lifeingrey

I'm in Western NY but rent and our landlord would probably have a heart attack if I asked to dog-sit two greyhounds in addition to our two girls. Our adoption group, Buffalo Greyhound Adoption, offers sitting services. There are many volunteers with greyhounds or without that would happily help. Your dogs would be brought into someone's home not a kennel. Here is our website, if you are interested I can give you phone numbers as well but don't want to publicly post them without permission: http://buffalogreyhound.org/contact/ If you don't hear back from someone through the site in a reasonable amount of time, definitely message me and I will call/text around. I have three people in mind that do sitting and I have their numbers.

I agree with all of the above. You can't correct Max for guarding "his" space, and you will not be able to teach your child the boundaries of a dog until they are older. You need to have an area that is Max's only, that your child cannot access. That way Max can remove himself from the situation if he is ever uncomfortable, and maybe will not feel the need to guard other areas of the house. You should put his bed and his food/water in this area to entice him. Or maybe lots of nice treats or toys he only gets while in that area. Both of our hounds are allowed on the couch. We physically cannot get them off of it even when guests are over. Luckily no one minds a hound practically sitting in their lap. But once or twice our girls have growled at my younger siblings for jostling them too much and I immediately kicked them off of the couch. If they guard a piece of shared furniture, they are no longer allowed on it- for everyone's safety. In those instances, I've grabbed a treat and thrown it onto their dog bed or into another room. It's very difficult to not have a knee-jerk reaction to correct them for growling. I know I have and I try to stop myself. But trust me, as someone who was bitten in the face as a child, you need them to give you that warning growl. It's their only way of communication and your job as their human parent to let them communicate. If it is impossible to create a "Max only" space, you definitely should rely on a muzzle. However, it's your job to make Max feel safe and prevent him from being in the situation where he feels he needs to guard. As unfair as it sounds, you may have to resort to gating off areas to keep not only your child contained, but also Max.

So relieved it's not more serious! Poor Carmen for having the discomfort. Wishing her all the best for the management long-term and recovery of the raw skin. Carmen and Amelia sound just like our two girls. We recently had an emergency vet visit on a Sunday night- during a play date, a friend's dog bit and tore skin on our girl, Nox. We were there until 2am with both dogs, obviously. A long time to wait due to other emergencies, but the techs had the most fun coming into our room (to update us on wait time) and both dogs went crazy tail-wagging, giving kisses, wanting to play. Other than poor Nox getting 6 stitches, it was a positive experience!

We now have two greyhounds, but even when it was only one, our older girl always chose to sleep in the other room from us on the couch. Dog beds aren't good enough for her apparently! Now both dogs choose to sleep in the other room, sometimes coming into our bedroom to see if they can get an early breakfast. Some dogs adjust, others may have a harder time being alone. Is there a possibility either of you could spend some time sleeping on the couch near her until you do some alone training where she knows you aren't leaving her? That way you aren't allowing her upstairs but you are still there to comfort as she is settling in. If you decrease the amount of time you are with her during the night gradually, she may adapt that way. There are some great separation anxiety books out there ("I"ll be Home Soon" by Patricia B. McConnell is one I recommend). Essentially for alone training you will need to go out of sight (or out a door eventually, once you have made progress) for only a few seconds before coming back in. You might even have to start just going a certain distance away where she can still see you. You want to return to her before she panics or you end up rewarding that anxiety. The length of time gets longer and you can get further away each time, based on your dog's reaction. It has to be taken slowly. Our dogs can't wait until we leave for work now because they only get their favorite jerky stick treat any time we leave the house. For instance, when you are going to walk away from her hand her that Kong then go. But as soon as you come back into the room it goes away (hopefully she will be distracted where you can grab it, otherwise you should "trade up" to avoid her learning to resource guard). Both of our girls have separation anxiety. These tactics worked very well in the interim with our first, but it didn't fully go away until we got our second hound. Best of luck, there are so many knowledgeable people on here. I am certainly no expert but this helped our hounds!

