krissy
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Posts posted by krissy
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I'd have the vet check him out. Could just be him. I took Kili to an orthopedic surgeon to have her checked out because of her back always being sore, and the surgeon commented that she occasionally drags her toes, but considering the girl does agility and disc there's clearly nothing neurologically wrong with her. Her back issues also improved significantly after age 3 when she finished maturing.
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Personally, I'd stick primarily to a good puppy food and use the raw as supplemental until fully grown. I know that lots of experienced raw feeders start right from the beginning, but it makes me a little uncomfortable. Balanced nutrition is never more important than during growth and the damage done by imbalance at that time can be irreversible. I don't have a problem with raw for an adult if it is well formulated, but puppies make me nervous. I'd wait until 15 months or so before going to a diet that is made up of a significant portion of raw.
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BTW, what is EEG?
Everything Else Greyhound
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In addition to the typical alone training recommendations, I've always found it important to enforce separation even when I'm home. So I will sometimes crate a new foster while I am home doing housework for an hour or while I watch t.v. for half an hour, etc. So even though I'm home, it doesn't automatically mean the dog is going to get to follow me around and I'm not necessarily going to spend time with her. I don't know if the dog can really rationalize this, or if I'm anthropomorphizing a bit, but my experience with fosters has been that it's helpful so I continue to do it.
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You can train them to do all sorts of things. My dogs know dozens of cues.
In descending order of importance (though it becomes a bit of semantics as you get lower down the list):
1. Come
2. Stay
3. Down
4. Leave it/Drop it
5. Relaxed down (I use "Relax" for a rolled hip and "Chill out" for flat on the side)
6. Paw (helpful for putting on sweaters, cleaning feet, trimming nails, etc)
7. Watch me
8. Not jumping up on people
9. Go to place
And then lots of fun stuff!
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If she doesn't mind a crate.... Our fosters and new puppies are always crated to help them develop good habits at bed time. Kili sometimes tries to climb into bed, but finding her the perfect dog bed has minimized that. Also having a coat on her helps too because sometimes she just gets cold and wants to be with us in the warmth.
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The only advice I have is just to be patient. This is a very serious surgery and the recovery time afterwards is not easy. My dog was paralyzed for several weeks after surgery. We turned out living room into a sea of dog beds. He had no problems pooping and started while he was still in hospital. Our biggest problem was him floundering to get away from his poop and just smearing it all over himself, the floor, dog beds, his urinary catheter, etc. You could try feeding canned food if she typically eats kibble, the extra moisture might help soften things up a bit.
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I prefer toe grips: https://www.toegrips.com/
I use them sometimes on my senior. You slide them onto the nails and they do seem to help, at least with my boy. They do lose them over time, but I frequently will find them if they come off in the house and just reuse them. You're also supposed to check them to make sure they don't slide backwards and constrict the nail bed, though I haven't personally found that to be an issue.
One thing I learned though is that you usually need different sizes for the front and back nails. My boy is one size smaller on his back feet. So he wears purple on the front and green on the back.
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I would strongly recommend a CT or MRI to evaluate the discs in the neck. Neck pain can be caused by protruding discs, and in some cases surgery is recommended. I just went through this with my oldest hound, not quite a year ago. I noticed the occasional yelp, usually at night when he was laying in his bed and occasionally it was when I moved his head toward me while brushing his teeth. He was otherwise great though, running around with our other dog and going for walks without any other concerns. Then one day he was laying on a dog bed, and he went to sit up (he was laying flat on his side) and he screamed and started paddling around in a panic crying. I helped him up onto his chest and then to his feet and he was in severe pain. I took him to my local referral centre for a consult with one of the surgeons and we decided to CT him to find the disc (which we did) and we then followed with surgery.
