krissy

This isn't really a medical question but wasn't sure where else to put this other than maybe the food section. Summit is white and he gets these really awful brown saliva stains at the corners of his mouth. They drive me nuts. I have tried simply washing/wiping with water every now and then and that does very little except get out the most superficial crusting on the fur but doesn't actually take out any of the stained colour that has already permeated the fur. I've also tried using a bit of peroxide to wipe it and that doesn't help much more either. I finally went out a bought these pads that are specifically for saliva/tear staining. The pads certainly go brown so they must be taking some of it out, but I still can't get him even close to white even with those. So I guess the question is does anyone have experience with something that really does work to get most of the staining out? And how do I prevent it? Are certain foods more likely to cause it? It drives me nuts, I'd really like to find a way to control it. I feel like it reflects badly on me when people see him... like I don't keep him clean or something.

I realize it's not always possible to be home when the fire alarm goes off, but perhaps the next time it happens when you are home with her you can try working with her to get her over her fear of the fire alarm. While it's obviously escalated to the point of her being anxious when you leave, if you think the inciting cause is the fire alarm I would also address that. Whenever there is a loud noise that gets Summit's attention (regardless of whether it startles him or not) I always say, "What was THAT!?" in a really happy, excited voice and often give a treat. He's really not afraid of any noise we've heard yet except this one in our neighbourhood. It's not very loud so I'm not sure why he's afraid of it. It does kind of sound like fireworks that are far, far away, or maybe a roofing team. It's the only time he statues and won't take treats. I use the "What was that?" phrase and shove treats into the corner of his mouth until he eats them. And I stand in one spot with him. I don't keep walking because he tends to try to pull/run when the sound comes on and gets really panicked. So I just make him stand with me. Maybe you could try something similar with Olivia. The next time the fire alarm comes on use a catch phrase in a really happy, excited voice and offer lots of treats. I would also start intentionally doing loud things and practicing that. Start easy and work your way up. Close a cupboard a little too loud, drop a spoon on the floor, use your phrase and give treats. If you get no fear reaction to something small like a spoon work your way up to something louder like dropping a pot, etc. and work your way up to something loud like a mixer or a blender. When you can do some really sudden loud things without much response from her (or if she startles but calms down with your phrase) then maybe try setting your smoke detector off (have hubby hit the test button or something).

Summit is my first dog and we haven't really given him rawhide. I prefer natural treats like bully sticks, tendons, etc. though I do find that none of them are really long lasting enough. I don't give bones... those are tooth chippers as far as I'm concerned. I don't really like rawhide because it's so processed, and of course there are lots of horror stories to accompany it. I'm not so worried about horror stories. I monitor him when he gets things that could potentially cause a choking hazard and make sure he's chewing smart, but seriously, life isn't worth much without risks. I do lots of things that are potentially dangerous every day (like driving to school) in order to enjoy my life, I'm okay taking a small risk with my dog so that he can enjoy a good chew. But like I said, I don't like rawhide and I supervise well. If it gets too small or I don't like the way he's chewing I take it away.

In terms of crating, you will quickly find out whether your grey likes the crate or not. Getting our foster dog into the crate was at times frustrating, especially in the morning when I need to leave for school. We had him for 3 weeks and he did learn to accept the crate but it was fairly obvious that he wasn't a fan. When we adopted our grey, Summit, he was a bounce who had lived with his previous family for 2 years. They were no longer crating and I wondered how he would feel about having to be crated again. He took one look at the crate and went right in. For the first couple of weeks he would actually spend a lot of time sleeping in there (I think part of that was because we didn't have a dog bed yet... if we took his blankets out of his crate and put them in the living room he was usually fairly happy to sleep in the living room with us, though sometimes he chose to sleep on the carpet in the bedroom right next to his crate). Some 2 months later he still loves his crate. He runs right in at night, and he runs in after breakfast in the morning. He always gets something tasty (a duck's foot at night after having his teeth brushed) and a treat and his Kong in the morning before I leave. I know other greys that have broken out of crates. It all depends on your dog.

