MattB

I always go to pieces at the vet, get really nervous and stop thinking clearly. I wondered if I could describe my situation and ask what people would want from the consultation in terms of treatments or diagnostic tests. I'm not trying to self-diagnose, just asking how other people's communication with their vet would go in this situation. Obviously this is dependent on what the vet can see/feel. Daisy (6y/o female ex racer) started with a very intermittent limp last week. I thought it was her front right leg although sometimes it has looked like the left. Typically she will limp for 3 or 4 strides, when she gets off the sofa or when we first go out on a walk. She will limp for a few strides then back to normal, she's been galloping around the garden showing no signs of any limping, she's been her usual enthusiastic self asking to be taken out for walks and dragging me round (which I've been making very short). She hasn't at any time whined or yelped or done anything to indicate pain. I thought that the limping had stopped but yesterday noticed it again so made an appointment at the vet for tomorrow afternoon. Daisy had licked her front right paw a bit and I checked and checked for anything stuck in there and then I thought her pads were a little dry and cracked and have moisturised for a few days but I don't think this is it any more. I just wondered what people's thought were on what would be a reasonable suggestion from the vet. My only experience with a greyhound at the vet was our first and they had a lot of difficulty diagnosing the cause of limping and pain and took many weeks. I hope it will be something non-serious and simple to fix, but if nothing is obvious: Do we want an x-ray at this point? Or would I expect the vet to give anti-inflammatories a try first? Daisy is due a dental in the near future so I thought that would be an opportunity to have an x-ray - this could be brought forward - or alternatively put back if it would be sensible to try something else first. Usually the vet gives me options which I find a bit overwhelming so going forearmed with any thoughts or advice you could offer would be very much appreciated.

Thanks so much everyone. From other posts and fb comments I've read our two aren't as terrified as some. I will try some of the suggested and if they are no help then I will head to the vet (maybe a different one).

Thanks kudzu - yes maybe I didn't get the whole story over the phone - I understood this at the time as Zyklene was all they would give us for the firework season. Thanks also macoduck - doesn't look like it will be as easy to get hold of in the UK but I will continue to look.

I should have done all of this sooner but I'd forgotten how upset Charlie gets with fireworks which will be intermittent where we live for the next couple of weeks. I just rang my vet and asked if they could prescribe anything and if I could pick it up or if I'd need to bring Charlie in. They said that the product they sell is called Zylkene but I'd need to book a consultation as it was prescription only (I was hoping that both my hounds could use it). I looked up Zylkene on the internet just to get some opinions but unless I'm mistaken I can order this online without prescription - the website is referring to it as a supplement rather than a medication. So what I was wondering is firstly is this going to be exactly the same product as I'd get in the vets? And if so, is there any reason not to order online myself - I'm not trying to avoid consultation fees if it's important that we get prescribed this product from a vet, but obviously if it's not necessary I'd prefer not to go.

Thanks very much. We took both hounds for a check up and the very didn't think there was anything medical to worry about and more likely to be the change to living situation. Yes I agree with Charlie being overwhelmed, he was on his own for 6 months and was really settlling in prior to Daisy arriving.

Worth a try! I've persuaded Charlie by doing this a few times. Just make sure the neighbours can't see :s

Also reading this again - interesting re a slow pace being more tiring. I took my hounds out for a walk and stopped quite a few times to pick blackberries. At the time I felt bad about keeping the dogs stopping and waiting, but when we got home they couldn't keep their eyes open.

Interesting re: walking as therapy. I feel that walks have been the most important part of bringing our spooky girl out of her shell and are a time when she forgets being nervous and gets lost in the excitement of new smells and sights.

I've posted a few times, usually in relation to leash reactivity. We had Charlie for 6 months then rehomed a very very nervous girl partly because we thought Charlie would like the company but mainly because I felt so sorry for her. She was terrified of us and it took a long time for her to calm down. She's come on leaps and bounds but strangely Charlie has started to copy her nervous behaviour. He was always very sociable with new people including visitors but will now run straight upstairs and hide from anyone other from me and my other half. These are situations he's previously been fine in but he now seems to have become more anxious to escape from people than Daisy (the nervous one!). I just wondered if anyone else has experienced this and if there's anything we could be doing to help him.

Both my hounds had fleas, I first used shampoo which did nothing then used Frontline and still found fleas a few days later. We went away to the countryside shortly after treatment where there were lots of sheep and the couple of ticks that they each got died and came off easily so the treatment seemed to work in that respect but they remained itchy and I've just found fleas on both of them again. In both cases it was just a couple - literally I found 2 fleas on each of them and I combed them both for ages. I was going to treat again with Frontline (and I could be wrong) but with the itching I'm not sure that the fleas have ever completely gone away. We did everything that was suggested in the instructions re: cleaning the house and washing bedding on hot washes. I'm just wondering what people would suggest - we've previously had a hedgehog (although not seen for a while) in the garden so I wondered if the dogs could be picking them up from the grass outside. Are there any treatments which people could recommend? (we're in the UK). Can fleas be kept away by combing alone or is this wishful thinking?

