incredibletaco

Thank you for the response. Unfortunately he doesn't like his reflection and has been known to bark at it in the past haha. My wife and I split up all the duties and he likes both of us. The unfortunate part is that I can't even leave the room now, let alone go outside. He cries and barks immediately which is a huge regression from where we were.

Took my guy to the groomer today for the first time and dropped him off. He made friends with the other dogs there quickly, but there were wayyyy more hyper than he was. He had a bit of a panic attack and peed when he was touched by the groomer and we were called to pick him up. Poor dude, I feel so bad for him. He just isn't in a good frame of mind when we're not around (he absolutely loved the vet when we went, but we were in the room). I think meds might be the right move at this point.

That's good to know. He was cat tested and passed but I'm somewhat skeptical. We brought him to my parents house (with muzzle on) and they have a cat. The cat is fast and fluffy and he jumped over the couch to give chase. They weren't properly introduced though, not sure how that comes into play.

Thanks for the replies! We are not opposed to getting him a friend, but currently it's not feasible in our apartment. We're hoping to buy a house within the year but in the mean time I don't want the poor guy to feel so bad. Have any of y'all had experience getting a grey a cat friend to ease their separation anxiety?

Yes, we put a baby gate for our bedroom where he sleeps. We had the same exact result only he was pacing along with his barking and looked like he was going to get destructive on the Nest cam. The behaviorist came to our home and recommended the crate. He really likes it and goes there on his own.

My wife and I got our grey almost 3 months ago now. He's a really sweet and awesome dog and we love him a lot. However, he just won't budge at all on separation anxiety. Here are the things we've tried: - Hiring a behaviorist (almost $1000) dollars to help - CBD - Thundershirt - An old fan for white noise - Playing soothing music - Leaving him in or out of the crate for alone training - Adaptil - Rescue Remedy - The entire "pick up your keys, don't act excited when you come in/leave" training and all its variations - Rearranging an entire room to put his crate in there for a more den like space (behaviorist advice) - Teaching him tricks to keep his confidence up (he's great at learning!) - Leaving him with puzzle treats, kongs, bones, you name it - Contacting my adoption agency and trying out everything they suggested But despite all this we haven't made any progress at all in his separation anxiety. Today I left the room (not even the front door) for about 2 minutes and he was already up and barking. Sometimes he will even soil his crate after panicking. We can barely leave the room let alone go out the door. This is after daily training with the above. He's my dude and I'm not giving up on him, but I'm just about at the point where I think he needs some medication. Do you think he's at that point? I really on the fence of giving him meds but I think he's at that "threshold". Then again we've spent at least $1500 so far to help with this issue. For those of you that did give your dogs and anti-anxiety medication what was the point where you put them on it?

Thanks for the replies! I think it could have been the snow we've had recently. We had some heavy snow around here and he likes to squat down when he goes to the bathroom so his business made contact with the dirty snow a few times.

We had our guy on a dewormer for hookworms. The first round he was extremely gassy and had loose stools and an upset stomach. After he finished round 1 he was back to normal in a few days. Round 2 there were no noticeable side effects aside from some loose stools. If I had to guess there was some digestive stress getting rid of all those worms.

We've had our 2 year old male grey for 2.5 months now (and he's awesome). The first few weeks we had trouble house breaking him as there were near daily accidents in the house. Then one day we caught him in the act and told him no and the accidents stopped. We considered him fully house trained soon after as there were no accidents and he's slowly learning to use the bell to go out. However the past few days he's had several uncharacteristic accidents: - We are alone training him for separation anxiety. We took him out and later realized he urinated in his crate while laying down. This is very much unlike him, he's only done it once before when he was brand new. - Today he was playing with with one his toys and mid play he urinated on the carpet mid play session. This was only 3 hours after we last took him out and the amount of urine he had was still huge. We've noticed his water intake has gone way up as of late. My wife and I work from home and take him out 4 or more times a day and he never fails to have a lot of urine each time. His diet hasn't changed or anything but he did just finish up his second round of hookworm meds. I'd say on average we are filling his water bowl 3 times a day and we fill his dry food with water so he doesn't eat so fast. So I'd say he's drinking between 80 - 120 ounces of water a day and he's only 64 pounds..... Is it time to take him to the vet?

That could work really well. I have him in a private obedience currently (for his separation anxiety mostly). He is really well behaved around other dogs once he gets to know them (it takes less than a minute). We went on a walk with our friend's hyper dogs and he was cool with them in no time. One of them even went under him like a low bridge and he didn't even flinch. He's very chill, but I don't think he liked when this guy ran straight into him at speed (and he has a good 30 lbs on him).