I rarely muzzle Summit. I muzzle him when we go to greyhound runs and all the dogs are muzzled. I would never muzzle him unless all other dogs are muzzled as I want him to be able to bite back if he gets attacked. A muzzle won't stop a fight from happening. Even if both dogs are muzzled, if they decide they're going to fight they will... they just won't be able to do as much damage. If only my dog is muzzled and him and another dog don't like each other, they're still going to start a fight, but my dog isn't going to be able to bite back. Summit is very low prey drive so I have no concerns about him attacking small dogs. If I was worried about that then I might muzzle him with small dogs until they were used to each other, but he loves small dogs. I did briefly muzzle him when I let my rabbits out. The rabbits each have their own cages and their room is baby gated off (it always has been to keep them in if I don't want them all over the house) so I can let them out in there and not worry about the dog. But I also like having them out in the living room with me when I watch t.v. So initially I muzzled Summit when the rabbit was out, and then I graduated him to not being muzzle with me sitting on the floor right next to him with a hand on his collar watching like a hawk. Now I trust him enough to sit on the couch and keep an eye on them. The rabbit can get under the couch and the dog can't follow. Honestly though, the moment I show up with a rabbit and put it on the ground, Summit usually gets up and walks to the bedroom and goes in his crate.

I often times get the "its ok, my dogs are very nice" comment from people walking their dogs when I try to move out of the way with mine. I usually respond by saying that my dogs are not good with small dogs, and that usually works. However, I have had situations where I pull my dogs way off to the side to let someone with a little dog pass, and they stop and want to chat, asking questions, while my dogs are barking and lunging...I would have thought they would have gotten a clue, but I usually have to tell them to please keep walking because my dogs are getting riled up. With high prey greyhounds, it's more important to me to keep my dogs out of a bad situation and keep the little dogs safe than to worry about offending someone. Although, when people do get offended, I do feel awful...I just have to keep reminding myself that I need to do this for my dogs, so that I don't put them in a bad situation. I am sorry about your experience with this man. He was way out of line in my opinion. Last week my BF and I went to visit his folks in Sault Ste Marie (Ontario) and we were out walking Summit one night fairly late. We were just taking him out for a quick business break so we were only about a block from the house. We see another couple walking 3 medium-large dogs (a golden, and maybe two standard poodle mixes). Summit has some dog aggression issues and I have been working on him diligently. I ask him to "watch me" when we see other dogs and he has been doing very well. Before I could even reach in my pocket for a treat these 3 dogs come barrelling towards us (I didn't realize originally that they were off leash) and the lady yells "Come here" followed by "why aren't they listening?" as the dogs continue unheeded towards us. She then yells, "They're friendly! They won't hurt him" I could immediately tell that Summit did not like these dogs (I wouldn't be surprised if one or all weren't neutered because that's Summit's big problem... unaltered males) and so since I couldn't keep the dogs away (they were very friendly thank goodness) I just kept him on a short leash and walked him through. The lady is like, "They're friendly" again, and I'm like, "Yeah, but HE'S not." I figure this should be enough to get them to round up their dogs and keep them away from us. But no, instead of getting her dogs under control she tells me, "You need to loosen up on his leash, you're just making it worse". I'm wondering why I would ever take training advice from someone who just said, "Why aren't they listening to me?". So you're not alone. There are lots of idiots out there.

I've given sardines to Summit as an occassional treat and he LOVES them. However, I always get the plain ones in water because too much oil could cause pancreatitis. I also only give them occassionally as a lot of fish (sardines and herring included) can predispose to stones. But then again, so do cheese and yogurt and lots of other things that many people give dogs. Summit gets lots of cheese and yogurt as treats for his kong so I don't worry too much about the sardines either (except the oil factor). The stone issue is more a consideration for dogs like Schnauzers and others that are prone to stones to begin with. But it's something to think about, and if your dog has had stones or has crystals in his urine I would avoid them.

My friend's puppy is a whiner. He whines for no reason at all. He whines at his toys. He whines when he gets told off. He whines when he eats. It's pretty funny as an outsider! Sorry I have no advice. Sounds like you have some good suggestions to start with though!