Charlie took a long time to settle at night time - not sure if this was just a settling in phase to a new routine - he'd wake us up a lot for the first few months after he arrived. Lighter mornings seemed to get both our hounds up early - is your room dark? We now have a compromise that I get up with the hounds and give them their breakfast then back to bed for a couple of hours before morning walk.

Congratulations on your recent arrival. My mum has had a couple of greyhounds who she regularly lets off the leash, they have a wander will come back (when they're ready rather than when she asks them to) she lives in a really rural area so it's very different to a situation to the city where I live where there are lots of distractions close by and potentially cars and roads etc. and she is quite relaxed about doing this. Saying that, both of these hounds were 'very' failed racers - one had an almost negative prey-drive (I just found an old video of her being chased by a chicken), and the other never raced - I'm not sure if this is a factor in their behaviour but when I walk with them it does seem like the novelty of being off-leash has worn off somewhat and they stick pretty close by, There was a large 'mostly' enclosed field that I used to walk my grey in and, in retrospect quite naively, we had a routine that we'd go in and I'd let him off and he'd just trot along beside me. I'd been doing this for 6 months when when on one walk someone started sort of hammering in a nearby garden and my hound turned round and headed for home faster than I could catch him. I managed to catch up with him eventually but he was quite single minded and heading towards a road. I've stopped letting him off the lead at all here now! This wasn't supposed to be a scare-story, just describing a situation that I thought I was in control of and I got a horrible shock. My other hound is very nervous so I'd always worry that something would spook her and she'd head for the hills. I do have a work colleague who has recently got a greyhound and she lets it off the leash all the time and says he's pretty well behaved. I also went to a greyhound gathering recently where there were hundreds of hounds and a couple of 'show offs' who walked to heel amazingly with no leash. On another note - where are you located - might there be somewhere you could find? I've seen some Facebook groups which discuss fields/space for hire. Mine get to run about every couple of weeks in a field and I've recently found a local place that has a fully fenced in area that they rent out by the 1/2 hour at pretty reasonable rates. There are some big differences of opinion here, there are lots of different people with different hounds in very different situations but I agree that recall training is great to do anyway. Good luck with it all.

Thank you for your positivity - and very interesting re: lean lines and greys being bred to be sociable. That's helpful re: combining command and action. thanks, M

Thanks Amber and moofie, Amber you've read my other post - definitely lots of emotional drain at the moment! I'll see if I can find a dog walker like you describe -that sounds ideal. Moofie - do you have a picture of the type of head collar that you use with that muzzle. I have a similar muzzle though some holes on the bottom are filled in with plastic. That one you linked to looks a bit better than our current ones.

Thank you Amber - sorry I hadn't seen this. These are all helpful situations - we have just found a field nearby which they rent out for a very reasonable amount

Thanks very much for lots of good suggestions Amber. That sounds ideal re: stooge dogs and a plan. It's just been so difficult to find anyone in the area - it's probably about where we're located. I will continue to look out but in the meantime we are having a couple of weeks in the middle of nowhere and we've not seen another dog for days and we are all chilled out. I hadn't really thought about him shutting down at the gathering - he definitely calmed down after a while though - he fell asleep in the ring while the judge was going round. Re: playing in the garden, we do this as well but our garden isn't huge, it's big enough for him to run around but both of our hounds seem to have a lot of energy and get very restless in the house if we don't go out. Thanks everyone for all the advice.