Now, I will say that I have never seen a dog have such a bad reaction to this surgery as my dog had. As a vet I've seen lots of these dogs post op, and I didn't hesitate to go for surgery because I know how well they do after as a general rule. But it is spinal surgery after all. Summit was a roller coaster after. He was completely paralyzed in all 4 legs after surgery, which I have never seen happen before (though I was aware that in theory it was a risk). Fortunately, we believe he was just very sensitive and had a lot of inflammation post op. It took 3 weeks to get him back up on his feet, and by 6 weeks he was doing pretty well. It's now been about 10 months and he's basically 100% and pain free. I'm really glad I went ahead with surgery, though I could have done without the roller coaster ride!
Here's the original post and the 6 week update.
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If you are honest and up front with the adoption group, I'm sure you'll find a match. But I'm in the camp that kind of doesn't like the idea of a dog never getting a chance to be off leash and run. I have 3 greyhounds. 2 of them are from a breeder and I've had them since 8 weeks old, so they're young and nuts and they ***NEED*** lots of exercise. I also have an almost 12 year old retired racer, and although he is a low energy dog that never needs exercise... there is nothing like the joy on his face when he runs. I think most retired racers fall into this category. They're okay if they don't get to run, they don't need to run, but the pure happiness for those couple of minutes when they do is unmistakable, and I personally can't imagine not providing that. Even at almost 12, with some arthritis, and after recovering from being completely paralyzed following a spinal surgery last spring... this boy STILL runs. He can't keep up with the girls anymore, but when we go for a hike, he still has moments of just booking it down the trails and he sometimes still chases the girls in the backyard. Sometimes I decide I don't want to keep track of 3 dogs on a hike, and I'll decide I'm going to leave him home. The poor boy follows me to the door and stands there watching us leave and looks so excited and expectant that I usually just end up bringing him too.
If you don't have the ability to give a greyhound the routine ability to run, that's fine, but I do think you need to look into options for an occasional romp... whether that's a friend or family member's house with a fenced yard, or a play group, or making a dedicated drive a distance away to a fenced ball diamond.
11.5 years old, and this is still the look of joy that comes with running.
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Is the concern of her wanting to kill a puppy a real concern, or am I making a big issue in my head ?
Unless she has a super high prey drive (which I don't think I remember being an issue with her), I think you're probably overthinking it. I think most of the hounds understand the difference between a small dog and a rabbit. I have never worried about any of my hounds hurting a puppy or a small fluffy dog out of malice or misdirected prey drive. I do worry about them accidentally hurting a smaller dog/puppy just because of size difference. Kili and Kenna weren't allowed to play in the yard together until Kenna was about 6 months old, because Kili was far too rough. Now Kenna is big enough to take it. So while I would supervise any play that happens, and I'd make sure that Ruby is an appropriate "correcter", and I wouldn't leave them unattended together... I wouldn't think that you should be concerned about Ruby trying to intentionally kill the puppy.
Assuming I am correct in my assumption of her prey drive. If she's super high prey and not cat friendly, then I'd be a lot more cautious while pup is tiny.
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My dogs are dog and puppy friendly, so I don't really bother to leash or muzzle them. Summit went with me to pick up Kili. He stayed in the car while I went into my breeder's house to pick her up and do paperwork, and I had a small kennel in the truck next to him that I popped her into. And then we drove 3 hours home. With Kenna, since I have since moved out west, I flew home to pick her up from my breeder, so the dogs didn't accompany me. I let the adults out into the backyard and let them sniff the carrier with her in it, then let her out and held her while everyone sniffed and got to know one another. If you don't know how Ruby typically reacts to puppies/small dogs then you should muzzle and/or leash as precaution, just remember that an excited dog can startle/hurt a puppy by accident with a muzzle on by accidentally bashing them with it.
In my house, puppies are always either crated, x-penned, or under direct supervision. Kenna will be 12 months old in about 2 weeks, but even now as I'm in the office on the computer typing this, she's in the living room napping in her x-pen. If I'm not directly interacting/supervising a puppy they are contained in some way. It is safest for them, prevents accidents (though she's housetrained well enough at this point that that isn't really a concern anymore), and prevents them from pestering the other dogs.