There are a lot of helpful posts I have found on here in regards to the walking situation, as for in the house/through the window I wouldn't be concerned. I would think rewarding him for breaking his attention on the cat is good, but not sure if it's worthwhile. For the walks, both of my greys are very prey driven. My "older" girl (3 y.o.) we got at 18 months and I immediately started teaching her "leave it" by simply turning the opposite way from whatever she locked onto after saying "leave it" firmly. She learned that if she stiffened up, pulled, or was too excited that we would not get to walk that way. This worked very well for her and I didn't need to do much else except repetition. Our "younger" girl (2 y.o.) struggles with impulse control and is not as mature. She gets very upset and distracted even when I turn her away- and away and away- I keep her feet moving, mind thinking. She is getting better, but for her I had to break her concentration with a "clap" of my hands, "leave it", and turn away. Until she would walk calmly we might switch the direction once or twice. You have to be consistent, I'm no dog trainer but this has worked for us. I would add in treats if your grey is food motivated. Reward him for breaking the attention and focusing on you. You could try teaching him "watch me". I've heard people do that by keeping the treats in their own mouth (hot dog, chicken, etc), saying the command, and once the dog looks at their face "spitting" the treat to them. If it works, it works. I'm sure you could also use your hands but you want them to be rewarded immediately for looking at your face. Either way, it's a good tool to have in any kind of stressful situation.

Any update on Tres? We just brought home a second hound last week (2 years old) and she has been acting similarly to Tres. She only guards squeaky toys, and our "older" girl (she's 3 years old) isn't even trying to take the toy- she's just walking past. It doesn't have anything to do with bed placement, it was happening anywhere they walked past each other if the new hound had a toy. We did end up taking away all problem toys except for one (took them when she wasn't out, not directly from her) and we are working with her to not resource guard the toy with us. She lets us pet her while she has the toy, so we are giving treats while petting but making no move to touch the toy. We have touched the toy when she is relaxed and her head is not near it, and she is fine. We think it's just from settling in and this is all new to her, but we want to protect our "older" girl. We are not correcting any growling but want to be sure we are handling this correctly. I understand where she must be coming from, she's never had to share and this is drastically new. There was no report from her foster that she exhibited any of these signs, and she was fostered with two other greyhounds. I am reaching out today to our adoption group to get their thoughts, but since this is so similar I just wanted to check in how Tres and Taylor are getting on.

I think your schedule is very generous. My husband and I work at the same company, only 10 minutes away from home. We carpool, but we work 9 hour days. We only come home to take our girl out during lunch if we will be stuck any longer than the 9. She has separation anxiety so is crated- she loves her crate and feels safest there. If she is left out she has a meltdown and howls/jumps around. For her safety we keep her in the crate. We do not come home at lunch only because it upsets her more to be let out for such a brief period and be put back in. Each dog is different, but we found what works for ours. She only gets one long walk nearly every night, she's too lazy in the mornings to do much before work. So in my opinion your schedule is very fair. I think if you had a dog walker for long days it would ease your mind and your dog's bladder! But, the age range you are looking for should be perfect. Not too young, and not too old to be incontinent. Every one else's advice in great. One thing that happened with our girl her first time in an elevator is the second it started moving she tried to shoot backwards- one of us positioned ourselves behind her to stop her. She hasn't done it since, but be prepared so your dog couldn't back out the doors before they close somehow. I also concur with speaking to other tenants with dogs. It's great to be a part of a community that looks out for one another. Plus they may be intimidated at first by a big hound. We take our girl with us everywhere we physically can. We plan our work days, weekends, vacations, etc around her so she can go with. It can be tiring, and we are pretty much hermits to begin with. We feel a lot of guilt if we have to run out and leave her behind especially after we've had a full day of work. She is extremely social. A lot of the time we will drop her off at my parent's house so she has company and isn't so alone. It might not bother some dogs, but it bothers ours. Keep that in mind that you may want a friend or family member to be able to dog-sit if there is a time you need to be running around a lot and need the peace of mind that your dog is content. Especially in an emergency. That's a big thing for us. We are in the process of adopting a second hound so hopefully in the future we won't feel so tied down. Believe me I wanted a dog my entire life and this is my first, but I didn't expect to feel so much guilt to have to leave her at home. I just want her to be happy, and I know she does not like being alone.