I've posted a few times about a leash reactive dog. Last time I posted I was asking about opinions on a particular trainer who'd mentioned 'leadership' who I've since had a session with. I would really value people's thoughts on what we've done and if there is ANYTHING else we can do in terms of training or changing our situation. I apologise for the subtitles - I tried to write this and it was all very mixed up initially: The problem: Charlie has been reacting on the lead - 'reacting' sounds a bit vague but we do have different types of reactions - if we see a dog running around nearby there's a sort of jumping up and down one and if a dog gets too close we have a pulling and aggressive barking one. Two dogs that didn't get the message have been bitten (not nastily, just nipped). On one occasion we had no barking so I stupidly let the other dog approach and Charlie bit his nose. These incidents shake Charlie up and, although still fairly laid back by most standards, he's on edge for a while after for the rest of the walk and after we get back home. The session: Some people here has expressed concern that leadership would be a Caesar Milan-esque approach. However it didn't feel like this - it was reward-based and the trainer suggested we mainly work hard on getting a consistent response to 'watch' for which we reward eye contact. Other suggestions were that we were generally more 'in charge' by making sure that both our hounds waited patiently as we put food down (they already do this quite well) and don't rush past us when we open the front door to take them for a walk (they do try to do this) and allow them on the furniture only by permission (we currently have a human sofa and a hound sofa). Re: the actual reactivity the trainer suggested that we try to avoid these situations as much as possible - walking in different places/different times to try to avoid other dogs. He suggested that Charlie is reacting like this out of fear and this has spiralled due to the amount of people letting their dogs run up to everyone and now when he barks and a dog backs off he is having this behaviour reinforced. He's also suggested wearing a muzzle at all times out on walks to avoid serious repercussions. He also suggested a 'Halti' leash to give us more control. What we've done since: With Charlie being so mild mannered in the house there isn't much that we've done around the house - I'm trying to make the dogs wait while we're leaving the house and they've definitely started to be a more polite. We haven't done anything with the sofa and this has always been a practical thing for us and they take turns at sleeping on it. They're not possessive of this at all. I've been practising our 'watch' on walks and both hounds are required to watch before they get any treats. I use a muzzle at all times when we're out, I really hate this and worry when it's hot, so sometimes end up shortening walks. I haven't used a halti, I have a limited understanding but recently observed a long and heated facebook debate about whether these were unkind or not so I was wary about doing this. We've tried so hard to walk in quieter places and it's so difficult. I found a huge country park and within 60 seconds a huge bull mastiff bounded towards us. It seems like the more rural the place the more likely people are to be walking completely uncontrolled dogs. I try to reward whenever we see another dog when Charlie is below his threshold. We're also trying very hard to move house to somewhere quieter but telling landlords you have 2 greyhounds seems to get a reaction that I'd associate more appropriate with 'I'm planning on setting up a meth lab in the kitchen' Results: Some days I feel like we're getting somewhere. There is an alleyway full of back-gardens with angry dogs in. A few weeks ago Charlie would go nuts at each gate but now at the first sign of a noise I say 'No' and we generally walk quickly past without event - this is much more challenging on the way home for some reason. Other times I despair and it seems that Charlie is reacting at a greater distance than he used to. It's no longer just the (rude) owners who are letting their dog charge at us but even when I steer around walkers in a large circle Charlie can react. This is making walks really stressful and I've been pulled off my feet one one occasion. We went to a huge greyhound gathering. Charlie was an absolute gentleman here though he was extremely nervous. The difference being that all the other greyhounds greeted each other so politely. My questions: Hardware - I've never trusted the collars and switched to harnesses when we got our second (spooky) hound. Although I feel like these are more secure, I also feel like they allow them to pull much harder than they could with a collar. I sometimes use both and it's much easier to steer Charlie away from trouble by his collar but with harness, lead and collar I worry that I'm taking the enjoyment out of walks completely for him. I'm wondering if people have suggestions on what might work better to stop pulling. When to reward - if we make it past a dog without reacting - at what point is best to reward - i.e. when is the good behaviour complete - This might be a silly question! Is there ANYTHING else we can do? When I write it all down it seems like I'm complaining about something small but I'm just finding it really stressful and starting to dread our walks. I'm off to my mum's in the countryside next week and Charlie will have a great time there. As always I look forward to all of your thoughts and suggestions and please let me know if I've left out anything important! Matt

Thank you Rose

Thanks so much for all your input and big apologies for my late response, your thoughts and experiences are much appreciated. What I've taken away/realised (although noone said as such) is that this isn't a different or an escalation of Charlie's reactivity, but my own mistake in management of an existing issue. I've always been really careful not to get too close to other dogs but taking away a lesson from this I know I made a wrong assumption. It's also easy to think that we're not progressing because of this but looking at the whole picture we have come on in the past few months, particularly with dogs behind fences and Charlie will respond to 'No' and walk past calmly. Neylasmom - I'm in North East England - Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Assumed you were from the US? If you do know anyone over here I'd be very interested. I appreciate all the above concerns about this trainer and although I'm not very knowledgable I did make sure that the class we used to go to used positive reinforcement and bullying a dog is not something I would do (or let anyone else do). I did receive a recommendation from someone else with a greyhound, I know this doesn't mean anything necessarily but I'm feeling a bit lost and frustrated at the moment and would like to talk to someone with more experience than myself so I thought I'd have the session with him (next week) and see how it goes. Re: dog and homes being poorly matched - If he behaved like this initially I would have been worried about our ability to manage but it was 6 months until he started barking at other dogs -looking back, and having read some of those articles macoduck, thanks (we picked him up 15 months ago) when I thought that he was fine with other dogs barking or trying to play with him he probably wasn't and has since learned that if he barks at them they stay away usually. The big turning point definitely seemed to be when we got our second hound. Re: Boisterous dogs and keeping them at bay - 'air' absolutely terrifies Charlie; since firework night last November I can't open a bottle or pump up bike tyres anywhere near him) so I couldn't use compressed air - although usually (although there are a significant number who don't too!) owners will call their dog or leash them when they realise they're not going to get a friendly greeting. What is more of a worry is leashed dogs walking past us on a narrow path (overgrown in the summer) which Charlie will bark and lunge for i.e. they don't have to be behaving rudely towards him first. Also yes - the nervousness when out walking is a vicious circle, losing confidence when things like this happen which makes me more nervous next time around. If I'm honest I'm not always too comfortable with walking around my neighbourhood without dogs either so maybe they pick up on this. Matt

