going out for dinner, she doesn't get one. We use the large size. I actually bought six so that I can make up a whole batch at once and stick them all in the freezer instead of dealing with it every morning. I put some loose treats in the bottom and fill the top half with a blend of oatmeal, peanut butter and pumpkin, then freeze. She's rarely left anything in it unless I stuff the peanut butter mix to low into the Kong. PS - They're really cheap on www.petedge.com

Hi!! Welcome!! We've had our Bella for about a year and had many of the same concerns you do. My husband and I are generally away 10-11 hours a day and we alternated coming home at lunchtime during the first two weeks as we all got used to each other and worked on finding a dog walker that we liked and trusted. We don't have a dog walker, because by the end of the second week we were waking Bella up to go out for a walk, so we decided that it really wasn't urgent for her to go out in the middle of the day We live in the middle of Manhattan, have no yard, no dog-walker, take Bella to the local kennel/day care only when she's staying overnight, go for a couple of walks a day of varying length (depending on time of day, weather, etc) and Bella seems awfully happy. Most weekends we do something - such as hop on the train and go to Connecticut or just go out and explore the city and Bella goes with us - exhausts her for days, it seems The best thing for us was to be really honest with our group about our lifestyle, environment, etc. They really made sure we were paired with the right pup. Occasionally we'll meet up with other greys for a playdate - Bella still doesn't have much interest in running or playing with them, or with other dogs, but all are different. There are thousands of dog park and playdate experiences accounted for on GT, including the extremes. Greys are great for apartment living - you won't regret it!!

Bella's bum is still bald after a year + of trying salmon oil, melatonin, different food, treats that apparently worked for other greys..... DH is somewhat obsessed with this, I really don't care. I have noticed that her bum generates a LOT of heat and wonder if that might have something to do with it.

I use a sharp "ah!" "eh!' sort of sound when Bella moves, and use food to reward when I give her the release "ok". I know NOTHING about agility training/obedience training, but use a stop sign sort of hand signal to indicate "wait" and then an arm sweep as an "ok". I pull my hand into my chest as a fist when I want her to stay as is. Worked with the verbal commands paired with the arm signals and now she's awfully good about just the arm/hand/body language signals.

I find that Bella's black coat can get extremely hot to the touch so am very careful about her sun exposure. We're rarely places where we're exposed to too much sun and definitely take care. We were loking into cooling coats but really appreciate this thread as they are a new concept to us.

We allow Bella on our bed, but she never spends the whole night there. She really prefers to sleep in her crate. We generally shut the door to the crate, otherwise she tends to hop up on our bed at about 4 am. We all sleep better if she's in her crate.