I highly recommend Ian Dunbar's books "Before You Get Your Puppy" and "After You Get Your Puppy". If you google the titles the first hit should be a PDF version of the books you can download. I re-read them every time before I bring home a new puppy, just to refresh my memory.
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Unrelated to the dog-puppy interactions, but for puppy raising I highly recommend reading Ian Dunbar's books "Before You Get Your Puppy" and "After You Get Your Puppy". If you google them I believe the first hit is for PDF copies of the books.
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Some dogs have separation anxiety because they don't like to be completely alone, and another dog alleviates that stress. However, some dogs have anxiety because their PEOPLE are gone, and a second dog does nothing to soothe them. If you want another dog, I say go for it, and it may or may not help your current dog's separation anxiety. However, I wouldn't get a second dog with the primary purpose being to help your first dog, because it may not work out that way. You might consider fostering some dogs to see if it seems to help your dog, and if you found one you both particularly like you could choose to adopt it at that time.
Regardless, look up "alone training" on these forums and lots of threads will pop up discussing some of the steps to take in helping your dog learn to be alone. I'm sure others will also post some of those things here, I'm just at work and can't post a super lengthy reply!
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I'm not going to get too far into the majority of this post, but I did want to throw this out there as far as the teeth.
I have gotten a lot of foster dogs with fairly significant dental disease after they've already supposedly had a dental in the States before being brought up to Canada. The adoption group tells me these are fairly "basic" dentals at a reduce fee that they're offered... though I'm not really sure what that means. As a vet I've done a lot of dental surgeries, and you either clean the teeth or you don't... I don't understand this "minimal" dental that supposedly happens right off the track. My point is, a lot of these dogs coming off the track don't always get a proper dental cleaning, which sucks because if the dog is going to be anesthetized we should make the most of that.
Also, recognize that adoption groups are somewhat limited on finances and they sometimes can only afford to do a minimum. My last lurcher foster had awful teeth, with root exposures everywhere and I estimated he needed the majority of his molars and premolars extracted. He did not have his teeth done before I got him since he was a lurcher and was coming from a different situation than the racers. I was really happy when he was taken for his dental, and completely shocked when he came home without a single extraction. They just couldn't afford to do more than have them cleaned. Which is unfortunate but it is what it is, and they do the best they can off of donations. Whoever adopted him really needed to take him in and have all those teeth pulled after his adoption, which would be a couple thousand dollars. So while a hound in a home hopefully only needs its teeth done once a year, right after adoption is a completely different story in my experience with my fosters.
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The problem is there are two issues here. One is with humans and one with another dog, and they're unrelated. I originally was speaking mostly to the human nipping behaviour, I didn't really read much about the incident with the other dog. I'm just taking issue with the fact that the two were being lumped together when discussing the fact that this dog is "a biter", and the descriptor of "being at another dog's throat". Without a video we have no idea what the intention was of this dog. An over exuberant dog is completely different than a dog aggressive dog. Both problems need to be managed, yes, but in completely different ways. I have seen plenty of interactions which resulted in screaming that was not warranted (Kili has done this on more than one occasion when all the other dog did was try to sniff her politely but for whatever reason Kili felt cornered or threatened), and hair pulled out or even cuts/gashes between dogs that were playing happily. Kenna has already suffered one rip from playing with Kili, and there has been more than the odd yelp/scream when they interact. I have had more than one client tell me their dog or puppy is "aggressive" and then it turns out the two are happily playing rough and the owners think it is a full out dog fight and are trying to break them up. I've also seen perfectly friendly dogs that just don't really know how to play. Summit is very dog friendly, but I often had to stop him from actually playing with other dogs because he doesn't seem to have a clue how to do it properly, and he often scares other dogs which in turn scares the owners. There are lots of ways a dog can be read incorrectly by owners.