Thought about clicker training him and I do have a clicker for my rabbits, but was hoping to do it without the clicker if possible since I haven't trained other behaviours with the clicker and don't want to have to do it for future ones (don't know if I would have to or not... using two training techniques seems like it migt be confusing). I have noticed that I often use "good!" when I get what I'm asking for, so I could potentially just turn that into my "click". I've tried using very tempting rewards. I've used left overs from dinner (chicken, turkey, beef, pork, whatever), I've even tried luring with a little piece of raw meat which he just goes CRAZY for... but as soon as I use it to try to lure him he just loses interest and walks away. I guess he doesn't understand the concept. But I think he does get the concept of "try to do what I want, you get a treat" because I've taught him other behaviours (come, stay, watch me). I guess we'll see if he'll let us position him, if not we'll just do little baby steps for shaping.

Thanks! I think this is the route we may have to go. I had avoided it until this point because some folks had warned against it (how forcing them into a position doesn't gain trust, etc.) but luring isn't working and we don't really catch him in the act often enough for him to have caught on. I'm a student so I sit down to study for a couple hours at a time. So he lies down when I start studying and he doesn't get up again until I do. I guess I could continually call him to get him up and then catch him when he lies down again, but he always looks so comfy and I know how much my boyfriend hates being dragged out of bed, so I can only imagine Summit doesn't appreciate it either!

Just to clarify, this isn't actually a dog park I'm taking him to. It's a park attached to the back of a school with playgrounds for kids, a tennis court and a baseball diamond. Not that it really matters, but in terms of how a lot of people don't take the risk of the dog park, this isn't even a dog park we're talking about. I don't know if this changes anything or helps anyone in their assessment of Summit, but here is his history which I neglected in my original post. God knows why. We adopted Summit about 6 weeks ago. He was a bounce. He lived with his previous family for two and a half years. For the last half a year of that he lived with a second greyhound that they had adopted. They also had 2 cats. Unfortunately, due to medical reasons they were forced to return both dogs to the adoption agency. I am in contact with his previous family and from what they've told me he had no dog aggression for the first year and a half that they had him. Then he started having problems with small breed dogs. He got along great with the second greyhound but he did on one occassion redirect aggression against his "brother" in frustration (he was getting growly with a small dog they met on a walk) and his brother fought back and pinned him down. Interestingly with us he is wonderful with small dogs (he doesn't like them jumping at his face and if they do so too much he will give a warning growl, but he shows avoidance and attempting to walk away from the dog first, then growls, and never escalates) and his problem for us is large breed dogs.

I'm sorry, I don't want to hijack the thread or anything, but since you mention shaping behaviours (and I can't PM yet), maybe you can give me a tip or two. I'm used to the much more operant type breeds, and also puppies which tend to be more enthusiastic and shape easier (for me anyway). We've only had Summit about 6 weeks, and he's learned come, wait (I'm bad and use this both to mean stay and leave this treat on the floor until I say it's okay), and we're working on "watch me". Sit and down are a completely different story. Summit doesn't lure into positions. He'll follow the treat right until the point he needs to sit to keep his eyes on it and then he'll just walk away. It's like he loses interest. Luring for a down has also been problematic. If I just lure to the floor he just drops that beautiful long neck of his to the ground and refuses to even bend his elbows a little bit. With other dogs I've used my leg bent at a 45 degree angle or so and lured them UNDER my leg which forces them to get down on their belly and army crawl under to get to the treat. Summit won't do this. Once again he loses interest. And he loses interest very early on. I thought at first I could give him the treat if he just bent his elbows and then later only if he put his front legs down (play bow like) and so on, but he barely bends his elbows he gives up that early on. Any tips for sit or down would be awesome.

I think the issue with Diesel is that I can only be calm for so long. That dog really doesn't get the message from anyone. He will usually ignore us for awhile. I walk Summit right past him without acknowledging that he's there. I often don't realize Diesel is following us until Summit starts turning his head every few seconds to look behind him (and possibly growl). And then once he's following us persistently in spite of being ignored then Summit starts ramping up and if (like one morning) I can't see anyone else around because they're all at the other end of the park, then I admit that at that point I can fill a bit of nervousness setting in. Which I definitely avoid and typically I don't think I convey any nervousness to Summit. This may be why his issues with Diesel are the worst compared to any other dog. It's hard to stay composed with a dog with a history of fights following you and no one else in sight. I don't know that I could actually bring myself to kick the dog. I don't really think that's the solution. Also, as a student veterinarian, I don't think that's very professional behaviour. If he ever actually tried to attack Summit or myself that might be a different story. I do agree that that dog needs to learn to respect people at least though, so if I see him without Summit I will take the opportunity to give him an idea of who's boss. I do appreciate where you're coming from though, and I don't think there's anything wrong with it, but I really can't kick a dog and then go in to work/school.

