krissy

Assuming the dog really is underweight. The majority of the time when I'm told a dog is "always hungry" the dog is fine or is already overweight. Unless the dog is truly underweight I wouldn't add more food. I'd just split what he's already getting into more meals. Or put some into a frozen Kong while you're away at work. I think it's also important to differentiate between "always wants more food" and "always hungry". My dogs would never turn down any food ever, no matter if they just ate dinner. They are not hungry, but they are chow hounds. Kind of the same way I end up looking in the fridge or cupboards at every commercial break wanting a snack and then realizing I'm not hungry!

Look up videos of "it's your choice" training. The easiest way to get a dog not to grab is to teach them that they control their reinforcement... only they have to do it MY way. Here was a bit of it's your choice with Kili as a pup. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-ywdZzduoU Kenna is way crazier (also I started this type of training with her a lot younger than Kili) around food, and yet she is far better than Kili about not trying to steal food. We're still working on the scenario where the food is just laying around on the ground outside.

A lot of new dogs also come with parasites, so probably a good idea to have him tested for that first before you go changing foods.

That's too bad about the rink. All the ones are around here are grass.

This. I play disc competitively with my dogs. No leashes. The dog can trip, the leash can snag, if you throw the disc too far both of you will get a tremendous jerk, and quite frankly you can't get a long enough line to play a proper game of frisbee anyway. And if you could, your dog would be so far away and you'd have no real control anyway. Where do you live? Maybe someone in your area will have ideas for fenced places you could play. Here in Canada we have outdoor hockey rinks which are great for about 8 months of the year for dogs (although some cities are idiots and do not permit dogs in them). I have several near me so I use them fairly regularly, though I do also let my dogs run loose at the park as well. Sometimes baseball diamonds are an option.

What a wonderful tribute for a wonderful life.

I would generally consider greyhounds to be a healthy breed, but every breed has problems they are more at risk for, and almost every dog (even healthy ones) are likely to have one or two health issues if they live long enough. 11.5 year old Summit - diagnosed with pannus (a treatable but lifelong eye condition) at adoption at the age of 5.5. No issues up until this past May when he herniated a disc in his neck and had to have surgery for it. Has only had 1 dental cleaning while he's been with me, and that was only because I was taking off a small lump already and figured I might as well. The lump was benign. 4 year old Kili - had a persistent hymen resulting in recurrent UTIs as a puppy. Corrected with surgery at 7 months old. She's my problem child medically, but so far everything is relatively mild. From 10 months until about 3 years old she had some mild, ongoing back issues. She's an competitive agility and disc dog. She would get regular chiro treatments and sometimes laser and that kept things under control. It was never severe, it was only noticeable in agility. For the past year or so she seems to have sort of outgrown the problem. She still gets maintenance chiro, but she hasn't shown any evidence of pain and "needing" an adjustment in quite awhile. About once a year she also seems to have some mild allergies resulting in some mild skin issues that clear up easily on antibiotics. Currently she has a weird patch of scaly skin on her one wrist. It doesn't bother her so I've just left it alone. Teeth are beautiful, has never had a dental cleaning. 8 month old Kenna - no major health issues so far. She's caught a cough twice which went away with antibiotics, so was probably kennel cough. She also got round worms once and coccidia once. And the other day my boyfriend left her unsupervised for who knows how long, and I came home to discover she had eaten several toys. I had to drive back to work with her and make her vomit them up so they wouldn't get stuck. I brush teeth daily which I swear by. It's not perfect because genetics play a role, but good oral hygiene goes a long way to avoiding or spacing out dentals.

What a very difficult day for your family. I am sorry for your losses. Perhaps Marco sensed your mom would be passing soon and that she might need a guide on the other side.

Perhaps, but I feel like I'm losing the cortex in that area, so I'm suspicious. Would be nice to see the lateral view as well.

The carpus is the wrist joint. I'm seeing a possible lytic lesion in the radius, which is the long bone of the arm, right where it joins the carpus.

Very sorry to hear this. I will always remember Dexter and Araley running at NCR. What a wonderful time that was. So sad to realize that many of those dogs have left us, or will probably be leaving us soon.

I don't love acepromazine in my sighthounds, but that said it's not contraindicated. I've just found that dogs tend to be groggier for longer. Even Dr. Couto doesn't say no ace, but he does use a much lower dose than for most other breeds.

My dogs bark or roo at me mostly when they're impatient and want something. Sometimes it's dinner, sometimes to go out, but often just because I'm doing something that doesn't involve them. While most greyhounds would probably be content with sitting on the couch watching t.v. with their people, my dogs are a little higher energy and typically start barking at me when they're bored of me sitting in front of the t.v. Nothing makes them happier than going down to the basement and doing some work.

