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twright3

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  1. If I do say so myself I have been a pretty successful greyhound adopter. I adopted Lily from G2G after 1 race when she was about 6 and she lived to over 15, so I must have been doing something right.
    Now I have Tulip, aged 5, adopted from GAC at 2.5 after 125 races. She is the perfect dog.
    I have been blessed with lots of resources and started thinking, am I doing enough? Should I adopt a second greyhound? I live in a 2nd floor condo in South Mission Beach and take Tulip for twice-daily walks on the beach. Except, that is, when I’m visiting my rural property in Potrero and lately a similar property of mine in I acquired near Sycuan Casino. She loves to ride in cars and I have 10. So Tulip has a very, very good life.
    Should we share it with another greyhound? I confess my prejudice: I only want females. I think a male and a female might get along better but I want two females. Can this work? Will they fight? There are a couple of similar females at OG that look promising. Tulip is a very happy dog and I don’t want to disrupt things without a very good chance of success.
    Thoughts and experiences?
    Tom
     

    Tulip.jpg

  2. I was watching 2001 again. Recall that the aliens put a monolith on the moon so they would know when we were able to get there. So as a joke with myself I assumed dogs were put here by aliens to keep tabs on us. Once you have this idea, for a day or so you keep seeing things that fit with the theory. Tulip certainly seems to keep very close tabs on everything I do. And those times she seem to be dozing she could be uploading her observations via mental telepathy to her alien masters on a dwarf planet in the Ort Cloud.

    Tulip has play dates with my friend Bill's Rascal, a Jack Russell Terrier. They chase each other around and have lots of fun. Sometimes she prods him by picking him up by one of his hind legs!

    So I thought I would play a trick on Bill and email him I'd figured dogs are alien supplied spies and so on so it would haunt him for a bit. But he "one upped" me. His response: "Aliens, thank you for dogs."

  3. Tulip came off the track and into my life at the start of the pandemic at age 2.5. (After my previous greyhound, Lily, passed away at 15+ 10/30/19 I briefly flirted with considering other breeds before I came to my senses.) She is extremely affectionate and wants to make friends with every human and dog she sees. If there is such a thing as the perfect greyhound it's Tulip. I'm so lucky.

    The only minor, minor problem is she often takes a "second dump" which is often runny and hard to clean up if not done on the beach where we live. Lily had responded fantastically to pumpkin added on her kibble with perfect dumps the entire last year of her life. With Tulip it hasn't gone as well.

    She's on Hill's "Digestive Care" prescription diet only because users say there's less "output". Besides pumpkin I give her a little yogurt daily and the very rare shot of probiotics for dogs but to no avail. Has anyone found something like pumpkin only better for problem cases? I'm not going to resort to any medicines. It's not that serious a problem and I prefer keeping things as natural as possible.

  4. I'm pleased to report that Tulip and I have total closure on this problem. As mentioned it took a while for her to give me the opportunity to reward normal behavior in walk territory. But slowly but surly she got the idea. Amusingly, she tried cheating a little by faking it for extra treats but quickly learned that wouldn't work. She even has gotten the concept that only the first wee and first poo on a walk got a reward. Now after four months she's marking like she's lived in suburbia all her life! One interesting thing I've noticed: at the beach it's easy to see where other females have "gone". Tulip studies these spots carefully and makes a particular choice. I often wonder how she decides whose wee is "worthy" of being marked. Anyway were happy and the deck is only used when absolutely necessary.

  5. Thank you for your concern. When Tulip came to the Greyhound Adoption Center (El Cajon) they feared she had a really strong prey drive, so much so that even though I had a greyhound previously I had to undergo some extra training to adopt her. But it turned out she is merely intensely interested in everything new she's encountering. She never pulls on the leash. She wouldn't a very good hunter because we've seen rabbits at my property shown in the video and she comes to attention and looks at them running off for a second. Then tries to locate the departed rabbit by sniffing at bushes and so on. The same goes for seagulls we encounter on the beach at home. She's so gentle on the leash I've even switched to using the connection on the back of her harness rather the one on her sternum (that would make her turn if she were to bolt). Using the connection on her back means she almost never gets the leash around her neck.

  6. If the pandemic has forced you to limit your options for greyhound walks, perhaps this video of mine with provide some relief. It's about 14 minutes long and shows Tulip, fresh from the track in March, going for a walk in April in rural California a few miles from the Mexican border. Nothing dramatic happens. This is my first attempt to attach a YouTube link so I hope it works correctly.