Thank you. I'm still kicking myself for not being more assertive and just not letting them sniff. Charlie has been on holiday for a week and I wasn't thinking properly! I'm thinking about using his muzzle - if I was to do this would it be best to keep on for whole walk rather than just busy parts - don't want to make more negative associations. Re: body language you're both probably right, I've got much better at this generally but maybe I misinterpreted his silence (getting ready to lunge) as being OK with the situation. This said there wasn't any growl at all. At least there wasn't any damage done and I can learn from this.

I've posted a few times about Charlie and his on-leash reactivity. Unfortunately today he bit another dog. I was walking and a Labrador owner wanted to ask questions about my two. The lab barked and Charlie initially barked back but then they both stopped. We were reasonably close and after the barking the labs owner asked if Charlie would bite, I replied that he didn't like dogs running up to him. The lab was fairly old and shuffled up to Charlie, they looked at each other then Charlie bit his nose. I am so annoyed with myself for letting this happen and was really naive to think this would be OK. The dog didn't bat and eyelid, no damage done and owner not bothered but I'm so sad and feel so guilty about it. Anyway this brings me on to my question: I've been desperately searching for a behaviourist to work with. I'm not sure if it's our location but I'm struggling. I spoke to a nice chap this morning who is trying to fit us in (I'm really keen to do a session on our normal route). I described the behaviour and the man said 'you need to display better leadership then your dog won't be as scared'. Admittedly he hasn't seen us yet so this opinion may change but I wanted to ask what leadership is in this context and how should I be displaying this? A related thought is that my second hound (spooky Daisy) is rapidly gaining confidence - is this because of Charlie's behaviour? which got much much worse since Daisy arrived.

Came across the and realised I never updated. I took her to the vets and they said it looks like an old injury. It's like the skin around the eye is ever so slightly 'slack' which means more of the third eyelid is visible.

Hi, Contrats on your new arrival. I just wanted to share my experience as part of your earlier question related to whether or not things would settle down. Obviously all circumstances are different but I've followed advice of people on here following an earlier post (I think entitled 'growling on sofa'). I've got 2 hounds and Charlie who we adopted 12 months ago had similar issues. When he first arrived he didn't seem to be as bothered. If I lay on the sofa he would lie next to (or even on top of) me and I'd stroke him while he was asleep on his own bed, he also let me brush his teeth every day. Then he seemed to change and he became more wary of being touched while lying down and would even growl if I walked close to him on the sofa. Some people suggested that he was being possessive of the sofa and we took this off him for a few days (put an bean bag on top) which did seem to make a difference one he was allowed back on. I also read on the leash and became aware of when he was unhappy - Charlie will start to puff his cheeks out, freeze and his lips will start to curl upwards (in what I'd first informed my partner as 'look he's smiling at me'). This rarely progresses past this stage anymore, usually I just say calmly 'it's OK Charlie' and he relaxes, but I know if he's really tired to give him his space. He will growl if I'm about to sit next to him sometimes, my thoughts were that he thinks he's going to be sat on as he doesn't do this off I slide over to him. I guess what I'm trying to say is that i definitely expected a bit much at first and when he first growled at me I was horrified. But through a mixture of learning about what upsets him, and quite possibly him becoming more comfortable with me, a few months down the line we have hardly any growling anymore (I'm lying on his bed with him as I write this). Good luck.

This is really helpful - happened for the first time at the weekend, this was when Charlie was very tired, thought I was being helpful getting him up as he'd slipped most of the way off his bed but certainly wasn't thanked for it. I would not be willing to attempt lying on any greyhound I'd met for any amount of money :s

Thank you everyone. Thought I might be over simplifying the wagging tail sign. A greyhound group sounds good, Charlie has met family dogs all off the lead and isn't interested at all. Our other grey (daisy) tries to play with him but he runs inside to hide. Yes Charlie isn't very food motivated either. One of my logistical problems is I'm also walking my spooky daisy (incidentally her arrival is what started this behaviour overnight) who wants to run in the opposite direction to Charlie. Yes good umbrella idea NeylasMom - you've helped with lots of my queries! I have probably painted a grim picture of our walks! They're fantastic, just trying to iron out a few things. Hopefully going to move somewhere quieter soon too!