Creatinine is a kidney marker. In some greyhounds it can tend to be slightly elevated. I am unsure about exact numbers to help you because I am unfamiliar with the American units. ALT is a liver enzyme that elevates when there is increased liver cell death. It is unrelated to creatinine and is not appreciably different between sighthounds and non-sighthounds. Again, I can't tell how elevated that is because I don't know the American units. With Canadian units we typically become concerned around the point of 2x elevation or higher, but I don't know how that translates to American. I would do the recheck bloodwork in a month as recommended, because of the ALT elevation.

I would stop allowing him on the furniture. He may be good 90% of the time, and he may have a decent reason each time, however it's still asking for trouble in my opinion. Not every dog wants to be cuddled, or only wants to be cuddled on THEIR terms. Which is fine, but if there's a potential we're going to break their terms, we shouldn't be setting that situation up. In my house I have one that shares space nicely but doesn't like to cuddle. If he doesn't like what's going on (you're moving too much, you're squishing him, etc) he'll just get up and leave. I have one who insists on sitting and sleeping with us, but she doesn't actually want to be cuddled. She wants to be close to me (she basically half lays on me) but if you move too much or try to hug her she'll grumble. With me she only ever just grumbles a little. With my boyfriend she will sometimes bark at him and jump up to get off the couch (which is his own fault because he pushes her boundaries). But she has never snapped at us, so we allow her to continue getting on the furniture with us. If she grumbles too much we just calmly ask her to get off the furniture and go elsewhere. There is no point reprimanding this behaviour. Growling, snapping, etc are a dog's way of communicating. It's possible before these big displays he's actually given you some silent body language indicating he's not comfortable with what is happening (calming signals), but those are frequently missed by humans. My advice is to ask him off furniture before you get on it yourself. Pet and cuddle him while he's standing up. He is still quite new to you and so his behaviour may improve as he gets more comfortable with you. Or he might just like his space. I've had Kili since she was 8 weeks old. We have an amazing relationship. She likes her affection on her terms... which means touching but not cuddling please. We respect that and it prevents us from having any problems.

Oh no! I just saw this! How very sad and sudden! There's an extra hard pill to take when it isn't their time yet. Cherish all your amazing memories of your wonderful girl. A good dog is never truly gone; they live on forever in our hearts.

Sorry, I was a little confused from the post so correct me if this isn't right. She was better when she was in the bedroom, but you moved her back to the living room because she was getting up and turning around in the middle which was noisy. I assume now that she's in the living room she's back to whining and howling? Dogs like to sleep with their people. Crates can be noisy if the dog is getting up and turning. It's much quieter without the crate. It can help to take the tags/collar off in the crate so you don't have metal banging against metal at least. You could use an x-pen instead as an option. It would give her more space so might be quieter, but hopefully not so much space that she would have an accident.

I'm very sorry for your sudden loss. It is incredibly difficult to lose a pet during anesthesia, especially an otherwise seemingly healthy one. While anesthesia is very safe in general, there are still risks even when all precautions are taken. In those scenarios there is often no obvious explanation. Unfortunately, anesthesia is often necessary for the health of our pets (and for ourselves sometimes too!) but there is no such thing as a "routine surgery/anesthesia". While it is rare, loss of a young, seemingly healthy animal does happen on occasion. We recently had a case at our hospital, and despite our best efforts could not bring him back. In our case pre-anesthetic bloodwork was declined, so we pulled blood during CPR and did find some abnormalities we could not explain as being due to CPR, so we do suspect the patient may have had an underlying condition. For this reason, we do recommend bloodwork prior to anesthesia even for young spays/neuters. We also offer necropsies in cases of sudden death as sometimes (but not always) we can identify an underlying health issue that caused the problem (such as an undetected heart condition, etc). Sadly, sometimes there is no underlying problem and the patient simply has a reaction to the drugs which cannot be predicted beforehand. This is a very difficult way to lose a pet. I hope that once you've had a chance to mourn and heal you will be able to see what a wonderful home you provided for Snozzle by trying to give her the best care, and that you will open your home to another hound. I also hope that, while it will be understandably scary, you will continue to provide your pets with the best health care even when it requires general anesthetic. The number of pets that are affected by preventable problems is far greater than the number that are lost unexpectedly to anesthetic. I know that is little consolation when that rare case is your pet. It doesn't matter how uncommon something is, if it happens to you.

Welcome from Edmonton! The group I work with here, Northern Sky Greyhound Association, has a branch out in Winnipeg.

Sorry for your loss. Glad you were able to give some older gals a great retirement though! Run free sweet girl.

Summit has been out on my In-Laws' boat once. We just went for a short ride to a nearby island (probably about 30-45 minute trip), played on the beach for half a day, and then back. There was no dock at the island so we had to lift him over the edge into the waist deep water and swim him to shore. He was totally fine with it. He's the quirkiest with regard to "weird" things, so although the girls haven't been on a boat before, I doubt they would have an issues with it. Getting ready to board On board We also took him on a ferry on the same trip. No issues there either.

