rsieg
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Posts posted by rsieg
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Sorry for your loss. FWIW, 28 days is 7 months in dog years...
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Condolences on your loss. He always seemed like he was a happy hound in your posts on GT.
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Welcome from another Cleveland native. West side here, currently North Ridgeville.
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Out of bed around 7 am, shower et cetera
Walk 30-45 min
GH breakfast, 1.5 cups kibble + extra (often Parmesan cheese)
leave for work ~9 am
Dog sitter visit around half an hour around noon
Brother gets home around 4:30 pm
Home from work at 7-8 pm
Walk 45 min - 1 hour+
GH dinner, 1.5 cups kibble + salt-free tuna
Treat, bed around 11 pm
Max - usually up around 3 am to go out again :-(
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Adding something, e.g. Parmesan cheese, cottage cheese, salt-free tuna, or so on helps make it palatable. Moistening it does not hurt, may make it more palatable. I try to mix it up to keep it interesting for my guys. Two points: (1) don't spoil her, e.g. if you give her stovetop cooked ground turkey on top in the first week she may not go for anything less for a while. (2) There are a few things dogs should NOT have that people eat, such as chocolate, grapes, garlic, and a few others, if you search for something like foods not for dogs I think you can find a list. (Or maybe someone here can link to one?). Yogurt is an ok additive EXCEPT that there is a non-sugar sweetener, Xylitol I think, which is sometimes used in "healthy" yogurts which is very bad for dogs, so watch out for that one.
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Where are you walking? Another trick can be to take him somewhere he will be so engrossed in sniffing that he forgets to be afraid. Also helps if the place is actually calm. Often a park can be a good choice, especially compared with an urban area with lots of noise. Keep in mind that a dog "sees" the world through his nose - give him time to sniff things, go slow. In spite of being racers, they tend to go *very* slow on walks. Max and Logan are routinely passed by the woman in our neighborhood walking three chihuahuas, or by old people who have no business being faster than greyhounds :-)
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I agree with Jerilyn--sounds like normal shedding.
A "hound glove" or similar tool for short haired dogs, a few minute every day, and he will no doubt like it, and look good as new soon-ish (just in time for winter!).
All other things being equal, in a dog that age, be happy if he is eating well, maintaining weight, etc.
Agreed, at his age having a scruffy coat as his biggest problem (well, along with some back leg weakness) he is doing well. Be interesting to see if the coat gets better in a few weeks.
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Max just turned 13. Last month or so, he has been getting an increasing amount of gray fur tufts, starting on the rear end and now also coming forward along his sides. It looks like undercoat fur to me, and he has always had a significant undercoat. It is not simply the silver graying of the hair (not a huge problem for him so far), it is tufts (i.e. small clumps) of undercoat sticking out from what I can tell. My first thought was that he is unable to groom properly due to a bad back, but honestly I don't recall him spending time grooming before. May be seasonal shedding, but don't recall anything to this extent in the past and I don't recall that producing tufts.
The only thing I have done for it so far is I take him outside and use a fur comb to remove it, ends up producing gray clouds of hair (hence doing it outside). Max seems to like it, and it does help a lot for a few days, but then it comes back. It doesn't seem to bother him, but I hate seeing him look all scruffy, especially being a black dog!
Anyone have this with their seniors? Wondering if a diet aid, maybe olive oil or something like that, would be helpful.
Thanks in advance for any advice,
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If she tires of "shaky cheese", another one to try is cottage cheese. I swap between those to keep my guys eating.
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Testing from SmugMug
and small size test
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"He hasn't had any real big changes to his life in the last few months. He has to stay in a big gated room in the house during the day because we nanny a few toddlers for teachers."
Is the nanny gig new, or something he was already used to long before his accidents began? If it is new, and if there is no medical issue, I would guess he is stressed by the toddlers being in the house and that may be triggering his accidents.
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Another vote for peanut butter, if your hound like it. Fortunately for me, Max LOVES peanut butter - if I make a PB&J sandwich he is out in the kitchen drooling. Since Max is the old guy who takes three pills in the evening, that is good for me.
