MerseyGrey

Happy birthday Licorice

What colour is he? Mine is black and seems to have dandruff a lot, but I think it shows up more on him because he’s black. He’s also starting to shed his winter coat and he’s more flaky when he’s shedding.

That’s a spectacular break, what a brave girl! Glad she’s home and doing well 😅

Hoping for a good birthday gift for you

Poor Grace, it sounds like she needs to spend more time with her feet up. I keep got no advice, just lots of sympathy. It sounds like you’ve tried almost everything to relieve her discomfort ☹️

Best wishes to you all for a good outcome. I hope today goes well

We use nexguard spectra, also once a month in a chewy meaty-smelling chunk. Every six months, he takes Droncit for tapeworm as the nexguard doesn’t cover this.

Buddy’s feet are always a bit on the cheesy side. It’s never overwhelming, but some evenings when we’re cuddling it gives me the munchies

Hello and welcome 👋

Uh-oh 🌪 ☣️

I’ve just re-read the original post and missed that you said he was a greyhound...but did you really get him when he was about two weeks old?

What type of puppy do you have? How long have you had him? Puppies, like babies, test everything with their mouths and their teeth are like needles which means a bite can be a shock. However some would suggest that shouting at your puppy is a way of giving him attention, so he might be biting you for attention. You need to reward good behaviour and ignore bad behaviour. You will need lots of patience and get everyone in your family on board with this. Is your puppy really being aggressive or just being a puppy? How well equipped are you to deal with a puppy, as they are really hard work! If this is your first, training classes (if possible in your area at the minute) will help you and your puppy. If not, one-to-one training sessions with a trainer (find one who uses positive reinforcement methods) might be necessary. I’m certainly not an expert in this field but I know enough to be sure that raising a puppy requires a reasonable amount of effort, input and consistency from the adopting family. I adopted mine when he was seven to be sure he was over the puppy stage. But there are plenty of people on here with more experience than me, and with different breeds, so hopefully they can give further direction.

I’m sure those dogs really appreciate the value of having their meals prepped on such lovely hardware

It could be attention, it could be reassurance since he’s new to you and retired life. If he does it for attention, and you give it to him, he will continue to do this while you’re out on walks. If it’s for reassurance, it might decrease with time as he becomes more confident. So give it time and you should be able to tell. We have just starting muzzling ours when walking again because he keeps eating things on his walk that make him sick. Immediately, he has begun pawing at his face, rubbing his face on my thighs and (my favourite thing ever): getting behind me and driving his muzzled nose between my legs so I look down to see a black cage emerging. He only does this at the end of the walk but stops as soon as I remove his muzzle (I am nothing if not well trained by my dog). So, it’s probably not the muzzle with your dog, in case you’re worried about that.

For such big dogs they have a very small turning circle

Mine does this too and I’m not certain of the reasons behind it but I deal with it by ignoring him. He usually does it when he’s in the house, and when he seems like he’s a bit unsure of what to do with himself... maybe when he’s anticipating that something is going to happen but not sure of what. But although he might be a little bored I don’t think there’s anything physically wrong with him and he settles down. Yours may never stop doing this, but I don’t think you need to worry. He’s still new to you and learning what your routines are and may just be vocalising some little anxiety. Give him a couple of weeks. He will get over it. Greyhounds are very good people trainers, and especially for the uninitiated (I count myself here) so if you react to every noise he will associate this with either getting attention or getting what he wants. You may find it helpful to buy a mat to take with you if you’re planning to step out for coffee to give him somewhere to lie down so you can all take in the world together in a bit of comfort. I know mine definitely settles better if he has a defined area to lie on. Once the bed goes down, he knows we are there for the duration.

Happy birthday Saoirse (I have to check that spelling every time!)

I completely understand why you’ve gone back to the muzzle, but I felt that it was detrimental to training our reactive dog to be sociable around other dogs. It was as if he knew he had no way to defend himself if an approaching dog decided to attack him, so he went into defensive mode and would lunge at them first to warn them away. So we lost the muzzle and he was much better around other dogs. This was combined with the ‘watch me’ command where he knew he would get a treat, which we extended to him getting a treat when he was sociable. It took a while, and lots of us explaining to people that our dog was a grumpy old man who might snap if their dog was overfamiliar with him. He still snaps today but we (his owners) shrug it off better than we did when we first got him. He’s not being aggressive, he’s telling the other dog that he likes his personal space. So the next step is finding a way to regain your trust in him, because this is probably what has suffered the most damage. We have also had to extract a small dog from our dog’s jaws, but we knew what had triggered him to go for the other dog - we had him off lead and he had been chasing rabbits - the next thing he saw was small and fluffy and looked like one of his stuffed toys. He has never before or since shown any inclination to ‘play’ with another dog like he plays with his toys. If you think back, was there anything that happened prior to Benny catching the other dog that got him excited, and into greyhound mode? If you can identify it you can avoid it or head it off before it escalates to an incident I think if you want to take a little longer with the muzzle on while you learn to read his body language around smaller dogs, you might just have to avoid bigger dogs if you can. You can get bright bandanas and other assorted flags to hang off your dog that lets other owners know to keep their dogs away while he is wearing a muzzle. Long thin treats work best with a muzzle. Having told you that we lost the muzzle, like FeeFee147 we have had to go back to it (this week, actually) because ours is a scavenger and getting him to wear it is better than him having an upset tummy every few weeks because he has eaten something bad. I’ve not been very successful in training mine to do anything (my fault, not the dog) but there are plenty of people on here with much more experience than me, and you’ve already got some good advice in the previous posts. Good luck!

I LOVE Saoirse’s face in picture three! She is a menace. Poor Abu

I bet this was a sight to see! We’ve seen one in the park near us which prompted a similar response from Buddy - like one of those Spanish dancing horses!

Happy birthday Wiki! Looks like you’re having lots of fun there 🥰

Happy gotcha day Sid! Congratulations for landing on the perfect bed

I’ve been following this thread but with no advice to offer. So sorry for your loss

Too young. Sorry for your loss

I don’t think it’s possible to know unfortunately. It very much depends on you and the dog you get and gender probably doesn’t have much to do with it. Small dogs can stretch out and take up your whole sofa, big dogs pretzel up and you hardly know they’re there. I believe that if you get the right dog for you it’s like fitting the last piece of a jigsaw. With toileting, it’s a case of getting your dog into a routine and then sticking with it. Again, I don’t think there is much difference between boys and girls. I have a boy who happily goes overnight without peeing (9 - 6ish). As long as you’re prepared to gear up in all weathers and before bed and first thing it’s doable. Our dog is our first. We adopted him at age 7 (he’s now 10) and he has been a wonderful introduction to this affectionate, quirky breed. You might not get that much choice depending on where you are but I can highly recommend an older dog based on our experience. Although he can be a bit of a shadow he’s playful without being a maniac and basically an old man who wants a quiet life. Good luck with your search!