My 2 (almost 3) year old female has done this since the day we got her (December 2017). In my readings, it is a territorial thing. Just like marking, it leaves pheromones for other dogs to smell when they come through. So it can become a cycle, if more and more dogs are in that area. We didn't mind she did it, we joked she was "taking off" like a rocket and we would even jog a few steps with her exuberance, after. However, she started trying to do it on concrete/asphalt (she's a last minute- oh crap the grass is gone- type). At that point we followed the advice above and said "let's go" and jogged off with her so she still had a way to get her excitement out and was rewarded for going. She really liked that and now rarely does the kicking after going number two. Every once in a while she will, but she lets us get her back on the grass and then will have at it. She doesn't dig very badly, but I could easily see how it can become an almost impulse control thing. We did worry this would teach her to take off running after going, but she actually will go to the bathroom then look to us to confirm what we are doing and then we will jog or treat her. I would follow all the advice above, try treats, try jogging, any type of reward to just redirect his energy. The "let's go" has helped us a lot on walks when she catches a scent and backtracks and abruptly stops to sniff which isn't very pleasant for us. Just wanted to share my experience though our girl wasn't terrible in the first place, good luck!

I've always seen mentions of baby-gating so that they can still see out. Do you recommend this? Our girl has tried to jump these (to get to my parent's cat) and got stuck on top and gave herself a brush burn. What about two in a door way (for the height)? Our set up would allow us to just close our bedroom and bathroom door to keep her off our bed (not allowed on) and out of garbages, she would have free-roam of the kitchen and living room (in an apartment that's all we have). I think being closed in where she couldn't see would also freak our girl out, so that's what we were intending to do. Thank you for clarifying for OP!

I did forget to mention the music! We always leave music on and she seems to really like that. Even if we are home with her and our neighbors are loud she gets anxious, so we feel that the music helps drown out background noise. We actually live in an apartment complex, I realize I didn't mention that. I don't think we are alone in this, but on other posts sometimes I've seen people suggest just to let the dog loose if they are anxious. For us we know our girl would only hurt herself or get the landlord called on us so it's something we can't do. Definitely do not feel like a failure for your dog being crated while you are gone! Especially since she is content. We do find comfort in knowing that ours is safe and can't get loose in some way or another, in the event someone enters our apartment. But I definitely feel a very human guilt thinking she might want more space. You do you. Do what keeps your hound happy and safe. I'm making time to really work with her next month so I have my fingers crossed that she can feel confident enough to be loose. Thank you for the well-wishes! Wishing you and your girl luck as well! Definitely a learning experience!

I'm glad that you posed this question because we have very similar hounds from what it sounds like. We've had our girl for a little over a year now. We have to leave her in the crate for 9 hours while we are at work during the week, and she happily runs into and stays in her crate. She is quiet as a mouse (so our neighbors tell us) and sleeps happily while we are gone. When we have left her loose even to take the garbage out, we can hear her howling and it's obvious she has a bit of a panic attack and jumps on the door (wreath torn), counter (knocked things off) and we worry about our books being pulled off the shelf. To be honest her howls sound like someone is murdering her. We have worked slowly with short lengths of time leaving her out and loose (and I mean we haven't gotten past 5-10 minutes on a good day- but we have not put a lot into it due to our schedules). She just obviously feels safest in her crate. We would also like to move towards letting her have the run of our house, but we need to take the time to work with her. I agree with comments above that you may need to work on some house-breaking, first. We have read all the posts on here stating to follow the, "I'll be home soon" by Patricia B. McConnell but we haven't been able to work with her consistently. We do wish to adopt another hound in the near future and think this will definitely help, but for now that's not in our budget. From what I've read, it seems most people are recommending to hound-proof one room and leave some sort of long lasting treat. Totally agree with leaving the crate accessible, and work in small increments until your girl is doing okay. The tricky part is you have to leave and come back BEFORE she may start exhibiting her anxious habits. Walking in while she is howling or scratching only rewards it. That is what we are struggling with right now because it seems without practice our girl has regressed. Now she only howls though, and doesn't seem to be pacing/jumping as she did before. So maybe that is progress. Wishing you luck and looking forward to other comments on this thread.