I firmly believe that Diesel is the instigator. I don't think Summit has a dominance issue as he's very submissive at home and he doesn't try to dominate other dogs that I've seen unless they are dominant themselves. He's definitely trying to tell Diesel off, and if it were a slightly different situation I would let him. I took him for a playdate with my friend's 7 month old GSD puppy and we let him tell the puppy off for being a jerk (jumping at Summit's face, nipping at him, etc.) and they were great together. Summit would tell the puppy off when he was being inappropriate and other than that he was happy to tear around and play with the little one (little may be the wrong word... he's about as heavy as Summit is now). But obviously I'm not going to let him tell off a dominant, intact male with a history of fighting because that's going to end badly for Summit. I guess I don't blame Summit for thinking I can't protect him from Diesel, because I can't. The dog is loose and not under owner control. Short of kicking him there's not much I can do about that. I'm definitely working on trust with Summit. We work on "watch me", recall, wait, leave it, etc. at home and at the park in the tennis court, and I've only had him for about 6 weeks now. But while I'm working on these trust exercises with him, I still have to walk him in the mean time, and I can't stop other people from walking their dogs, and I can't stop them from letting their dogs off leash. So it kind of confuses things for me in terms of what to do with my dog because I do have to take him to these places. I can't coop him up in the house for the next 3 months while we work on trust together. But of course I understand that these altercations aren't good for building trust, I'm just not sure how to do both at the same time. Also, interesting to note that he has no problems with other greyhounds (so far anyway). I notice body language changes with dogs like Diesel (so intact males... except I don't usually know they're intact until the owner tells me). But in some situations it really does seem like nothing to an explosion. I've worked with dogs for years so I'm generally pretty good picking up on body language. I would have been bitten many more times while giving medication and injections otherwise, but there are times when he goes up to a dog with his tail wagging (which I realize from a behaviour standpoint really only indicates a willingness to interact) and very normal gait, he'll sniff them, and then basically simultaneously go stiff and stop wagging his tail as he snarls and jumps at them. It's like a fraction of a second between warning signs and full escalation. I really do appreciate all the advice guys. We will continue working on our obedience/trust exercises. I wonder if in future if we ran into Diesel at the park if I could pop Summit into the fenced tennis court and physically remove Diesel myself. Or work on him in terms of respecting my authority and get him to bugger off on his own. It's just hard to do with Summit in one hand. Just trying to think about worst case scenario since we can't hide in the house and hope Diesel moves to another neighbourhood! lol. He knows an a-hole when he sees one. Like I said originally... he's good with the majority of dogs. He's just very one way or the other. He either likes a dog a lot and wants to play. Or he wants to start something.

Alright. We can definitely work on those things. So then here's what I'm wondering... I want to reward good greetings so I do still need to take him to places with other dogs. But if I want to avoid bad reactions (to prevent it from becoming ingrained) then how do I avoid a bad situation when he's so hard to read? Also, if I take him to the park and we do run into Diesel, is it best just to walk him out of there? Am I going to send him the wrong message about being uncertain or afraid if I do that or will it be okay if I just walk him out of there calmly (hard to do with a loose dog tagging along behind him sniffing him and being a pest in general).

