antisense

Mine dog's like that too... After breakfast walks produce solid, pickupable poops... after dinner walks = mush. I always though it was because overnight his poops just had more time to "ripen" since on the rare occasion when he doesn't get to go for his after dinner walk until a few hours later than normal, his poop is a lot more solid.

Yum, lucky pups! Glad your crew is liking it

How about if you only take him out when he whines? And then only feed him when he's been quiet for a little while. If he learns that whining gets him no food, only "outs," then he may stop whining for food

Thank you for your input everyone. I did find one more article, Effect of dietary protein content on behavior in dogs, and I believe this is actually the one that the behaviorist was referring to as Dodman is the primary author http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8575968 Key findings being: Results of this study suggest that a reduction in dietary protein content is not generally useful in the treatment of behavior problems in dogs, but may be appropriate in dogs with territorial aggression that is a result of fear However, this statistical significant change was only found in a post hoc analysis... which is typical when the researchers found NO statistical significance when following their initial experimental proposal, and they tried to find something interesting by re-analyzing their data. At least for me, this strongly suggests that diet is unlikely to result in significant behavior change. It IS interesting however that in the DeNapoli study (posted link earlier, but here's a pubmed link http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10953712) the addition of tryptophan to the diet may be helpful in some cases of aggression (primarily fear based). I think JJ would approve of more turkey necks!

Thank you for sharing those videos. JJ already does wait for his meals. We put a handful of food into his bowl which he is not allowed to eat until he makes eye contact with us, and we say "OK, take it" We'll give him a few more bites "for free" and then he will have to wait again. We also ask for "sit's" or "lie down's" before mealtimes and he's been quite good at it. We're going to try having him watch us eat before he gets to eat since I figure there's little harm in trying. We only plan to eat a snack though, not a meal, or else his meals might end up being over an hour late and we're trying to keep him on a consistent schedule. He did have free access to his toybox before and he would pick out toys at will to play with. We moved his toybox today on top of some drawers where he can't reach. Tonight we made him lie down before getting a toy. We do already ask for a wait at almost every door (he doesn't wait at the doors with the slippery tile floor because he will sometimes freeze there). We have to ask for a "Wait" though, he doesn't do it automatically. He does automatically wait with a loose leash at the crosswalk while on walks, unless he is really worked up about something. We plan to get him to "Look" at us at crosswalks once we can get him to do it reliably indoors. There's still lots of work to be done, and it's going to be challenging to make sure my boyfriend and I are always consistent. Since coming to live with us, he has yet to meet another greyhound. Apparently while in foster care, he was terrifically behaved around all their greyhounds. I'd love for him to meet some of your crew, I just don't know when as I want to make sure it will be safe to do so. Just thought I'd add, I asked about the whole marking and kicking thing, and Kerry's personal opinion is that while nobody's done a study on it, it's likely harmless.

@Giselle, Dietary protein is mentioned in a meta-analysis of specific nutrients and canine behavior in a 2007 publication in Nutrition Research Reviews Abstract: http://journals.camb...ine&aid=1452580 Full text: http://journals.camb...1bc6fe8a66d382c I believe the one that Kerry was referring to is this study in the AVMA (he mentioned that Dodman was one of the co-authors) but I only have access to the abstract (will need to get the boyfriend to see if he has access through his school) http://avmajournals.avma.org/doi/abs/10.2460/javma.2000.217.504 So far that's all I've found, but I haven't had the time to do a serious search.

