MerseyGrey

Good news! Wishing Sweep a speedy recovery

It sounds like you’re already making great progress with your boy. Your situation sounds familiar. When we adopted Buddy, we were told that he had a tendency to over-bond with people, and between my husband and I, it was me who received the lions share of Buddy’s affection. It took about six months (I think) before he stopped running to the door and trying to follow me out when I went to work. Gradually, this wore off and now now he barely even lifts his head when I go to work. We have quite a repetitive routine though, and if I want to go out at any time other than ‘going to work’ time he still gets wound up. We combat this with treats to distract him and now he is more concerned that we might leave him without giving him a treat. Sometimes the progress is so slow that it’s imperceptible, but one day you’ll hopefully realise that suddenly - he’s not bothered! Having a regular routine has definitely helped…maybe you could try going out for a short walk without him before you settle down to work, increasing the time each week. Give him a treat, like a rabbit’s ear, and he will start to associate you leaving with good things, and also know that you’re not going to be long.

Sorry for your loss

We got back from our holiday last night. I have a confession: I completely forgot to experiment with the jam/cream arrangement, and had all my cream teas with cream first. They were so delicious and moreish that I obviously didn’t feel the need to experiment further. I don’t want to come across as narrow-minded, but I don’t see the need to mess with the winning combination . We had a lovely holiday, but it wasn’t the holiday we were expecting. It had already been postponed from last year due to covid, but at Christmas my brother in law (who lives in San Diego) announced that he and his wife were having their first baby, due August 6th so we knew that they wouldn’t be joining us (and it turns out they probably wouldn’t have come anyway - they say that the covid delta-variant is rampant in California at the minute and wouldn’t want to risk infecting anyone, least of all my parents in law. Baby Emery was born on 24th July. It’s a seven-hour drive for us to Penzance where we were due to stay overnight before catching the Scillonian ferry early on Friday 13th . When we arrived on Thursday evening, we got a phone call from my MIL saying could she meet up with us. My parents in law had been staying in Penzance for a few days before sailing and had been pottering around a secluded cove, when my FIL tripped on a rocky beach, knocking himself unconscious. My MIL couldn’t get phone reception to contact the emergency services, but luckily there was a group walking the South West Coast path who contacted paramedics. They came very quickly, but couldn’t access where FIL had fallen, so he ended up being airlifted to Truro hospital. He had broken his nose, maxilla, a few ribs and chipped some vertebrae and was advised not to travel (and aside from that, his face swelled up to double it’s size so he didn’t really fancy gong out in public). My SIL had already sailed to Scilly, and the parents didn’t see the point in not using the holiday so we travelled to Scilly as planned. We saw my FIL yesterday on the drive home and he looks remarkably well and is quite chipper. He is very bruised but I think that is a lot to do with the fact that he is on warfarin for a heart condition (he is quite healthy even though it doesn’t sound like it!), but we hope he will mend very soon. And so, we have booked again for next year when we hope that our American family will be able to join us. FIL has been advised by all offspring (and their spouses) to wrap himself in cotton wool for the next 12 months. TL;DR: Buddy’s family holiday was dramatic!

We are keeping everything crossed for you all. Best wishes from Buddy and family

I think this is the Cornish way so I should be doing it this way at the minute, but I always just thought that the cream is a substitute for the butter, so it goes on first. I might be having another one today so I’ll give it a go in the interest of balance

I am working on it

He was, he did much better than I did. We’ve got to do it again in a few days

The best bed is the one that your greyhound prefers, and you can’t know that until they’ve tried them all! I’m not suggesting you do that because it gets very expensive, and it’s better to start cheap in case you hound turns his/her nose up at what you’ve bought (they inevitably will with some beds) as has already been said. The advice we were given when we brought him home was to buy a cheap duvet and cover, fold it over and that will be enough. It’s a good place to start. Finding a quiet spot that they can retreat to is a very good idea; Buddy has a bed in the corner of a room which he can escape to. It has a wall behind and to one side, a sofa to the other so is enclosed on three side and is completely out of the way if he wants to retreat there. It is a old folded mattress topper, with a single duvet at the back and is covered with a blanket so we can wash it easily. He also has a few other beds dotted around, all of which are near where we sit so he can be near us. But our Buddy is a rare thing - he never gets on the furniture (I wish he would because I’m getting too old to sit on the floor with him!).

