[Making My Greyhound More Affectionate]

Just some follow-on advice to echo what many others have said.

 

I got Trinkett when she was 6. She'd raced until 5, and then had a litter of pups. So she had spent a large part of her life living in a crate. She never got be a jumpy/licky/cuddly dog, but she did eventually bond with me. I'll admit, for the first 6 months we were more like roommates then pet and owner. I finally brought in a trainer to give me some advice, and that seemed to help. Once I started actually working with her and asking her to do things, she started wanting to be with me more. She was a very sweet and patient dog, always liked people, just really calm and mellow. If I could do things over again, I'd see if I could find the kind of class I did for my second girl... obedience wrapped up in games. Lots of positive training, with things like the "cheese puff relay" (you walk the dog on a leash to a bowl of cheese puffs, scoop some out on a spoon, and walk the dog back to the starting line... lets you practice loose leash walking and sit/down/stay/whatever you use to keep the dog calm while getting the cheese puffs) and other games to play with your dog.

 

Painfully shy Katie is a project, and one of the hardest things I had to do with her when I first got her was learn to use "benign neglect"... totally ignoring her except for feeding and potty breaks. Just looking at her was enough to make her go hide in a corner. She has blossomed into a very affectionate dog with me in the house (outside is still a bit scary for her), which I attribute largely to clicker training and hand feeding. She has, for the last year, gotten every bit of her meals from me, generally by performing all of the tricks that she knows, which she learned in the clicker sessions, which involve food. Food and play is very intertwined with her. The other thing that I did was teach her an "initiator signal". Once she learned the Touch command, I used that to determine whether she wanted to be affectionate or not. She's never had issues with me being around her bed, so I will walk over, sit down, ask her if she wants scritchles, and hold out my hand. If she touches the hand, or does an obvious solicitation like rolling over so I can scratch her belly, she gets scritchles. If she doesn't (and I admit, this can be a hard thing to do since I am normally seeking her out when _I_ am feeling affectionate), I will sit by her and talk to her and NOT PET her. I may ask again in a bit, and often she will do touch then. It seems to make her feel better if she can decide that she does or doesn't get petted.

 

I will say too that it may take 6 months or more to see your dog's true personality. Patience is a great virtue with these dogs.

 

Rebecca

[Housebreaking Help! (Long)]

And don't expect his "signal" to be what you're expecting--you know, going to the door and whining. For my dog, his signals is picking up his stuffy and trotting randomly around the condo. Took me a while to figure that out, believe me!

 

First off, let me say that I sympathize with you about this issue. One of Katie's biggest fears when I got her was "being outside", so I had to deal with a dog who really wanted to potty outside, but often was too scared to, resulting in a dog that would pace out to the yard/back inside, and often wind up going inside because it was too spooky to go outside. Constantly cleaning up does get frustrating!

 

However, she does now seem to be "house broken". But her signals are subtle, and it's partly that I think we have settled on a turn-out schedule that works for her. She has two signals that she needs to go out: coming and standing quietly by my chair (and you can guess how long it took me to figure that one out!) or running around the house extra-playful (too be fair, I'm not sure if that's a signal, or just that being playful makes them need to go, but I figure it counts).

 

Mostly I just wanted to say that if my shy little "the world is going to eat me" girl can get it, your dog will too.

 

Rebecca

[Cloudy Spot On Eyes?]

Glad you're taking her to see an ophthalmologist. Since it's not bothering her, and especially if you don't see it changing much, it shouldn't be a problem to wait until the 12th. Hard to tell from the photos, but I hope it's nothing serious.

 

 

That's the problem with eyes. Hopefully (and generally this is true) it's nothing major. But, there is always that uncertainty until an expert takes a look at them. I'm thinking it may be scarring from a corneal ulcer.

 

Rebecca and Katie

[Cloudy Spot On Eyes?]

I have set an appointment with the vet opthamologist for Sept 12th. Unfortunately, being a specialist, that's the earliest appointment that they had.

 

A lot of people have suggested the possibility of pannus. The vet who noticed this said it was a possibility, but didn't seem to be leaning strongly that way. From what I understand, pannus affects the surface of the eye. This only shows up under certain lighting conditions, which makes me think it may be something happening in the cornea, or possibly even the lens, since it appears to be something about light diffraction, which would seem to rule out pannus. But I could be wrong.

 

I have harrassed my poor girl until I managed to get some pictures to post, which you can find here: http://s253.photobucket.com/albums/hh51/philospher77/?action=organize

Eyes are not that easy to photograph, since you get that reflection from whatever light source you are using, but I have posted a pic of her eyes under normal ambient lighting and one where the flash seems to have made the spot appear, in case anyone wants to take a look. I've tried to create two sizes, since I am never sure how these things show up on other computers. The spot is in both, but I took wat I could get!

 

Thanks!

 

Rebecca and Katie

[Cloudy Spot On Eyes?]

Hi!

 

I have a 3-year-old spayed female greyhound who I had in to the vet a few days ago because of what I thought might be a bad tooth. Turns out that there's no problem there (just a bit off of her food because of the weather and some changes to routine, I figure... she's back to eating with gusto now). But the vet did notice some cloudy spots in her eyes, at the one o'clock position in one eye and around 3 o'clock in the other. She couldn't tell if it was the cornea or the lens, but I have now seen it in two locations, so it's not just a light reflection (which is what it sort of looks like). It doesn't seem to be bothering Katie, and she is responding to light and that slapping motion that they do to see if they detect movement. She did say that if I wanted to find out more, it would probably take a trip out to the specialist, and that it was possible that this is normal-for-Katie. I'm wondering if anyone on the list has seen anything like this and might give me some leads to go explore in order to decide if I do need to make that trip? Thanks for your help!

 

Rebecca