Logan, on the other hand, is not a peanut butter fiend. I give him a glucosamine pill each evening in peanut butter and he usually eats it, but sometimes I find it spit out on the floor by his dish. It is purely preventative for him at 7 years old, so no biggie right now but when he gets older he may be more of a problem to pill.
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So.. it would appear Merlin can hold it.. he just doesn't want to most of the time!
He went out around midnight last night. It's raining today so he's point blank refusing to leave the house. It's now 2pm.
Doesn't want to ... or ... does not realize he should hold it. Remember, dogs don't think like we do. If he goes in the kitchen, and he has been doing so for a long while now, and it has the right "odor" to be a good place to go, Merlin sees no problem. Why should he be holding it when there is a perfectly good place right in the kitchen to go? If you come by minutes or tens of minutes later and find it and yell at him, he is not necessarily connecting your yelling with his going in the kitchen.
There is a great story somewhere on Greytalk (apologies, I don't recall who posted it) about a hound who kept urinating in the house. The owner would yell at him when she found the spot, and he would act suitably "guilty". Then one day she was watering her plants and accidentally spilled some water on the floor -- and the hound saw the water and immediately ran away into another room. She realized all the hound had learned is that his owner did not like water on the floor, but did not connect it with anything he did :-)
Your original post was June 1, i.e. four days ago. While that seems like a long time when dealing with this, it really is not a long time for a dog to change behavior he has learned over several months. Give it a while longer, keep the spot clean with the urine deodorizer, and hopefully Merlin will figure it out. Good luck!
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How long has he been doing this (i.e. how many weeks)?
Also, are you deodorizing where he goes? Not just cleaning it with regular cleaner, but using a urine de-oderizer from a pet store? Dogs tend to go where other dogs go - this is why they wander around sniffing before finally stopping to do their business - they are sniffing for a "proper" spot. So, if you are not completely deoderizing where he is going on the kitchen floor, he may be sniffing it and saying to himself - yup, that is where I should be going. Along the same lines, if you can predict when he needs to go and get him outside to a standard location before he goes, the odor should build up there and he should hopefully begin to pick up that is where he should be going. (Obviously you will want to be picking up the bm, but the odor will still remain way strong enough for a dog to pick it up).
Also, is it solid bm or soft/diarrhea type? If the latter, it may be that switching food may help. Like people, if he has diarrhea it may be harder (or impossible) for him to hold it.
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HI!
I live in Beachwood, so you're right, quite far from North Ridgeville!
If you know any east siders with Greys, please send them my way!
I have been trying to upload a couple of pictures, but having problems. Any tips?
cheers!
You know how Cleveland is, east side is a foreign country for me :-) However, I got my two from Greyhound Adoption of Ohio (GAO). They are in Chagrin Falls which is near you, so they might be able to put you in touch with some east side greyhound owners.
For pictures, you have to have a service that lets you generate a link to the picture, then you click the square "Image" icon in the top edit bar and paste the link to the picture. Photobucket is the service I use, takes a bit of practice but eventually will work. It has the distinct advantage of being free for the basic service. Use the "direct link" option when copying the Photobucket image link.
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Hi, welcome to Greytalk. I'm from the far west side of Cleveland (North Ridgeville) so not convenient for a far east side meetup, but there are a lot of east side greyhound owners out there, hopefully you can get something going. We have had a few meetups on the west side, not regular monthly events or anything, with up to 30 greyhounds attending. Just remember you should require muzzles for *all* greyhounds in the meetup, they can get pretty wild when playing together.
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I do the twice/day, 1 1/2 cups each like you do. But note that I have male dogs, about 75 lb each. I'm pretty sure they get treats from the dog sitter too :-)
My guys sometimes skip the morning meal as well. I don't worry about it - they always eat the evening meal if they miss the morning one. Missing an occasional meal should not hurt anything as long as they are holding weight. Mine are, so if they don't eat reasonably promptly I pick up the dish and go to work. I do make an effort to make sure they eat the evening meal, if they initially do not I pick it up and later in the evening put something in it and put it back down, they almost always eat then.