My point is the OP should be getting a good trainer to evaluate and help them decide what behaviours are problems to them, and how to work on them. They may or may not have any true problems, but "problem" is ultimately determined by each household. I don't mind mouthing behaviours, I don't mind if my dogs jump up on me. I hate leash pulling, I must be able to brush teeth and cut nails without a fuss. Must be crate trained. I hate pointless barking. I don't care for dog parks but I do care that my dogs are dog tolerant. So on and so forth.
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I see a few responses which talk about this dog not being "aggressive," in their opinion.
I usually tell people that if there's no blood or body parts, it's not aggression. The application of the term aggression is not my term or my concern here.
I focus on the danger that a biting dog presents to children or other animals. The owner does not talk at all about air snaps. The owner does not describe nitting behaviors. This is not "regripping on tug toys." Let's not minimize what's going on here. Let's not pretend that all greyhounds do these behaviors. They don't.
Instead the owner has talked about bites ("closing her teeth' on you) and "pinning" a dog on her back and being "at her throat." These are dangerous behaviors. The owner has also said that the dog is "aroused' by activity or excitement, even someone running in the house.
This is a very narrow, black and white view. By this definition, I have 2 dogs that bite in my household, which is a very skewed perception of reality. I said up front that without video no one knows what is truly happening, but there are lots of dogs out there that do put their mouths on people and it is not aggressive and they are not dangerous dogs. As I said, the behaviours I allow in my dogs would probably not be behaviours to allow with children in the household, but it still doesn't make my dogs aggressive or biters.
In my opinion, a dog isn't biting just because they put their mouths on someone or something. Mouthing is a very normal, play behaviour for the dog. And while this is not always appropriate for play between our two species, it does not mean that the dog is a danger or a problem. It is simply either a behaviour that you are, or are not, okay with. It's not the same thing as a defensive (or offensive) bite.
Also, pinning other dogs and grabbing them by the throat isn't normal play behaviour? Are you kidding me? Again, without video, we have no idea about this specific incident, but to suggest that it is an outright inappropriate behaviour is being just as naive as you are suggesting other people in this thread are being.
Kenna has been aggressively going for the throat since she was 10 weeks old:
Kili and her bestest buddy:
Summit demonstrating the aggressive "pin and go for the throat/head" move:
All of these photos are in the midst of happy play sessions in which both parties enjoyed themselves immensely and gave as good as they got. Can pinning a dog and biting at the throat be aggressive? Yes, of course. But it can also be a play behaviour. It's sometimes too rough for a smaller, timid dog so it's not always appropriate play but even if one side is intimidated by it that doesn't make it aggressive. It just means the bolder dog needs to be managed and controlled if they aren't getting the message. We don't have a video of the interaction so there's no way to know for sure which it is.
I'm not disagreeing that nipping behaviour is potentially inappropriate, but I definitely fault the idea that a playfully nipping dog is a danger. Or that just because a dog puts its teeth on a human that it is "biting". In this case if there are children around, then of course they need to work on the behaviour with a good, positive trainer, but nothing in this description would make me immediately concerned the dog is truly a biter without seeing video of the body language first. I think that's ultimately up to the trainer to determine if they elect to hire one.
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I think as long as you are up front with your adoption group on what you're looking for you should be fine.
I have 3 greyhounds, and they all enjoy full day hikes. My oldest is almost 12 now, and so the last time we took him camping/hiking with us was when he was 10. We did a 10 km mountain loop. We went at a relatively leisurely pace and took lots of breaks and he was fine until about the final km when he was lagging, so we just slowed down and let him go at his pace, and we decided that he wouldn't be going for any long hikes anymore. He still likes going for long urban walks in the nicer weather though.
We also have 2 younger dogs, a 4 year old and an 11 month old. We went all day mountain hiking this summer with the two of them (so pup was about 6 months old at the time). The middle child goes jogging and biking with me, and so will the youngster once her growth plates close. They both do agility, disc, and rally obedience. On my days off if the weather is okay we'll go for over an hour hike and the girls spend the entire time running. Energy is not an issue in our household.