As always, wonderful advice! I'm only coming up on a year since having my first grey, so I can't say I have as much experience as everyone here. But we found when we tried to feed her the "best" food (we thought)(Blue Buffalo, grain-free), our girl could not digest all the nutrients and she had mushy stool. We never tested her for worms, but we switched her to another brand of food that was better on our wallet but still had the same nutrients. Still mush. I scrutinized the label and realized the food must be too rich for her (30g protein, it was a sport type of food). Since we've switched her to a lower protein food (22/24g), she has solid stools. We also give her salmon oil, by Zesty Paws on Amazon, because she is a picky eater and it seems to make her interested in her kibble. After a few weeks on this her coat is now very smooth and shiny. She still has some dandruff, which is noticeable because she has a black coat, so I'm still trying to work on that. I'm only commenting on this, despite my lack of experience, because in our case, our girl was having mushy/soft stool due to too rich of a food. To my knowledge, when the stool is firm and/or there is less produced it means they are digesting most if not all of the nutrients and you have found a good balance. Every dog is different. I do however think this is only true if you've already ruled out worms. I've also seen recommended on here adding some oatmeal to kibble. Our girl loved that, but it irritated her kidneys and she started exhibiting signs of a UTI (she is prone) so for us we have to keep her on a low protein diet (I never knew oatmeal had protein in it!). Since your boy had a history/recently had worms, I would definitely take everyone's advice on having him tested a few times. Take it slow, try not to shock his body (as I'm sure we must have done to our poor girl) and to be repetitive of everyone above, change one thing at a time. Also, Mushers paw wax should help to not only moisturize but help him toughen up his paws. Good idea to keep him on grass as you are until he can handle asphalt/harder surfaces. You're doing great!

She just finished a round of Cephalexin prescribed by the vet last night. We do the urinalysis each time she has blood and they've never found crystals (if you can find them that way), just elevated white blood cell count. I just want to try to prevent causing a flare up, I want to do the x-rays if it comes back but she gets so poorly every time she's on antibiotics I just need help to keep weight on her and keep her happy in-between. I myself struggle with UTI's from kidney/bladder damage so for me at least my diet helps protect my kidneys. Thank you for the suggestions, I will definitely try those! I have definitely noticed a correlation between what I feed her and when she gets a UTI, though the vet says that's not possible. So like I said, I want to be cautious and know I am not causing her issues in the first place. I was very upset with myself that the oatmeal really seemed to cause this flare up for her. She's happy as a clam sleeping at home now that I'm at work, she had potatoes with her breakfast and finally ate!

Long time reader, first time poster. Glad someone made a post on this topic. MaryJane, that is all very helpful information on what you feed in a day. My girl does not like kibble and will refuse eating every few days because she wants our food. We really do not give her scraps but have fallen for the sad eyes and grumbling tummy and given her dog safe veggies or ground beef in her kibble then she gobbles it up. This time though, I'm really trying to wait it out and see if she will just eat her plain kibble. She has only eaten maybe a cup of food over the last two days. My question is, I experimented by feeding her some oatmeal with her kibble for a week and she LOVED it. Chowed it down as soon as the bowl was down. However, it caused a UTI flare-up. Our vet wants to do x-rays for bladder stones if these keep recurring (she's had 3 UTI's this year so far), but I really only have ever noticed her get a UTI when I've changed her food or now when she had the oatmeal. Two instances we found a very high protein food to cause a flare up, and now seemingly the oatmeal. Are there foods you would recommend I could add to her kibble that are grain-free, similar in texture to oatmeal? I don't want to keep putting her on an antibiotic. As soon as I have to give her medicine in a certain treat/food, she doesn't trust that food going forward. She doesn't trust cheese, peanut butter, or pumpkin. She is not a food motivated dog whatsoever. She does not like any kind of broth or yogurt. She only trusted eggs once. Oatmeal was the easiest, cheapest, and best thing I got her to eat. She looked so much healthier from eating for a week straight (she came to us at 49lbs and we can't get her to gain more than 1-2lbs). She is a very petite girl, she stresses me out so much when she won't eat! I don't mean to hijack this post, I just would like to find a diet for her that works and keeps her happy. You mentioned your girl has kidney issues, but my girl seemed to get her UTI from the oatmeal. As soon as I stopped feeding the oatmeal, after a day she was fine and no more blood.