quarrystepper

Wonderful, thank you!

Hello! Any chance you’d be willing to repost these photos? I bookmarked this thread last fall, fully intending to build a similar bridge/platform for our ‘18 Forester over the winter. Turns out that was a little bit aspirational, lol, but I’m thinking it’s time now that spring is in the air. Thanks!

I couldn't bring myself to write a remembrance post, but we said goodbye to Kali on October 16. I would be grateful if you could add her name to the list of bridge angels for 2020. I posted a number of photos on Instagram when it happened and just went through my smartphone to organize photos for a Shutterfly book. I plan to write a brief intro for the book soon, before I forget all the wonderful stories and memories we built together, which I'll post here at some point. We miss her deeply and are comforted by the addition of a sweet new girl, Rosie (AMF Ready Made), a few months before Kali went to the bridge.

Mark, I'm so sorry to hear about this devastating loss of your heart dog. It's a day no one wants to ever encounter. I hope you will cherish the fond memories and all those great photos you took over the years. Give Face some scritches, too.

My last grey ate a hair scrunchie. Eek. It may be she ate something at the dog park. No matter how hard we try, I can never be sure! --quarrystepper's wife

Our 9 yo Kali has been vomiting on a regular basis (sometime with grass, sometimes not). Generally it is mucuousy full of undigested food. She has also been pooping in the house on a regular basis, about 1-2 times a week. Often it is a bit here and a bit there rather than a single pile (sorry).This is very uncharacteristic for her. When I go to comfort her or pet her she is not interested, she's more lethargic and less enthusiastic about eating. These moods do come and go. Her walking schedule has changed a bit and I'm wondering if that is all this is?

Welcome from just up the way in Louisville!

How have I never posted on this thread?! Love these updates, at least the happy ones, and I think about you and Taylor often. He's truly a special hound and I hope his current decline, while it was probably inevitable, is also as pain-free as possible. You are handling this with a lot more grace than I probably would.

At least they waited to spay her! Kali came to us straight off the track and she was spayed while in heat. Caused a bunch of medical issues during her first year with us. Welcome to GreyTalk! Wish you the best with your new hound.

Makes sense! We've had a lot of fluctuating temps here in MA this summer, haven't we?

Total speculation here, but maybe he doesn't really like the running A/C unit all that much? He'll put up with it during the hottest part of the day, but at night when the apartment is cooler, he'd rather not have the white noise? Kali is always afraid of ceiling fans and the noise of our little Vornado. When we first break it out in the late spring (when it's barely uncomfortable at night), she will sometimes spend a few nights in the living room. But when temps are 90 degrees and humid during the day, and still in the high 70s in our house at night, she gets with the program pretty quick.

Wouldn't temptations on the counter still be worth removing? Wouldn't snap traps still be an effective deterrant? Just trying to offer something that worked for us, given a similar (albeit not identical) situation. Sorry to hear Joy is still doing it, but glad she's a happy addition to the pack otherwise.

Dog-proofing your counters (and all of your living space) is the key, as others have said. I will also add another suggestion that we learned from our adoption group when we adopted Brooks, because he was already a notorious counter surfer. They recommended using mouse traps, the old snap-trap kind, on the counters. I know this sounds cruel, but all it took to train Brooks was snapping the trap one time in his vicinity (while he was safely at a distance) and he now knows that he DOES NOT LIKE that sound. So just seeing the snap traps on the counter surface was enough to deter him forever. We baby gate our kitchen in this current house, so it's no longer necessary to use the snap traps there. But they came in handy when we bought a new leather couch for the living room. I put three traps on the couch (not set to snap) and he doesn't ever jump on it... unless I forget to put them out, in which case it's a guarantee that he'll lay down on there for part of the day. The evidence is the scratches on the leather, of course...

We're very friendly with this neighbor. They have two dogs as well. When we fenced in our yard, we actually added a gate in the woods between our properties so they could come over with their dogs for firepits, etc. Unfortunately, we're in a very wooded, mostly rural area and I guess their cat is accustomed to having more of a barn cat lifestyle. I had never seen him before today, to be honest. She made a half-hearted offer to help defray costs (which were nearly $1,000--summer vacation is cancelled, I'm sorry to say) but if her cat was also injured, I'll have a hard time taking her up on that offer. I just wish I had responded to Kali's barking more quickly and this whole thing could have been avoided.

Warm light and lots of hugs

Thanks for bringing this up. Kali was slow to learn stairs (both directions--she came to us straight from the track as a foster) and I'm afraid we didn't give her good training about how to properly go down stairs. She tends to leap from the fourth or fifth step, especially because she LOVES going to the basement where it's cooler and her favorite bed is waiting for her. I'm worried one of these days she'll break a leg when she hits the bottom, so I think I'll start walking down with her more carefully so she'll (hopefully) learn to apply the brakes. Sorry to derail! I will say that having a friend (Brooks) show her the ropes is what helped Kali get over the hump wrt stairs. Especially when there is food waiting at the other end, she can no longer stand being left out! Same is true for jumping into the back of the Jeep, sphinxing for treats, etc.