He's doing great! Thanks for asking. He was at a Nosework seminar earlier today and thoroughly enjoyed himself. https://youtu.be/bFQtfeKKM9g He did fall at some point while we were away a few weeks ago. My petsitter came home from work and found him with 2 bloody knees, so those are still healing. She wasn't sure what he did, but I suspect he probably fell trying to get on or off the couch.

I'd also recommend Ian Dunbar's "Before and After You Get Your Puppy". He's a little bit alarmist (like "it is the end of the world if puppy has an accident"), however the overall information is very good and I understand why he uses the alarmist theory. For the same reason as a vet I tell people to strictly rest their dog for 14 days... knowing that means I'll get 7. Always ask for more than you really want/need in order to get what you want/need. You should be able to get a free e-copy: before and after I read these books before I got my first puppy, and I re-read them before I brought home the second.

Unfortunately, that is the average sighthound personality. Hopefully your son likes it because that is what you get when you get a sighthound. They were bred for thousands of years to be independent hunters. They were not bred to take instruction from humans the way a border collie or golden retriever was. That doesn't mean they can't be trained to be very responsive, but it does mean you have to work harder and be more creative... and you can't expect to ever get the laser focus that some of those other breeds offer. Ask me how I know... I run greyhounds in agility and literally all I ever hear at trials is "wow! That's amazing, I've never seen a greyhound run so well in this sport, normally they just run laps around the ring". It is doable, but ask me how much time, tears, and frustration doing sports with a greyhound can take.... There's a reason why most people choose more biddable breeds. But ultimately, I really like the independent personality. Nothing bugs me more than a dog that is always pestering me to touch it. I prefer the quiet, unassuming affection of a loving gaze from across the room. A video might be helpful, but with a dog this young I have a hard time believing this is aggression. I suspect it is normal puppy play behaviour. A larger puppy produces louder noises and harder bites. It's normal and can be worked through slowly and appropriately. Puppies need to learn bite inhibition, and the only way they can do that properly is by allowing them to mouth and nip and giving them feedback to slowly decrease the strength and frequency of the nipping. Yelling, nose thwapping, holding mouths shut, alpha rolling, etc are all inappropriate for a puppy that is exhibiting normal play behaviour. Instead we want to let the puppy exhibit these normal behaviours, wait for a particularly hard nip and then let the pup knows it hurts and has consequences. You let them know either by making a yelp noise like a hurt puppy, or (if the yelping makes them more excited) by just rubbing the bitten area and muttering to yourself under your breath ("ouch, that hurt, I don't want to play with you if you're mean to me"). The consequence is loss of a playmate. you leave for 30 seconds or so, just long enough to make an impression, then go back to playing. For this I like to play in an ex-pen so I can quickly leave and come back without puppy wandering off and getting into trouble. I also re-emphasize the importance of a puppy class. Nothing works better on puppy nipping than puppy play. Other puppies much more effectively create the scenario above. If a puppy is too rough in play the other pup will leave and play with someone else. The puppy learns to inhibit his bite in order to retain his human or puppy playmates. There is nothing worse than a dog that was not allowed to nip as a puppy. That dog never learns proper bite inhibition, and no matter how well tempered he is a liability for serious damage if he bites because he never learned inhibition. Given the choice, I would take a dog with fear aggression and great bite inhibition over a friendly dog with no bite inhibition. The first is much more likely to bite, but will escalate appropriately and is unlikely to break skin unless he is pushed to it as a last resort. The latter is unlikely to bite since he is friendly, but when he does it is catastrophic. This is the sweet Golden who gets its tail slammed in a car door by accident and bites the owner's leg multiple times producing severe lacerations requiring stitches and leaving scars. Nice dog that has no idea how hard to bite or how much damage its bite can do. Let your puppy nip and teach him appropriate inhibition. The nipping will go away and the dog will be left with good bite inhibition. If the puppy is pestering the other dogs, separate him. When my puppies go after my older dogs I either let the older dog tell her off, or I remove her so she can't pester. I either take her away to play with her myself, or I crate/pen her if I can't play with her myself at that time. My adults are very appropriate with puppies so I usually let them tell the pup off once. If she doesn't get the hint, I remove her because they don't deserve to be repeatedly pestered. If I had a dog that didn't tell the pup off and was just getting tormented, I'd just remove the pup immediately. I don't tell the puppy off. It's a normal puppy behaviour. I just redirect their attention to more appropriate past times. If you are dedicated to this pup, that's fantastic. I would still strongly recommend a good, positive puppy class to help address some of your concerns. They all sound pretty normal, though can't be 100% sure without seeing it, but you sound a bit overwhelmed with it being a larger breed.

I second this. It may be unrelated to the night time behaviour but it may be a separate problem. My 6 month old puppy can hold 5 hrs during the day and over 8 overnight. A mature, house trained dog should be able to manage 5.