     

  7. Milo's ability to judge spaces reminds me of a funny trait Lily had. The French door to the patio would be open to a width of 2 to 2.5 feet and Lily would stand there for a long time cautiously studying it carefully. "Lily," I would cry, "you're 5 inches wide! You can make it!" Tulip, on the other hand, is like Milo. It just shows they are all individuals, which is part of the challenge and the joy of having a greyhound. (I always feel reluctant to use the term "owner" with regard to my greyhound. I'm in several car clubs and Lily went to enough car club meets that when she passed away one friend referred to the loss of my "copilot", a term that I liked a lot.)

  8. I wasn't seeking advice about Tulip who is still quite new to suburbia as much as I was marveling Lily's skill.

    I loved the Albert Einstein style response because after all the wrong side IS relative. And the suggestion of saying, "This side" seems like a good idea. I started with Tulip on the short leash but she's enjoying the long lease so much more I'll put up with a few tiny problems.

  9. My new greyhound, Tulip, came off the track March 1 and joined me March 21. She's adapting well. Being new to walks in suburban settings, a few times she has gone on the "wrong" side of a utility pole, street sign pole and so on.

    This reminded me of an amazing thing about my prior greyhound, Lily. I got her when she was six and, amazingly, she lasted to over 15. In all those years she went on the wrong side of something about six times including barely visible stay cables. This wasn't because she stayed next to me. In fact she would go on the other side of things like beach trash can and benches where she knew I could easily guide the leash over the objects. Let's see, 9 years, 2 walks a day, that's over 6,500 walks. There must have been at least 20 opportunities to go on the wrong side per walk. That over 130,000 chances to screw up. That's an error rate under 0.0005. Amazing!

    Tom in San Diego

  10. Today I managed to get Tulip to wee in a parking lot far from home while I was helping my daughter out at her work. (She's taken over my tax business now that I'm retired.) If your dog has this "location problem" this approach may be helpful. I picked a comfortable spot in the shade (this being in hot, sunny San Diego) and waited. And waited. Eventually it wasn't too hard to get her to move in a circle by keeping her leash short and turning a little when she moved in the right direction. If she stopped I stopped. After several on-and-off revolutions, which mimic what dogs sometimes do when picking a spot to wee, she faked it once or twice hoping for a treat and finally went (and got a treat and praise). I'm convinced patience coupled with the circular motion helped a lot. If you too have this problem with your dog, give it a try.

  11. Tulip continues to make progress. I'm making progress too in manipulating conditions to encourage going when not on the deck. The "familiar places" are expanding. (BTW in the area of everything being new in her seventh week off the track, she had an amusing encounter with a trio of helium balloons someone left tied to a post; they were too interesting not to approach but then she felt at times they were trying to get her as they darted around randomly in the breeze!)

  12. Just past 3 weeks since adoption, 6 weeks off the track. We making slooooow progress on bathroom locations. She is sometimes expanding her comfort zone to include nearby alleys but not without some indoor accidents. One funny thing is a couple of times near the start of a walk she has slightly squatted for maybe one second, sort of faking taking a wee or dump and then standing up expectantly to see if she gets the treat she's gotten when actually doing it during a walk. Another LOL moment she's supplied to make the pandemic livable.

  13. Of course I know a dog used to domestic living can go 7 hours without needing to go. But it is unusual for a dog given several opportunities to go in areas where other dog have been to resist the opportunity to do some marking. Here at the beach you can't go 3 steps without being where other dogs have been. And at my rural property there are wild animal markings everywhere especially coyotes. Still she resists going anywhere that's at all distant from either home.

  14. My previous greyhound came to me at age 6 (when the owner got MS) and passed away recently at age 15+. Now I have adopted a 2.5 year old female fresh off the track. She was 3 weeks at the adoption center and has been with me less than 3 weeks. Tulip is absolutely great but I'm working on one problem. She will only wee or dump on familiar ground. This is either on one of the decks of my condo in Mission Beach or near the entrance of my shop on my property near Mexico. On rare occasions she will go on familiar territory near my condo (now in the alleys since the beach is closed due to the pandemic) or on one of the trails on my shop property. Of course I give her praise and a treat whenever she goes in the alley or on a walk away from the shop. The biggest problem with this is that as a fresh track dog, unless I see that she wants to get on the deck within 5 or 10 seconds, she goes on the floor. Yesterday I took her on a lengthy adventure, stopping to switch my car for my truck at a friends house, driving to Long Beach to a used car dealer, trading in my truck for a newer one including a trip to the bank for cash, back from Long Beach to San Diego switching the truck for the car and then home. We did walks at every stop, sometimes two if we were there for a while but it was "no go" in spite of being on the go over 7 hours. Once home, she went on the deck. Has anyone else experienced this, only going on familiar territory for a dog fresh from the track? Did your dog quickly outgrow it or was a lot of training needed? Thanks, Tom

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