We met with Kerry today, and he was quickly able to tell that JJ is a very anxious dog and reacts aggressively when fearful. He is concerned because is appears JJ will very likely bite if provoked. This seems consistent with our observations when out for walks and at the vet. He's given us clear directions on how we can reinforce our leadership status to help him be less anxious in general, specifically by control all resources including food, toys, sleeping area, and attention (essentially NILF) -Have him see us eat immediately prior to when he gets to eat -Give him access to toys only when we give them to him -Having him leashed occasionally at home and tugging on it to get him off his bed and then sitting on his bed ourselves (JJ has never been allowed on the people bed or the couch) -Wait at the door before going out -Groom him frequently (In the canine world, the groomer has higher status. Conversely in the primate world, the groomee is the one with higher status) He also discussed learning theory, and showed us how to teach the "look" command: to have JJ stop/stay and make eye contact with us (and ignore all else). The more we can practice this the better (Ideally 150 times a day! Though he acknowledges that this is pretty impossible for nearly everyone), so that when we are outside and surrounded by distractions and people and other dogs, we can take him to the side and keep him calm. Also, he hopes this (in combination with leadership training) will encourage JJ to look to us to make the decisions in an uncomfortable situation on how he should proceed. He did suggest changing JJ's diet, which I am not in complete agreement with. (Discussed here: http://forum.greytalk.com/index.php/topic/292631-aggression-and-protein-content-of-food/) Our vet had already suggested it, but he would like us to consider drug therapy (eg: Prozac/fluoxetine) if we don't see drastic improvement with just behavior intervention in 4 weeks since we do not know whether this aggression is a learned behavior from his racing past, or if he has an endogenous neurochemical disorder that simply makes him a more aggressive dog. It might be used temporarily, or it might be used indefinitely. I am a pharmacist, and I do fully support the use of mood medications in humans when there is a demonstrated need, but for personal/cultural reasons I simply feel uncomfortable using them in dogs. Our goal is to be able to walk JJ without him displaying any aggression towards people or dogs walking past us on the same sidewalk. I would like to be able to take him to the dog park so he can run freely off leash, though this might never be possible. We certainly could continue the way things have been as we can control him while he is muzzled and on leash, but it is certainly not what we had ideally wanted in a dog. I'll update again later with our progress!

I'm going to preface this by noting that it may be a highly controversial topic. I am still in the process of searching for scientific literature on this topic (and unfortunately it seems there is very little, and the little there is are only very small studied). We had our meeting with a certified behaviorist today and one of the things that was mentioned is that lower protein diets (under 20%) have been associated with less reported aggression in fear aggressive or territorial aggressive dogs. He did not have the study available, as no clients have ever asked to see it. I did a quick search after our appointment and I did indeed come across a very small number of studies comparing low protein with high protein (30%) diets for a short time (1 to 2 weeks), with each with study groups of only about 7 to 12 dogs. (ie: likely not a big enough study population or long enough duration to give strong evidence either way) Now, the dilemma is this: I am very supportive of the nutritional value of raw feeding. Our raw food has been assessed to have 48% protein content, though at the moment we are mixing this half and half with a 24% protein kibble. Very roughly he's likely getting about 36% protein in his meals, though he also gets high protein treats such as bully sticks and dehydrated liver. He's very well muscled, has a soft and shiny coat, and never seems to be without energy when we engage him in play, or take him out for walks. He also LOVES eating this food, and certainly is not as enthusiastic about eating plain kibble. However, the studies do suggest that decreasing protein level in food has improved the owner perceived level of aggression (ie: less aggressive). I won't get into the technical details here, but it is proposed that high protein diets decrease the amount of serotonin in the brain. Lower serotonin levels in the brain and cerebral spinal fluid have been associated with higher level of anxiety and aggression in canines, which unlike the dietary studies, is a much researched area. In addition, these dietary studies only lasted 14 days maximum, so detrimental nutritional effects would not likely have been seen (or at the very least were not reported as endpoints in the studies). It has been recommended to us to decrease dietary protein in addition to behavior interventions and reinforcing our leadership (essentially NILF). I'm in full support of all these suggestions except for changing his diet. I'm posting to open a discussion about the link between diet and behavior, and to see if anybody has anecdotal support for or against, or knows of any better scientific evidence for or against changing protein in diet and aggressive behavior.

I'm sorry I don't have any advice to give, but I just hope that she will be okay.

Update 2: We visited the vet today. Turns out JJ has both roundworm and hookworm. Ewwwww hooks. JJ is now on pyrantel (aka Nemex or Strongid, I believe), 2 doses one week apart. He got his first dose tonight with supper. The vet also did a physical on JJ, and the appointment went very well all things considered. The last time he was at the vet, he was an aggressive, growling, snapping and lunging little monster. This time he was much more calm in the vet clinic, but he was not happy to be in the same examining room as last time. He whined, and struggled, and impressed the vet by how quickly he could take a muzzle off. He ended up having his exam in the middle of the clinic waiting room! I guess he feels much more at ease when he doesn't feel trapped in a small room (especially a small room where he previously had his toenails violated by a trimmer). The vet says he's a very healthy boy, apart from the worms. He got many, many, many liver treats after the exam. I'm somewhat amused because on Tuesday after I saw the worms, I was at work discussing whether or not I should treat him with Combantrin (human use pyrantel). I decided against since I didn't know if he had tapes or other species where pyrantel wouldn't be effective. Combantrin is certainly a LOT less expensive than the veterinary use pyrantel, especially with my pharmacy staff discount...