So while there are some greyhounds that prefer NOT to be active, most of them enjoy being active... they're just okay to stay on the couch all day without destroying the house. Doesn't mean that's their preference!
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I'm so sorry, what a shock this must be. Although I know there is really no consolation at a time like this, know at least that she was doing something she loved and that she didn't suffer. Run free sweet girl.
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Sounds like some playful nipping behaviour to me, though can't know for sure without seeing video of it.
I have been accidentally bitten by my dogs on numerous occasions. Re-gripping on tug toys and getting my hand instead, and over arousal mouthing/nipping. These are not hard bites, but they do still hurt and usually do bruise. I generally don't get the dogs over aroused without a tug toy ready. I don't mind if they gently mouth me, but if they nip they get a gentle reminder that that's not appropriate by stopping the game and being asked for a control behaviour (usually a down) for a few seconds before I restart the game. If you have children you may not wish to allow any mouthing behaviour since children are more delicate and also you don't want another parent misinterpreting your dog's behaviour and accusing her of biting. My dogs only exhibit mouthing behaviour with me so I allow it if it's gentle. Since this is a happy, playful behaviour just use ignoring and stopping play to reduce the behaviour. She'll learn that if she nips the fun stops. If you yell, or admonish her you'll simply take the joy out of playing with your family which isn't what you want. In the mean time, don't allow children to run around with her loose. Either have her on leash and with you, or put her away while the kids are being hooligans.
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Flushing is relatively easy. Get a syringe from your vet (probably something in the 12-30 ml size range), fill it with warm water, stick the tip into the sheath and gently pinch the opening closed with your other hand. Then push the plunger on the syringe. Keeping the opening pinched off will prevent the water from just trickling right back out (especially if you're doing this with the dog standing and gravity is seriously working against you) and will help it get all the way up and not just around the entrance.
Rinse and repeat. Literally.
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Orijen and Acana are ridiculously calorie dense. Which is fine, but does result in a lot less to be fed per day and I'm not a fan as a vet because it results in dogs being over fed and being overweight. I'd start with whatever the bag recommends and adjust up or down from there.
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Kili sees a chiro regularly (every 6-8 weeks) ever since she was 10 months old. If she doesn't she starts to get sore, she'll refuse to sit, she'll refuse to jump, she'll start bailing off contact equipment. Right after an adjustment she's back to 100% normal. She's had her entire spine x-rayed and they couldn't find any obvious concerns. The problem used to be a lot worse actually, and has improved since she's matured. I haven't had to make an "emergency" appointment because she suddenly was refusing equipment, now I just take her in at regular intervals or if I start to see a bit of hesitation/resistance to holding her sits.
Kili hates being handled and having stuff done to her, so she's not a huge fan of being adjusted, but so far as I can tell it doesn't hurt at all. And she does really like her chiro, she gives her kisses and wags her tail when we see her.
Kili has had 2 chiros in her life, one in Ontario and then one here in Edmonton. I'm very picky about who adjusts my dog. I want them to be thorough, gentle, and I want them to know what they're feeling. There are a few chiros here in Edmonton (so I assume there are others in other cities) that use a "medium" when deciding what needs to be adjusted. I am not against mediums, I've consulted one once about my dogs, but when it comes to medical treatments and adjusting my dogs SPINE I want science. I want someone with a proper anatomy background and a gentle touch.
A chiro can be very good and very effective, but it depends on the problem. My chiro is great, and I've actually had her refer dogs to me if she thinks there is a different issue that needs to be addressed by a vet (our chiro isn't a vet, she was a human chiro first and then got double certified to see animals).
Article On New Osa Therapy Being Tested
in Health and Medical discussion
Posted
Thought people here might be interested in this article I came across. Not sure if it's been shared before.
http://ocm.auburn.edu/featured_story/canine_cancer.html#.WPAB5tLyuUm