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There seems to be a bias toward adopting females, so you will sometimes see after a haul of new greyhounds off the track for adoption that in a few weeks all the females are adopted and it is mostly males remaining available. So you may have more of a choice if you are interested in males (or at least willing to consider them).
All my dogs growing up, and my first (non-greyhound) dog that I adopted on my own were all females, but Logan and Max were my first greyhounds, males obviously. I don't see any difference in behavior or anything like that, but there is a subtle psychological effect we impose on the dogs, that is, we think of a male dog as a "he" or a female as a "she". It may seem silly, but if you really want a female, that is, a "her", as your canine companion, then that is what you should get.
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Have you looked into Bravecto? It's an oral flea and tick preventative given every three months. We used to give Comfortis too, but switched for the added tick protection and have been very happy.
I may do that, thanks for the suggestion. Bravecto does seem to get good reviews. My only reluctance has been the 3-month thing, just seems like it would either need to be a very heavy initial dose to work that long, or maybe it does not work that long.
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Can you use the Seresto collar with Trifexis?
Trifexis handles fleas and worms, but not ticks (though I have heard it actually works on ticks as well, just not for the whole month). Trifexis (or actually Comfortis, the version without worm protection) cured a flea infestation in our house instantly, so I am not going off Trifexis. But, I would like something for the ticks. Tried the Preventic collar last year but Logan got a rash from it, I suppose similar results may occur with Seresto but may be worth a try.
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I think the morning walk is key, get Charlie tired out before going to work, longer is better if you can do it. Also helps to make sure she has done the potty thing.
Not so sure I would go with the dogwalker 2-3 times a week. Dogs like a fixed schedule, same thing every day. So I think I would either go without the dog walker, or have the dog walker come every day. Obviously the latter may be cost-prohibitive, but if so you might check to see if they offer a dog sitting service for lower cost. That is what I do with my guys, the sitter comes, lets them out, checks water et cetera, but does not take them for a walk. For that service it is same cost for any number of dogs (since there really is not additional work for the sitter, I suppose), which might also be a consideration if you get a second dog. Of course, you might also compare costs for the dog walker versus the house cleaner -- if the latter is cheaper schedule it five days a week and have the cleanest house on the block :-)
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I had (have) a ratty green couch I had been planning to get rid of, but since I was getting a greyhound and heard they like couches I kept it to see if Logan would use it. He did not use it for three weeks. About two days before our monthly bulk garbage pickup, when I was planning to put the couch out, Logan started scratching his front feet on the carpet, clearly dissatisfied. Then he looked over at the green couch. Walked over ... put his front feet on it and scratched it. Jumped up ... and looked over at me as if to say "ok boss?".
Now it is his couch, and I can never get rid of it.
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Don't have any suggestions, but my Max started doing something similar not so long ago:
http://forum.greytalk.com/index.php/topic/320617-max-sleeping-outside-at-3-am/
About the only answer I got was, maybe he just likes it outside now that the weather is getting nicer (i.e. not snow). Hope you figure it out for your guy...
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Dog-door is not really an option, I have a sliding glass door to the backyard. Also, the adoption group pointed out that a doggie door is not necessarily a good idea in Cleveland, because it is possible for the hound to go out and then have a snow drift build up to block the door while he is outside. (Of course I could bar it off in the winter).
Last night I stayed outside for about an hour and a half doing some astronomy observing. Max came out and laid in the grass for a while, then went in. Seemed to satisfy him as he asked to go potty at 3 am but did not lay down. (I'm fine with the 3 am potty break). So that may be an option, try to spend some time outside with him, weather permitting, before bed.
Waiting For My Grey
in Introductions & Biography
Posted
Good luck!
Do you know the track name of your hound? If so you can type it in the search in the upper right of this page:
http://www.greyhound-data.com/
and get her racing history and lineage info.