Yes, I think this is what I’m going to do Also, some posts from our holiday on the Isles of Scilly https://www.instagram.com/p/CSithUeqzdf/?utm_medium=copy_link https://www.instagram.com/p/CSkVAqJqwXC/?utm_medium=copy_link

Ok I hear you! I will correct it as soon as I add the next walk. Thanks for the feedback

Maybe you could take him to a greyhound meet / walk if there is one in your area. That might make his personality shine through a bit more when he’s back with his kind. Of course, maybe he’s just a naturally reserved guy and you’ve seen his true nature. I suppose I would be thinking about the kind of dog I could have adopted - one that chews walls, destroys cushions, digs holes, tries to escape…or worse and I’d be counting my lucky stars. Also, congratulate yourself on making a dog feel safe, well treated and loved and not worry about how he demonstrates it too much. I’m sure he’s pretty grateful!

Thank you! argh, I hoped that the colour contrast would be enough because I love that font but nevermind! I am on holiday at the moment (doing more walks too!) and didn’t bring my laptop so I will have another look at it when I add the next walks. Thanks for the feedback

I’m going to have a go at that this evening, thank you thank you! I wasn’t expecting any subscribers so that’s wonderful. I’ll make sure I get some good photos when I’m on holiday next week. thank you

Thank you! No, we Brits still usually measure distance in miles - when we went metric, some things were too sacred to change. For smaller measurements I can use imperial and metric interchangeably and often switch between the two, but NEVER when describing the same subject . I have used an app to get the distances and time but find they are rarely accurate when walking with Buddy, depending on what kind of mood he’s in for walking. Sometimes he will power round the circuit like a steam train and some days he wants to sniff. Every. Blade. Of. Grass. I have thought about using that app and embedding it in the webpage but think I might fall foul of copyright laws but I can investigate that as it’s a good app.

Thank you both. Dan said the same thing about the text colour so I made the font bigger, but maybe I just need to change the font to a more solid type. I will look into it, thank you

Thank you, and thank you. We have a saying over here, ‘sh*t or sugar’ and thanks a bit how I am about work. And I’m currently in a long sh*t phase . When I was young I thought I’d always want to work. Now I find what I really want is a terminally ill, rich, blind man who likes his ladies with a bit of meat on their bones. I suppose a girl can dream… He does, when I can get him to! Thank you all for your feedback, it’s much appreciated!

Thanks for the tip - I have really struggled to navigate my way around all the plug-ins so I will have a look for this, because I agree it would be more useful. I have the OS maps app but don’t think I can pilfer the info from there without a legal challenge!

He insisted on a model release form, payment in chicken feet and rabbit ears

I've been having a bit of professional crisis this past year which has prompted me to think about whether I want to spend my remaining years at work in a job that I have grown to despise. One of the things I considered was trying to make money from a blog so after owning the domain name for nearly two months...here it is! - Walks with my Greyhound Now, it's a bit niche (you probably need to have an old greyhound and live in the north west of England to get anything from this) so it's not going to get too many visitors and it's definitely not going to be my new career as putting this together has been one of the most difficult and frustrating things I've ever done. But now it's up and running I think I'm going to enjoy adding walks on there. We have a couple of holidays coming up so we can go a bit further afield but in case anyone wants to take a peek and let me know if you enjoy the photos I would love to hear from you. There are no adverts on here, it's just for fun. And now I'm off to have another think about a career change...

These are such good photos. I just showed my husband, and they made him smile as much as I did when I watched it. He also commented ‘they’ve got more beds than us!’, which is exactly what I thought . Sorry for your loss.

Happy birthday Petunia! It looks like you are being really spoiled!

I’ve just looked up my recipe which does have flour (self raising flour) but oat flour is probably much better. It also doesn’t have PB so I think I am borrowing from other recipes and mixing them into one! In case you would like it, the recipe is: 140g SR flour 113g rolled oats 28g desiccated coconut 113g margarine 2tbsp honey 1tsp bicarbonate of soda 1tbsp milk (oh dear this recipe is nothing like yours!) method: preheat the oven to 180c/350f. combine the dry ingredients. Melt the margarine with the honey and remove from the heat. Mix the milk and bicarb soda and add to the honey mix. Stir into the dry ingredients and mix completely. Leave to stand for 15 mins. Bake in preheated oven. Divide into balls, bake on a baking tray and when done, turn off the oven, open the door to release steam, then keep in the oven to allow the heat to dry them out (if you skip this step they will stay softer). They can be frozen. this should make about 30

I have a recipe like this but with rolled oats instead of flour and they are very tasty!

She's beautiful, whatever her ancestry. I hope she's settling in well