It sounds like you're being very attentive and monitoring how his behavior changes, which seems like a great approach. Your patience is commendable! My only advice is like you said, it's only day 5... if you keep him on the path to success, he will probably acclimate to something like your other hounds' behavior. I'm not sure if you mentioned this, but do you currently have any other hounds? Or are the previous four no longer around? If it's the latter, he could easily be one of those dogs who just can't help freaking out at his perception of being left alone, even when you're three feet away on the other side of a screen door. That was Brooks's biggest problem--even though the agency felt he would be a good independent dog because he was usually doing his own thing while living with five other foster dogs and wasn't that social, independent in our case didn't mean he was adjusted to complete alone time and quiet. Lots of alone training, ditching the crate and setting up a routine didn't help. The only thing that put him right was fostering and eventually adopting a second hound. YMMV but I can't imagine ever trying to have a single greyhound again. It was like night and day.

Lottts of cuts and bites. Both dogs need sutures in at least three places apiece. I guess Kali got involved after all, even though it was Brooks that had the cat in his mouth when I got out there. It was our next-door neighbor's tomcat and when we talked on the phone a few minutes ago, my neighbor said her cat had a lot of wounds too, so I'm guessing Kali had a crack at him. She's the only one of my two hounds with any teeth left to penetrate anything else's skin...

Whelp, here we go again! This time, I got two for the price of one. After breakfast at 5:40 this morning, I let Kali back out because (as usual) she just wandered around the yard instead of doing any business when I turned them out. About a minute later, she starts relentlessly barking in a far corner of the yard where I can't see her. Brooks pushes through me and out the HEAVY storm door to find out what's going on. Before I can grab pants and shoes (I regret even bothering) we had a GSOD and two wounded pups. Black cat with no tags or collar. Just like last year, cat was fine. It was Brooks who took his chances, and suffered for it -- worse than last time, he has two bites on his face, one puncture on his shoulder, a nicked ear and a patch of ripped flesh under his chin. Kali has a puncture less than 1/2 an inch from her eye and a bite in between her ears. At least it wasn't a bear! We've had two in the neighborhood this spring. ETA: This wasn't the same neighbor's cat as last time. As far as I know, it was just a stray (as in, most likely someone's pet, but it strayed into our yard nonetheless).

Immensely sorry for your loss. I followed the other thread and feel like I learned so much about this happy, rooing girl. Great photos and great remembrance.

I also used the Doberdawn guide when I started using a (regular, full-sized, non-pet-specific) Dremel. My only comment is that--in my admittedly limited experience--the most important rule is the 2-3 seconds per nail rule, rotating through each paw. But I deviate from the guide in that I use a setting that's probably closer to 10,000 rpms and the hounds have been fine. Now that they're both used to the routine, neither dog has ever pulled back because it got too hot. And I've never quicked them using this method, which is more than I can say for my attempts with the guillotine-style clippers! The hardest thing was getting the angle right (not just of the Dremel, but also where I'm positioned depending on which side I'm grinding), and making sure that there's no loose hair tufts between their toes that might get caught.

Warm thoughts for you both today.

White light really works! Great update.

Agreed that the sudden onset is weird. But my non-scientific opinion: your latest description really does sound like just an above average case of sleep startle, and certainly nothing neurological. When we first got Brooks, he would emit a low growl and bare his teeth if you simply walked past his bed while he was asleep in the early evenings, let alone if we shifted in bed in a way that he perceived as threatening from his bed next to ours. He was fostered with a lot of greys and I think this was simply his "upon delivery" instinct for maintaining some solitude when he was sleepy. For a while he even stopped coming to the bedroom at bedtime and would spend the entire night sleeping on his bed in the dining room (of all places, but this was the room he loved during the day -- it got the most sunshine). After a few more months, he started wandering into the bedroom in the middle of the night and plopping down there for the remainder of the night, and never made a peep even if we shifted or moved. And then eventually he just came to bed when we did, and all four of us (2 humans + 2 dogs) were happily closed up in the bedroom. All this adaptation was in the first year we had him, and meanwhile our fosters and the eventual second hound we adopted, Kali, have never growled or bared teeth. At this point (3 years since adoption), Brooks will sleep calmly anywhere except one place -- he's a big sofa hog when we're watching a movie in the basement or something, and will VERY frequently growl if he's awoken by movement that touches him or is near to him. He'll occasionally even lift his head and growl, but I still wouldn't call him "fully awake" in that case. It's just a reaction. What I do when this happens is speak calmly and softly to him, not scolding, but simply letting him know I'm there. I make sure he can see me and my hand, and I will (slowly) reach out and just rub his head or back hip (which he loves, and I suspect feels like a calming signal to him because he knows it's me). It works like a charm, and even if he will growl again ten minutes later for the exact same reason, it's quickly defused. Sorry for this lengthy description but I hope it helps. These were very incremental adjustments for us, but it seems like Brooks and your hound are similar, and I do not worry about Brooks attacking us or being upset or unwell. It's just an instantaneous and instinctual reaction, and quickly dissipates with the right stimulus.

Thought I'd read everything there was to read about dentals and extractions. Guess not! Thanks for another useful thread, GT! Glad RJ is doing well! Tbhounds, if a vet doesn't offer intra-oral rads or decides they're not needed, would you recommend that I insist or seek a new vet for the dentals? My vet has an oral surgeon who comes in to complete dentals once a week. We had Brooks in there last year and he had one extraction; all went well, so I do trust them. But when it was Kali's turn (she hadn't had one since her adoption 18 months earlier), they did a visual inspection only and said it wasn't necessary. They did use the "cracker" on some of her bigger teeth to remove calculus -- and both dogs get brushed every other day. Just curious if you think I should push them to do rads on Kali to make sure there aren't hidden problems that a visual inspection wouldn't show, especially since she's 2+ years since her last dental now. Sorry to hijack.