weebird

thank you for the tip!

That is so cute! And how sharp the picture is! Whenever we tried to take picture of our grey talking, it would end up fuzzy. Also he smiled sometimes when wed get home, but we were never able to capture that. Makes me said that now that hes gone

Thank you. It just doesn't fit our lifestyle, and I don't want to feel guilty about it. We'd rather go on trips and do fun things with our pooch Thank you, sobesmom, we also prefer variety, I myself would also not want to eat the same thing every day, and our grey liked change as well and enjoyed all kinds of food.

aaaawwww, such a sweet story! made me so happy to read it! will you post pictures?

thank you both. good to know about the protein content. the breeder feeds mostly raw, but I'm not convinced that I want to go that route. not that I don't think it it's beneficial for the dog, but just am not sure that is a right fit for us, we also don't have house and so no huge freezer to store 2 weeks worth of raw diet in. I think I'm more comfortable with cooked meat etc and good quality kibble, maybe some freeze dried meat added as well...I don't know. I'm open to any suggestions.

ours sometimes made a howly sound when he wanted us to pay attention to him, and he would often want when he wanted something from us, he would just stand in front of us, panting and staring and he loved to do air snapping like few millimetres from your face when he was super happy. But it's hard for me to judge what yours was trying to tell you, especially since I didn't see it. How was the tail wagging? was the tail high, like almost vertical and moving from side to side? Or was it the tail was more down with broad tail wagging? Cause the former can meet warning, while the latter is playful and happy to see you.

Hello everyone, can you provide your advise and experience on what is the best diet for a growing large breed puppy? We are planning for a borzoi puppy, and are looking into what options we have. We used to feed Orijen to our adult greyhound and he liked it, and I liked the ingredients, plus we supplemented with other food like cooked chicken, pork etc, also vegetables, eggs and yogurt etc. We are thinking to add more fresh food diet for our puppy, but probably not completely, as I think it would be challenging to make sure all the ratios are right. We want to make sure we raise a happy and healthy dog. We welcome any suggestions!

our grey would shed a lot with the arrival of spring. We would brush him every day and he would lose so much hair! so I would say he's not shedding cause it's just too cold right now

haha that's funny! I've never seen that before! I think I'd be hiding that at night

we would bath our grey once every 6 months - once a year, depending on the situations. He smelled like a baby, so not a lot of bathing required. But we would wash his belly and pee/poo area more often, cause he would sometime get droplets of pee on the inside of his thighs when he peed.

Another thing I wanted to ask you all, and that's about puppy proofing our apartment: We can close doors on all the rooms, also we have an enclosed closet for shoes and such, so the puppy would not be able to access it. But our kitchen and dinning/living are is one big space, so we are not sure how to deal with that, especially with regard to the kitchen. We were thinking about a pen, but then we know that borzois can jump amazingly high, so we're not sure how well it would work. Any ideas/advise from all of you would be appreciated. Do you have experience with pens? I feel that pen might work for a 3-4 month old puppy, but by the time they are 6 months old, they would probably easily jump over even the tallest ones? Of course we plan not to leave any stuff on the floor when not at home, probably move plants out of reach as well, and not leave food on a kitchen counter I suppose... Any other things we need to be careful about when puppy proofing? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~` some additional notes: for those concerned about amount of stairs, we do have an elevator, and very conveniently close to our apartment, so the growing puppy would not be running up and down 5 flights of stairs every day. The fact that we live on 5th floor we've never even considered to be an issue, and still don't. and yes, we had a greyhound previously, we adopted him when he was 3.5, and loved him dearly!

Hello everyone, thank you for more good suggestions. yes, we're looking into this, we found this website called Rover, where you can find people in your area that can come to take your dog out, or even keep them at their home during the work day. I'm thinking that would be actually good for the puppy for first few months, and then one mid-day walk should be okay. I'm just a bit worried if the puppy will get too attached to that person if they would be with them 3-5 days a week during the working hours...If that would cause some issues later? krissyYes, we wanted to do the litter box only when we are away or at night. So I think there won't be an issue of them not knowing the difference between this and when going potty outside. I don't know if I like the fake grass idea, I was thinking what would be a good alternative for litter box that is safe for puppy but compostable too. Do 3-4 months old puppies also poop more often than adults? or it's just the bladder thing? I now have a copy of Ian Dunbar's "Before and After You Get Your Puppy" book you suggested. Will read through it, looks like lot of good advise there. You've mentioned that you would take your puppies to work with you, how did that work for you? Hubby might be able to take ours to work on some days, but we're not sure if the puppy is going to be all over the place distracting everyone and if that would be a problem then haha. cleptogreyThank you cleptogrey for encouragement. Yes, we don't mind cleaning up. I know the accidents are to be expected. What I actually worry more about is the puppy being bored and then destructive or sad as a result of being alone. I really want them to be happy. Of course we are planning to get a dog walker or 'babysitter" for first maybe 2 months, but then we'd like to gradually do less and less of it. So I'm thinking what would be a good idea to keep them entertained, some toys like kongs or squirrel dude maybe? and some cardboard for them to destroy? maybe a radio or tv left on? they would also have great view of the windows, because they are almost to the floor. If anyone has some great ideas I'm all ears!

Okay, thanks, Rakete! The puppies go to new families starting at 3 months.

Thank you for the info. We are in Canada. We are going to start looking into the dog walkers then I think. I don't know if you've seen my question above, but since you and your friend both have experience of raising puppies in an apartment, would you mind to provide more details on how your friend and you went about it? - I mostly worry about the fact that we work full time and the puppy needs frequent potty brakes as well as frequent play time. I worry because young pups have lot of energy, but also tire easily, then sleep then wake up in an hour again ready to play. So my plan was to take her out for a long walk in the morning so that I can tire her/him out, but how does it help if they wake up in an hour? I'm so worried what will they be up to during the day... - Another thing is, as they get older, like 6 months or 1yr, and I hear they have this boundless energy, I am worried that we are getting in over our heads and that by us not having a huge yard, the dog will be uncontrollable.

Thanks, I didn't know that the prey drive develops later, that's a bit unfortunate then...But definitely good to know. wrt to spaying/neutering, we know that it's healthier to wait until they mature, so we were not planning to do that until they are ready. And as I mentioned above, we don't much like the idea of the doggy daycare, so that the spay/neuter requirement doesn't bother us much