Thanks for the replies! I'm still very new to this so I'm still figuring out dog queues and the like. There have been a few incidents were off leash dogs came out running to him barking their heads off. He got uncomfortable but didn't bark or snap. In fact in one case he actually became friendly with a crazy off leash dog after being unsure. I think this golden rough housing him while he was just standing there did not sit well with him. Unfortunately there are no grey meet and greets where I live (a very small city). However, prior to the golden incident yesterday we randomly ran into another grey! They did the sniffing ritual and both tails were happy. So at least he had some positive interaction for the day

So I've had my new grey for 3 weeks and I'm a first time dog owner (still trying to figure out dog behavior in general). He is a very sweet guy who loves people and has a low prey drive (he's fine around cats, geese, small children etc). He is sometimes unsure about meeting new dogs but he's met about 20 new dogs now and has been fine with all of them. However, he had in incident with a friend's dog and it scared me. My friend's dog is a 3 year old 90 lb Golden and he's insanely hyper and not well behaved. He jumps on people and bowls you over as soon as he sees you. He also will nip your hand and while it doesn't break the skin it definitely hurts and you have to keep your hands away from him if you don't want to be bit. My other friend's will not take their dogs near him because he can't behave himself and their dogs get fed up with him too. I thought my dog was OK with him because he went on a walk with him for hours at a time before, but today he was not ok. The golden was in rare form today, being super hyper. He nipped at my wife's hands and tried to nip a stranger too. My dog was standing there stationary and the golden throws himself at him (and me) and knocked both of us back. My dog immediately barked, lunged, and snapped at him. He was not happy. My friend's friend then tried to pet my dog while he was worked up. The golden came back for round 2 and my dog snapped at him again, this time while this random person was petting him. He didn't snap at the person but it scared the crap out of her. I felt so bad that my dog scared this random person and that he was snapping/barking in general. I know that dog is a total jerk (I love my friend's but they do not properly control their dog) but this was the first time I've ever seen my dog get aggressive (or rather defensive). Is it normal or OK for this to happen? I mean the dog did make hard contact with him unprovoked, is this an expected response?

Yes, our apartment is all cement and he is only peeing on bare cement. Easy to clean thankfully but still a problem. I should contact his agency to see if he peed of cement anywhere, I'm not really sure.

I just realized that there is a chance that he may have hookworms. Our adoption agency said that every single one of their dogs they got from the track he raced had hookworms this year. We scheduled a fecal test with our vet and will follow up if treatment if need be. Would this be a contributor to him having accidents too? I wonder if it is contributing to some of his anxiety too.

Thanks for the reply! I will have to try the key word when he's out, that's something we have not explored yet. Just this morning I fed him while he was on leash and took him out immediately after. He didn't have to go because I had just taken him out an hour prior (I take him out right after I wake and feed him an hour after that). Is that still ok to take him out even if he doesn't have to go?

I'm brand new to owning a dog (and owning a grey) and I have absolutely no intentions of letting him off leash in an un-fenced area from now until forever. I even invested in a GPS unit to put on him just in case.... that extra peace of mind helps. Plus it tracks all sorts of call stats too, so that's a bonus.

Hey folks! I've posted another thread recently about my newly adopted grey (he's a wonderful guy). I been having some issues with housebreaking him and thought I should start a new thread. I've had him for 2 weeks now but haven't really made any progress in housebreaking him. We take him out as soon as we wake up, and every 3 hours (or less) since he's still learning. When he goes we shower him with praise and give him a treat. He can go all night without having to go to the bathroom and we've taken him on long car rides (4 hours) no problem so I know its not an issue of holding it. However, he still has accidents in the house where he will pee on our cement floors when he is out of site sometimes. The biggest cause of this seems to be that he will pee right after he eats his meals (like within a minute). When I first got him the adoption agency told me to wait half an hour after meals before taking him out to go to the bathroom. We listened to this and it hasn't been working for us, and I think it might have set us back a bit in housebreaking. Do you have any suggestions? How long does it normally take to housebreak a grey rescue? Thank you!

That is excellent advice, thank you! I will have to try this with a beef flavored toothpaste. I have one for now that's for dogs but it's not meat related and he's not interested in it. They have those finger toothbrush things but to be honest I'm kinda scared of sticking my finger in a dog's mouth. He's really gentle and patient but it still gives me pause.