Update: Just got an after hours call from the vet on my voicemail. Apparently the fecal float test came back and JJ has two types of worm. He's been prescribed a dewormer (though he didn't mention which one) and I can go pick it up tomorrow. I'll post again tomorrow what kind of worms he had once I pick up the test results. There hasn't been any more vomiting since the episode the other night, and apart from some occasional wheezing, you would never know anything was wrong with him. I checked out his vet records that the adoption group gave me, and apparently he had had a fecal float analyzed by the same lab in September, but it came up negative. Unless it was a false negative, that means he picked up the worms while he was here at some point and in less than 2 months they grew to monstrous size. Anyone have any experience with worm prevention? I've read that diatomaceous earth mixed in food is helpful.

Heh, @mom2for, I've dissected those too and they were a foot long! I'm surprised I've never seen any worms in his poop. It wigs me out to think that there's worms in his tummy right now having a party and enjoying the free room and board.

For comparison now that the laundry's been done, the crate's been lysol'd, and the carpet's been little green machine'd... 2.54cm = 1 inch for you American folks! Hopefully no tummy rumblies tonight!

Me too. *gives in to peer pressure* Yeah, OK: Warning: closeup of dried vomit and dead spaghetti like monsters http://i.imgur.com/CKMqA.jpg

Hey all! Just got back from dropping off a stool sample and should have results by Thursday. We're booked in to see the other vet at the clinic on Thursday since that was the earliest appointment available and the "greyhound vet" is already booked up. Just to clarify: I mentioned Revolution since I just came across some info in the Merck Veterinary Manual that it's used as a wormer in the UK and thought it was interesting that it can kill canine roundworm as well. Could be entirely different dosing when used as a wormer - I have no idea! We are only using it for flea and heartworm prevention though. I know he's had a dose of Drontal Plus in September as his foster home routinely worms all new dogs. He's had soft poops and hard poops and we just figured it was him being new to our home and having a sensitive stomach. Never saw any worms or eggs in his poop though. I thought he had eaten some elastic bands at first until I went to go clean it up, and then was thoroughly grossed out when I saw that they were actually worms.

We woke up to a very nasty surprise today. JJ had vomited sometime overnight and there were roundworms in his vomit. There were 3 or 4 large worms and one small worm. They were dead, but we have no idea what time he vomited. I have a picture, but it's too gross to post, and I'm quite certain they are roundworms. We did start him on Revolution last month, and he's gotten 2 doses so far (which is an approved regimen for deworming in the UK). We called the vet clinic and they seemed to be in no rush to get us an appointment. The greyhound vet isn't in until Thursday. They said he definitely needs worming, but that we don't need to rush in today. Just wondering what you guys think, since at least in humans, once a person is vomiting worms, it is a very serious infestation. I'm a new mommy and I'm very worried!

When JJ first came home we were feeding him 4 cups of kibble plus a pound of meat! But he did need some fattening up as we could see nearly all his ribs and his hip bones were sticking out pretty severely. Now he gets 2 cups, plus lots of treats for training. On days were I'm too busy to do much training he gets 2 heaping cups. We give him a chicken foot or turkey neck/back every now and then as well as a crunchy treat. He's about 75 pounds last he was weighed and looking pretty good. We're about 400 miles away if you ever wanna make a road trip. I figure since it's processed, it's not as good as feeding whole pieces of meat. But kibble is processed too, so it can't be much worse than average quality kibble. We need to get a shuttle going between our cities. We head out to Ottawa to stock up on chicken feet and such at T&T since none of the grocery stores around here cater to the "ethnic" population!

We feed kibble and raw. We've only had our pup for 2 months, but we've had no problems so far. We get premade ground made from chicken, beef (incl bone and organs), fish, and a little cooked egg. It's locally made, and costs about 50 cents per pound. Our guy eats a pound a day of permade raw mixed with 2-3 cups of kirkland kibble (still trying to figure out exactly how much food he needs). We defrost in the fridge in individual containers and then mix it in with the kibble at feeding time. We then hand feed this mixture (and wash our hands really well afterwards) but your family could just as easily just mix it up with a fork and then let the dog help himself. Washing up is no different than after preparing any other raw meat. BatterseaBrindl feeds her dogs entirely with this premade raw and they seem to be doing really well on it. The biggest expense was buying a seperate freezer because we have to buy the raw food 40 pounds at a time, and our tiny kitchen fridge has no room to store it all. We're considering going completely raw once our current bag of kibble runs out since poops still aren't as solid as we would like.

