MerseyGrey

This is great! Thank you. Buddy’s shape is most like the last picture on this webpage...so definitely on a diet now and I’m going to have to harden myself against his sad hound eyes

I think she looks perfect, and since I’m clearly a feeder I would definitely be trying to plump her up! Buddy’s a black hound too, but he’s got too much grey in his fur to absorb the light anymore! Love the booties!

I’m sure she won’t care as long as there is bread on tap! Congratulations on making it official, she’s a beauty

Hi! I’m a first time greyhound owner too, but I’ve had mine for just over a year. He’s bigger than yours (he was 33kg when we brought him home) but is now pushing 40kg. I didn’t think that I was overfeeding him but a few people have made comments about him being ‘solid’, and he looks chunky next to other greyhounds. I don’t give Buddy any raw food or things like chicken necks - we feed him on kibble with a few extras. I started another post about ways to help him loose weight, and one of the replies suggested that it was the quality of the food he was being fed. So when I first read your post I thought it sounded like a lot of food, but the type of food is different so the way Jill processes it will be different. If you’re feeding her too much, it will show really quickly. I think that with a retired greyhound, you should be able to see the last three ribs and two of the vertebrae (you should be able to see about seven ribs in a racing hound, I’ve read - I think that’s too skinny!). I also read that ‘greyhounds don’t tend to overeat’ in the same book - ha! This is not necessarily true! photos of your pup will help people decide if you’re overfeeding her* *also not true but it would be lovely to see a picture of her!

Buddy wouldn’t settle on the back seat of my car either...so I bought a new car. I’m not saying he’s a spoilt dog or anything, but we had already bought an estate (station wagon-type) to transport him! I bought a Honda HRV because I really liked the flexible seat arrangement, and it meant that I could either have him in the back seat space or in the boot - the seat pads lift as well as the seat backs coming down, so it’s easy to have him in either space, but in reality he still prefers to be in the boot because he can see out of the windows better. Even more, he prefers to be in the Volvo estate because his view is better still. Since changing cars I found that such a device as a footwell filler exists https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pet-Ego-Extender-Inflatable-Platform/dp/B0029TSPLQ which I really wish I’d discovered beforehand because I loved my old car so much more than I like this one! And I could have saved the money I’m currently shelling out on a car I don’t love to buy more toys, dog beds, and silly Christmas outfits for the Budster. Oh well.

I haven’t tried giving them dry, i think someone else posted that they will make your dog bloated because they will rehydrate and expand in your dog’s tummy. I rehydrate mine with boiling water and use less than the recommended amount, and it takes about two minutes (but they must be cool when you feed your pup. I find that if I mix them around with the kibble they cool down quite quickly).

Yes, I do this with the treats too! I will look into that food as anything that reduces emissions is a bonus! Thanks!

Hills r/c - that’s what we did in the end and the hills is all gone. We’ll get some low calorie stuff and do the same. The R/c is with the in laws and will be for another course of weeks so returning is probably not an option. We are also planning ahead for Brexit the exercise bit should be easy now the weather is cooling down a bit. As long as I can get him to stop statuing on his walk (this is a newish thing)!

thanks for the translation! Sorry, yes I meant dinner/supper. Supper is what I have after tea, when I’m feeling peckish (maybe you can start to see why Buddy is getting a little chubby...). Chubby means fat in the UK, in case it means something else abroad. I will try! We have just bulk bought two huuuuuuuuge bags of Royal Canin but I can buy another low cal bag of kibble to mix in. I was reluctant to change his food (we’d recently had a short and unsuccessful experiment with Hills which he would barely touch at all, but knowing what I know now about his weight, I probably should have not tried to make him eat it by mixing in wet food) but we can certainly give that a go. This is the next stage in his training, which he has being doing so well at, hence the treats. I’ve tried cutting down his food just a little so he doesn’t feel like I’m starving him, but apparently he’s noticing - on this evening’s walk he picked up a windfall apple and carried home, walking ahead of me so I couldn’t try to take it from him. He’d already scoffed a bird skull as an appetiser 🤢. When he’d finished his tea/dinner/supper and his dental stick, he went hunting for more food. thank you all for your great responses, I’ll try a few and see what works best

Thanks, I will try the cooked veggies and see how he fares. He does loves minced/mashed food so I can do a batch and add it over a few days

When we brought our champion Buddy home in June 2018, he weighed 33kg (73lb). He is currently tipping the scales at 40kg (88lb) so we have decided to put him on a diet. We feed him Royal Canin Maxi 8+ and have shaved a little off each of his scoops of food at breakfast and tea, and have recently started using Olewo carrots. Tea is always followed by a dental stick of some kind. We do give him quite a few treats when out on walks as I am trying to get him to be a bit more sociable - initially I use a treat to distract him if there is another dog coming our way, and then if he has a good interaction with the other dog, he gets a treat for that. The treats are small and there are a few low fat ones mixed in. I don’t think he looks fat - until he stands next to another greyhound. I can still see a couple of ribs and maybe a vertebra or two, and he still has a waist, although it’s thicker than when we got him. Exercise-wise, he is walked twice a day. The morning walk is fairly short but generally brisk, and the evening walk is usually longer but with lots of stopping, sniffing, and slower walking. I try and run him off leash every other day, just for short stints. He is nearly nine years old. Since we’ve cut his food down slightly he is mooching around for more. He returns to his empty bowl to make sure it’s empty, and to his treat ball and snuffle mat repeatedly in case some more middle has been placed there by the god of greyhounds. He’s a devil for picking stuff up on his walks, from dead birds to horse poop and dropped ice cream cones +/- ice cream. It’s gone before I realise he’s even picked up the scent! Does anyone have any tips for bulking out his food with low fat fillers? I’m running low on Olewo and have started to add oats soaked in water (he has quite loose stools so I’m not worried about constipation). Can I use them in greater quantity? Does anyone know any good recipes for low fat stuff I can make at home? I know someone out there will have an answer! Thanks in advance 🙂