I know Diesel is a poor choice, and I certainly didn't mean to say I would choose him to work with initially. He's just the best example of Summit's behaviour. I don't choose to meet up with Diesel, the problem is I can't really control that. The best place for me to work on obedience with Summit with minor distractions (he's great in the house) is in the tennis court in the park since it's enclosed and I can let him off leash or put on a longer leash (for recall training). But the place we run into Diesel is always at the park, so it's kind of a catch 22. I want/need to go to the park at least sometimes. I would leave if Diesel showed up or happened to be there, but like I said, he's off leash and not responsive to his owner so it makes it difficult for me to even leave with Summit because Diesel follows us and pesters. He's followed us right out of the park and down the street before. Diesel is definitely his MOST reactive, but even with other dogs there really isn't much less reaction. He goes from nothing to jumping up snarling and snapping. I have also tried giving treats for good meetings with dogs. Like I said, he is good with the majority of dogs. Most of the dogs he has trouble with are intact males, or at the very least dominant neutered males. Also, the other problem is that most of the places we can go where there are other dogs they are all off leash and he has to stay on leash (not enclosed), and I definitely find that makes it worse (which I can understand). We took him to Woofstock, and I was planning on having to be very vigilent with him, but we didn't have a single incident meeting with hundreds of dogs. Then we come home and a week later he has this altercation with a dog he already knows. I'd like to find a pattern or his trigger. I thought it would help me know which dogs to avoid or at least be prepared for, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of pattern.

She may be nervous the entire time and that may not be very nice for her, but if she's not extremely aggressive as a result they won't have any trouble putting her under general anesthesia. If she's just nervous of them but will let them handle her without trying to bite then I'd say they've dealt with a lot worse!

Hey guys, I've been creeping the forums for a little while and finally decided to make an account and see if I could draw on some of the knowledge around here. As some of you know (hi Ontario folk!), we discovered shortly after bringing Summit home that he has some dog aggression issues. Nothing too serious for the most part, but I would like to get rid of the behaviour so I don't have to worry. He is good with most dogs I would say. The problem is he isn't reliable/predictable, which makes correcting him difficult. I would like to correct him before he gets into that high state of aggression but because it's hard to predict what dog he'll have a problem with it is hard to do. Also, he gives very little warning which I could be correcting ahead of time. He doesn't growl at the other dog first and get more and more growly. He's a kind of 0 to 60 kind of guy. He's fine and then he just explodes. So I'm dealing with him at a very high level of arousal. So I guess what is difficult for me is not being able to stop him prematurely because he's so sudden, and always having to come at him at a high level from which he is obviously more difficult to control. I definitely think I'm assertive and calm in correcting him, though I have to come at him with a higher level energy obviously (you can't correct a level 8 with a level 5 as Ceasar would say). Now, last night and this morning he had trouble with a couple of dogs that he knows and has been fine with. I'm also wondering if his problem this morning and last night wasn't the dark. He always seems more apprehensive when it's dark and we go for our walk. He walks out very slowly before he gets going (eyes are adjusting to the dark maybe) and he seems to look behind him a lot. Just not sure why he suddenly tried to attack a dog he's been buddies with for a couple of months. He also does have a typical response to one dog in particular. It's a big black lab named Diesel. I found out recently that this dog is not neutered and has gotten into several dog fights previously, for which he has had to be stitched up. According to other dog owners Diesel's owner typically blames it on the other dog. Diesel is not overtly aggressive towards Summit, but he is always off leash and has poor recall, and often wanders far from his owner. He follows Summit from behind very closely and attempts to mount him and displays other dominant characteristics. He has never really growled at Summit or anything but I know he's the instigator... but it looks bad on me with Summit being soooo reactive. It's a good opportunity to work on Summit's behaviour, and I can usually make him ignore Diesel because I KNOW beforehand that there will be problems and I can keep him in check. Problem is I can't walk away from Diesel because he is off leash and nowhere near his owner. I know one of these times I'm going to get bite by one or the other because I'm constantly trying to put myself between them to keep Diesel away. My problem is that even with owner's who know Summit, like this morning, it's hard for me to ask them to leave their dog there so I can work on Summit because they think "Oh my god, he's aggressive, I don't want my dog near him" or they try to be helpful by removing their dog if it repeatedly comes back to Summit. So it's hard to work on his behaviour because owner's always want to remove their dog immediately so I only have the initial interaction during which to correct. Anyway, that's kind of a summary of his problems. Any advice to help me dog whisper him would be greatly appreciated! If you have any questions just ask and I'll try to clarify. Gratuitous photo of Summit: