doggone

Any updates on how your grey is doing? I don't know if this will help you since it sounds like your hound won't eat outside. We had a temporary problem with going outside, it turned out to be mostly environmental factors (noise). We can't control the noise so we started accepting really short walks, and walks that only happened late when the noise had stopped. We also used a lot of high value treats outside, even right outside the door. So as soon as he goes out the door, he gets a pretty high value treat (we're using weruva kibble topper) and there are some high value treats he only gets outside, never inside (chicken). And if he wants to pee and come right back in, we let him do that instead of trying to keep him out longer. I don't know if this would help either, but one strategy I read about when trying to figure out this problem was a dog buddy--is there another dog on your floor that you could coordinate (socially distant) walks with, so that your dog doesn't feel alone?

We fit our hound into a Honda Fit backseat. He refuses to lie down in the car or he could have fit in the trunk. We put a hammock in the backseat for him instead.

Just in case anyone looking at this thread wants an update...our dog's behavior problems have gotten a lot more manageable. There have been some tough moments with the new baby, but we've taken a few steps like setting up a baby gate to keep the dog and baby separate, and really working on training with the hound. His surgery helped his limp a lot and the corn hasn't come back yet, so although he still needs a therapaw boot he seems to be in less pain. We identified environmental factors that made him not want to go outside (mostly noise), and while we can't control the noise we've learned not to expect him to go out when it's happening, which has helped our ability to deal with this issue. And we've implemented a lot of bribery to make him like walks again. We basically started having it rain high value treats outside, and for the hardest walk--last call at night--we give him extra special treats after he crosses the threshold (and also use a bit to lure). So far these strategies combined have made our hound, and us, a lot happier. We're still trying to be pretty conscious of his boundaries, which have definitely shifted some over time since we got him--he has more boundaries now--but for now at least we're at a relatively stable equilibrium that seems to be working ok. Just wanted to share in case anyone else having problems with their greyhound wants to hear what has worked for us.

Thanks for letting me know about this!

Thank you for sharing! I'm sorry you have to deal with this, although I'm also a little glad I'm not the only one! Since it sounds like you're pursuing a lot of options, I'm wondering--have you done much body handling training? How is it working out?

Thanks for your response. He's 7, almost 8. In the mornings he's pretty eager for a walk, it's the afternoon/night walk that he resists most. In fact, we used to take him out late at night for last call, but had to give that up recently because he got so resistant to going. (I still feel weird about this because it seems like a long time for him to not pee, but he hasn't had any accidents and is still hard to get out at night when we try.) The growling and snapping has been building gradually for ... a while. I'm not exactly sure how long. Maybe a year? He's gotten multiple x-rays over the past year or so. At first the corn wasn't visible and we weren't sure what was causing the limp, so he was examined pretty extensively. There's never been any problem that showed up on the xrays, and the docs told us that if it was bone cancer that went untreated this long we would know it by now. So I guess we can at least provisionally rule that out. No one's found any fractures or any other condition yet either though. Things that we went through as possibilities include: arthritis, shoulder injury, bone cancer, back injury, and one animal surgeon suggested just amputating the toe without us even knowing what the problem was! (We refused.) He does typically let us manipulate his foot when he's standing, and touch the corn. Not when he's lying down, unless I"m putting musher's secret on his paws (because he knows he always gets tons of treats when I do that). I think there was one other occasion when the foot was really painful and he growled at us for touching it. I honestly can't remember what it was, maybe after one of hte times it was hulled? But it passed very quickly.

Hi GreyTalk forum, I'm hoping to get some advice/support for some issues we're having with our hound. We adopted our grey a couple of years ago. It was the easiest adoption ever -- he never gave us any problems. ...at first. Our life with him has been the opposite trajectory from what I would have expected, in that as he's been with us longer he's shown more behavioral problems. We're working with a trainer who I think is quite good. But there have been some setbacks recently that are a little discouraging. Recently the issues have centered on getting him out to walk. He has an extremely persistent, extremely painful corn so we think a lot of his issues stem from pain. We've consulted with multiple vets about this and no one can find anything else wrong with him, so it is presumably all because of the corn. He often refuses to get up to go out and growls or snaps if we try to make him. We're both working with a qualified trainer/behaviorist and giving him galliprant for pain, hoping we can solve this problem. Yesterday we took him for laser surgery for his corn, and afterwards, when the drugs were wearing off, my husband tried to get his harness off (after getting his boot off, which probably hurt him even though my husband was trying to be careful) and our hound bit him. It's probably from pain and the surgery drugs. But I'm feeling very stressed out about this situation. I'm posting here in the hopes that someone here might have some words of encouragement/hope that we can make these issues get better. We recently had a kid. Like I said, we're working with a qualified trainer/behaviorist to keep everyone safe. So far our dog seems fine with the kid, and we've taken some steps to try to keep things that way and have begun planning more steps (like giving the hound a new space with a better escape path, figuring out where to put up gates, etc.). But ... it's stressful. We love our dog and our kid both. We are taking all the steps we can think of to try to make things good for both of them. And we want to help our dog's pain. We remember how sweet he was before his corn developed. I know this probably happened because of the surgery and pain. But frankly it's scary and I could use some hope right now. Thanks all in advance.