sarabz

Oh, no - Gustopher was one of the first houndie pictures I saw on GT. Gorgeous, wonderful boy -

My parents give their Goldens rawhides all of the time, so when Bella's at their house, she'll usually find a rawhide and chew on it for a while. I watch her carefully when she does this - most of the time she chews for a couple of minutes and then just falls asleep :wubs: I don't love it, but I can't put away all of the rawhides that are around the house (they'd just get put back out) and my parents have been giving their dogs rawhides for years without problems so there's no point in my saying anything - it would just precipitate another family argument. Bella gets beef tendons at our house occasionally.

I'm not any help but chuckling over "yak" and "hork"

One of our very good friends was really, really, REALLY against us getting a dog when we first started talking about it. He's really not a dog person, doesn't have much use for them... but LOVES Bella because he thinks she's a cat in a dog's body. She occasionally wags, can be affectionate in her own way, but most of the time is perfectly happy minding her own business and having us come to her if we want to give her attention. It's a striking contrast when we take Bella to my parents' house, since they have three Golden Retrievers who are ALWAYS ALL OVER EVERYONE for affection and attention. Goldens - ohpleaseplaywithmepatmeohijustmetyoubutiloveloveLOVEyouespeciallyifyoupatme Greys - I'll allow you to scritch my neck if you do it properly, maybe I'll look at you intently for a moment if you're about to give me a treat, and I'll use your leg as a pillow if it's properly placed. Ok, I'm over it, time for a nap. From what I read here on GT, there can be big personality ranges, too.

Bella came to us on Pro Plan but didn't like to eat the "shredded chicken" chunks until she was really hungry. We switched to Nutro, then Nutro Ultra and now Earthborn Holistic. She's getting dry, flaky skin and scratching a lot recently and instead of supplementing with salmon oil (which tends to make her poops loose), I'd rather give her a kibble that's solving the problem. Thinking of Canidae since it seems to have higher levels of Omega-6 and Omega-3 fatty acids than many of the others out there (TOTW, Blue Buffalo, Diamond, etc). I will note that she seemed to be doing perfectly fine on the Nutro foods until I started reading more about higher quality ingredients on GT

I'd like a second but our lease restricts us to one. What I'd love is to eventually live somewhere that we can own two and foster maybe one or two others when it works for us. Would have to talk DH into that, though

Yep, this is one of the emergency numbers we have on our fridge. I bought 8.5" x 11" printable magenet sheets at Staples and printed the ASPCA number, vet, e-vet and other Bella emergency numbers - sticks right on our fridge.

It's like shopping for everything else in the city - you get used to it. Errands get broken into more trips for less stuff, and there are a lot of places that will deliver.

I'm strongly considering signing up. With shipping and tax, the cost of the food we buy is within a couple of dollars, and we've had a very hard time getting it at the store around the corner from our apartment, which is where we first bought it They haven't had the large bags in stock for a couple of months now, so that's really getting OLD. Living in Manhattan I don't have easy access to a car to go elsewhere to pick it up (which is also why we haven't tried the Kirkland from Costco).

That's terrific!!!

Bella has been great for the few months that we've had her. I'm noticing more and more, however, that if she's alone in the evening, she gets destructive (she doesn't during daylight). Shredding tissues, chewing pajamas, dumping the trash can in the bedroom (nope, it's no longer there), rumpling up our bed, moving an area rug.... I'm thinking she's going to have to go back in her crate, but with the time change and winter coming, this would mean all day and I'd really prefer not to do that. Walking at lunchtime doesn't work - this also happens if we come home, walk & feed and then leave again for a couple of hours. She's left with a frozen stuffed kong and the radio on, along with the curtains open (this was causing problems for a while). She has access to the bedroom during the day, which is where her crate is, and is baby-gated off from the rest of the apartment. She loves, loves, LOVES the sofa - she might be less destructive if left the run of the apartment but I really don't want to find that out the hard way...... thanks for any thoughts!

You all crack me up - I needed a laugh tonight after dealing with lots of these

never mind

Thanks- I meant to comment on that, too. I was going to and then had a lot of people advise me not to, and it was fine. Of course, now it's even harder to go back to work on a Monday after spending a weekend with our girl, but that's another issue

I will echo what others have said - with any dog (or human, for that matter), there is the expectation that there will at some point be something damaged, broken or have bodily fluids on it. That's life. Crating any dog for 20+/- hours isn't fair to the dog, so you'd have to think a little differently there. However - we have our first greyhound whom has been with us for just over 6 months. Bella's had one accident in the house because we weren't paying enough attention that first weekend. She goes generally from 8 in the morning to 5-6 at night without a potty break and is just fine. We were coming home those first couple of weeks and toward the end were waking her up to go outside, so stopped that pretty quickly. We did crate during the day at first until she started learning that not everything that she could pick up was hers and that the apartment wasn't the place to pee - ever since then, she's been baby-gated in the bedroom during the day more for our peace of mind that any problems on her part. We rarely crate her - it's usually only if we're traveling (in a hotel room) or if we need a good night's sleep and don't want her on the bed but she has her crate to use when she wants. Being honest with our adoption group about our lifestyle was key - our girl was not fostered before we got her but has been just perfect for us. Can't wait to hear what you decide!

Yay!!!!!!! thanks for all of your hard work Trudy!

Sorry, Trudy

When we brought Bella home, we had her on a lot of things, too, after reading tons of threads on here. Here's what we found - Olive oil did nothing except give her loose stools Salmon oil helped her coat and gave her loose stools - in the end, I'm not sure what helped her coat the most - the kibble we chose, good brushings, or the salmon oil. When our last bottle of oil ran out, we didn't replace it - she still has a great coat and much, much better stools Pumpkin is something she loves but nothing that she seems to need We put some warm water in the kibble so she can lap it up and doesn't choke on the dry food - we also put a spoonful of plain yogurt because it really does seem to help with the gas. Case in point - on days that we've run out, we do notice a difference! For kibble - we feed Earthborn Holistic Adult Vantage. We started with ProPlan (which she was on when she came home), moved to Nutro (which she was perfectly fine on, unlike some others here) and now we've settled on Earthborn. I almost drove myself crazy reading about all of the foods, ratings, etc and we just had a store open around the corner that carries a lot of good brands (Taste of the Wild, among others) but Earthborn seems to be really working for us. At $48 for a 28 pound bag every 6 weeks, it better be! Although now that I just did the math it works out to about $0.50/meal (plus some in Kongs) - huh, when I look at it that way, it's perfectly fine! You will hear a lot on GT about grains/grain-free. Bella is just fine with grains so we haven't investigated any foods without them. She also gets cooked oatmeal in her Kongs and seems to be doing just fine. Some of it's trial and error, as others have mentioned, but I'll second the thought that you might want to cut out all of the "extras" as a starting point. Good luck! PS - GORGEOUS, GORGEOUS pup!!!!

:rofl *whisper* I think it's because he's a little sensitive about his thinning spot.....

We've been giving Bella the 3mg/day almost since we adopted her and have noticed a little difference but not much. I'm about ready to give up because I really don't care if she has a bald butt, but DH is sort of obsessed with getting her hair regrown She does have a pretty thin coat all over anyway. I'm wondering if it's worth it to raise the dose for a few weeks to see if there is a change - but then, if we stop, does any regrown hair go away? Hadn't thought that one through, really.

LOL - I hadn't thought of it that way!!!