I noticed some of what the Shiva in guy was saying was contradictinf handouts from animal shelters and advocacy groups. For the moment were just avoiding anything that may cause a reaction until we can get professional advice. Not going to try any more interventions on case we inadvertantly make things worse. Visit is next week as this week he had an urgent case (dog in quarantine may get put down kind of case) I will definitely share what his opinion is in case it helps anyone else here

Apparently because dogs have a shorter digestive tract so bacteria doesn't get enough time to reach number required to cause illness, and dogs have a more powerful stomach that kills off stuff that we can't.

You're lucky Eli has a long attention span! With my JJ he wasn't particularly food oriented at first and he would only pay attention if we used hot dog or grilled chicken breast. Even then he would only play along for 5 or 6 treats and then he'd wander off. We had to keep our sessions super short (1-2 minutes) so that we could finish while he was still interested. Now his attention span is up to about 10 minutes, but we still don't usually go for longer than 5 minutes at a time. We eventually graduated from using an empty frozen yogurt bucket, to a plastic pumpkin squeaky toy. He only gets to interact with the pumpkin toy during training sessions so he gets super excited and focused whenever we bring it out.

We don't feed entirely raw - we mix half ground raw feed (blend of beef and chicken muscle, bone and organs) with kirkland kibble. He also gets a chicken foot or a turkey neck once a week as a treat which we feed with his collar on so we can keep him on the kitchen tile in case he drops it. Never had any issues with getting sick, though our pup has only been with us for a month and a half. His fur is really soft and thick (including his butt!), but he did come to us that way from the track so I think it's just genes and not food. He does have a small bald patch on his chest, which has just recently started growling some sparse hair. Only down side right now is that his stools are fairly soft most of the time (formed, but not always neatly pick-up-able). We are concerned about the humans in the house getting a bug from the meat since we hand feed his entire meal bite by bite. We wash really well with soap and scrub under the nails after feeding time... so far no problems. Our adoption group recommended Missing Link supplement as they've found it helps their fosters with their coats. I haven't tried it though.

I followed Jennifer's lessons here (http://neversaynevergreyhounds.blogspot.ca/2010/11/intro-to-clicker-training.html) on how to teach a greyhound how to learn. It is very similar to 101 things to do with a box. It did take almost a full week before the light bulb came on and he figured out that the clicker meant that he did something right and a treat was coming.

He will pee on the sidewalk one block after he just has a long pee in the park. I think he just really want to mark. I don't think it's a a matter of running out of time because he does get a "last chance" pee time along the stretch of grass with poles and trees right outside our apartment building. He will sniff around here, and sometimes pees, sometimes he doesn't. The kicking is really cute when any of my dogs have done it, so if it's a harmless thing then I'm really happy to let him keep doing it! The toy poodle I grew up with (who still lives out west with my mother) was a very enthusiastic kicker.

It's not that we are annoyed by having to stop every few feet to mark, it's that we've been letting him mark in the park we always pass through on walks, and now he seems to get very aggravated whenever he sees another dog in the park (territorial maybe? dunno). He pees when we first leave home, then we go for a walk and it's all business - no stopping to mark, just walk - until we get to the park. At the park he gets to sniff around at the entrance and check his p-mail, and potty if he wants. We stop again at the end of the park to potty. He doesn't even try to mark anymore while we're walking through the park, and he always has good long pees whenever we do stop at his designated potty spots, and has been reliably pooping as we leave the park. However, on the sidewalk while going back home, he will lift his leg while walking and pee on the sidewalk! That's kinda awkward... He's almost peed on my leg a few times. We've tried to walk faster when we notice him about to go for it, but that doesn't seem to stop him. Maybe that will just be one of his quirks. Very conflicted over whether or not kicking and scraping the ground with his feet after potty is a good or bad thing. Some sources say it's a dominance thing, some sources say it's just normal doggy communication. I'll be sure to ask the behaviorist