Oh my word! I LOVE that outfit! And he just looks like butter wouldn’t melt...

True! Buddy has raised bowls, but he went through a phase this summer where he wasn’t really eating much. We tried mixing tasty stuff into his kibble but found we had a high success rate by throwing his kibble onto the lawn, and he would go foraging for it. Funny boy

I think you can see from the previous posts that opinions are mixed and there is plenty of variation based on human and dog schedules. Volvulus occurs in humans too - although usually in the sigmoid colon rather than the stomach - and is thought to be related to two main factors: a large quantity of food being eaten in a single sitting and/or affected individuals having a long sigmoid mesentery. The mesentery is the fat around the bowel which contains blood vessels and lymphatic amongst other things. If the mesentery is long, it is more prone to twisting, which causes blockage of the blood vessels, resulting ultimately in the death of the part of the organ supplied by those vessels. I cannot believe that bloat in dogs can be caused ‘rhythmic nature of walking’ causing the stomach to flip. The abdominal cavities of mammals are very tightly packed and generally speaking, there is no room for swaying during walking, certainly not to the extreme of causing the stomach to twist. It is in my opinion (opinion again) that this is more likely to be caused by excessive peristalsis required to move a large volume of food through the digestive tract. Ive also read that allowing your dog to feed from bowls on the floor contributes to the development of bloat...whereas another article suggested allowing your dog to eat from raised bowls causes bloat. I gather from that (and the fact that I could only really find two scientific papers about it) that nobody really knows So, have you considered giving your hound a small breakfast before your morning walk...maybe half her normal quantity if she needs to eat before she poops? Our practice is to give food after the walk, but we have varied that with no ill effects when I’ve had to walk our boy later than normal for example, when it’s been too hot to go out in the afternoon. In addition, Buddy frequently eats his tea and then decides to have a mad zoomie straight after...although I don’t encourage it there’s not much I can do to stop that, and he’s been fine. Clear as mud? Just do what suits you and your dawg

Happy birthday beautiful girl! You still look young at heart

This is essentially what I have going around my head all day long... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tGep11hxCFo

Sorry Dave_P, but you made the best (although it was hard) decision

Mischievous little imp 🥰

Is the crumple fairy related to the same sprite that moves Buddy’s bed into the middle of the living room during the night, disturbing his beauty sleep?

He looks so noble! 😍

I have no idea about the answer to your question other than...it’s witchcraft!* But we started Buddy on these Olewo carrots about a week ago and can confirm it works. After just over a year of running home from walks to wash hands vigorously whilst trying not to scratch our noses, Buddy now has fully formed, pickupable poops. Even the ones in the long grass! It’s a miracle! I wish I’d tried them sooner but we couldn’t get hold of them easily. I’m stocking up before Brexit happens and we all turn feral. *it’s probably not really witchcraft, more likely something to do with science - I’m going for high fibre content or the fact that they are dehydrated. Even though you rehydrate them, maybe they require more liquid to digest and consequently that fluid is used rather than passing through and creating the hated super soft poop. That’s where my money is.

Hi Amystella, I'm still finding my way as a first time greyhound owner - we’ve had our boy for just over a year. I can’t help much with the growling /barking issue, but I did pick up on the info about approaching cyclists and joggers - I remember reading early on in our mutual ownership that telling your dog ‘it’s ok’ or ‘good dog’ when they’re in stressful situations kind of reinforces the behaviour - you are petting and talking to them to calm them down, while they see it as ‘oh, she does this when I’m being good, so it must be alright’. It’s so hard and against all your instincts as a caring doggy mummy as all you want is to provide them comfort, but the advice I read was to ignore that behaviour- stick your nose in the air and keep walking and your dog will get over it. There are plenty of people with tons more experience here than me so they can confirm or refute that advice, and hopefully help you with the other behaviour. Good luck!

I have just been slapped in the face by an arc of thick saliva coming off Buddy’s tongue as he licked the toothpaste around his mouth. I’m so glad I had my mouth closed. Something to look forward to, NeelaGrey!

I see...

Found another dam! Not my dog - Buddy is from Pilot and Rose. http://www.greyhound-data.com/d?d=Sucker+punch+&sex=&color=&birthyear=&birthland=AU I was looking at this dog, originally from Australia that has been rescued in China, who has Pilot as a sire and a dam called Fleece. However her birth date is given as 1860 something while Pilot is 1820. So I’m not sure how accurate this is - someone mentioned artificial insemination in an earlier post. While it’s highly likely that this could have been used, it’s surely less likely that it would have been possible to preserve the sperm over that duration of time.