Thank you for all the replies thus far! We have been doing a form of alone training where we exit and enter over and over to let him know we're coming back. We're still in the early stages but we've made it 15 minutes without him losing his mind. I'm hoping this a great progress! I do have another question if y'all don't mind.... what is the best way to brush a grey's teeth? He does not like it when I brush his teeth and moves away immediately. I managed to curl his head into my arms like a baby and that helped restrain him a bit. He is very gentle and didn't freak out or growl or anything but he definitely tried to get out. Is there any 'trick' to it?

Yes, we have a Nest cam and it works great to keep an eye on him. The first try at alone training was a 3 minute interval. We left and set a timer and he whined a bit but nothing serious. Next day we upped it to 5 minutes and same thing, a little bit of whining and maybe 1 bark. Third day we kept it at 5 minutes he barked the entire time. Luckily I did this during the work day so none of the apartment neighbors were home. Is there a point where we should stop the alone training and come back? I was thinking the idea was to let him know we are always coming back but I don't know if once he gets anxious if we should stop or not.

I do have some questions on the crate if you folks don't mind: - We are using the crate as a means to ease him into separation anxiety training. We put him in the crate with treats and praise (we're trying to teach him "go home" as his method to getting in the crate). He loves it. We then do alone training by leaving the house for 5 minutes, coming back, and not acknowledging him for a few minutes minutes after. We plan to increment it over time with 10, 15, 30, etc. Is this the right approach? - My second question is that should we crate him during the day with the door closed for a few hours when we're home too? Our theory is that if we get him used to that he won't get the association that a closed door means we're leaving.

His name is Cozmo. Overall I'm really surprised of what a good dog he's been this far. He's amazing on walks. He's seen cats, dogs (big and small, also white), children, birds, cars, ATV's.... hasn't gone after any of them. We even had a neighbor who had their huge scary looking dogs run out of their home off leash (yeah...) straight towards him and he didn't lose his mind. In fact he intrigued by them and wanted to be friends (thankfully they turned out to be nice dogs too). He's loose leashed and calm the entire time. Also he's been wonderful at night. We wedged his open crate in front of our bedroom door (couldn't fit in inside since we have a small bedroom) and put a second bed in the room. He chooses what one he likes that night and sleeps silently, almost like a cat. We both get a full nights rest with no interruptions. He's basically still a puppy (especially with everything new) so we using time and patience to get him up to speed. I'm sure I'll have more questions but right now we almost got a roach out of him this morning.

Thanks for the replies so far! We are only using Nature's Miracle for a few inside accidents, outside marking is totally fine. He's drinking a lot of water and seems to have a lot of urine every time we take him out. Not sure if that's normal but his bladder seems to hold an ocean. Also with the "no" thing, once he stops doing something that could hurt him we give him long pets and stay calm. Seems like that is the right way to go about things! As far as pictures go: https://imgur.com/gMte2CK https://imgur.com/a/ub4hwJc

My wife and I recently adopted a male grey who is a little under 2 years old. He is fresh off the track (no fostering) and he's our first dog ever. We have done a ton of research and we were wondering if we are on the right path in the 3 days that we've had him. I have a few questions and just some general stuff we've been doing and was wondering if we're doing the "right thing" with a newly retired grey. Any feedback is appreciated! - He has had a few accidents with peeing in the house. To curb this we take him outside ASAP to pee when it happens. Whenever he uses the bathroom outside we shower him with praise have give him a treat. We also take him outside every 2 hours or so now because he's so new. His pee area is sprayed down with Nature's Miracle. We also have been feeding him in that same area as we've heard that some folks have had success with this. Is this the best course of action? - He is basically a puppy and has been getting into some things. In particular he is infatuated with the television and his reflection and our baker's rack. He will jump on them which can be dangerous for him. We give him a firm "NO" and wave our finger like a traffic cop. This was recommended in our adoption paperwork. We have seen some progress already with this technique, but is this ok or is it too harsh for such sensitive animals? - We gave him toys on his second day (he was chewing our mice on our PC's so we gave him a kong instead). One of the toys he destroyed in about 5 minutes and got the stuffing everywhere. Didn't want him to choke so we tried to take it away and he growled, showing some resource guarding. Immediately we did a trade up with a high value treat, he dropped it, and we tossed it out. Is that the right move? "Trading up" is still a new concept to us. - We are doing some basic training, but not sure if it's too early. We'll put a treat in his crate and tell him "go home" and when he does we'll shower him with praise. We also been teaching "touch" where when he touches my hand I'll say "touch" and he gets a treat. This is an attempt at an easy call back. Is it too early to train him? He is easily distracted by all the new stuff around him but i figured it would be good to give it a try. Sorry for all the questions, we just want to know that we're doing a good job! My wife and I work from home and are very quiet and patient people. We know it'll take our fella months to come out of his shell, but he's doing great so far!