Kathy02

When we initially adopted Zula in August, we were on a "walk, then food" type of morning schedule. The problem is, Zula isn't a morning dog. Eventually, we realized that it made more sense (especially with the later sunrises in the winter) to swap things around, so now we feed first, and then take her out about half an hour after she's done eating. As others have said, you'll figure out what works best for you and your new hound! As for poops, sometimes we get two poops per walk, sometimes it's just one. If it's two, they're generally not more than ten minutes apart. I don't think you need to be waiting hours for a second poop!

Zula's schedule (it's on the early side due to work schedules; we stick to it even on weekends for consistency): 6:00am Wake up/breakfast, then snoozing 7:00am Potty/morning walk (30 min) 7:30am Snooze until we (the humans) have to go to work 8:30am Kong, then snoozing in various positions throughout the day 3:30pm Playtime/potty/afternoon walk (45 min) 4:30pm Snoozing until dinner 6:00pm Dinner, then snoozing 7:00pm Teeth-brushing and dental chew, then snoozing again 9:30pm Last out; usually just a pee

Also feel your pain! We have two 16x20in bathmats under Zula's water bowl, which absorb most of the splashback from drinking. We still have to deal with the spillage that comes when she starts walking away with a bunch of water still in her mouth, so we just keep a mop handy nearby. I've lost track of the number of times we've walked by the area and ended up with wet socks though!

We have one of these self-warming blankets that we leave out. It basically reflects body heat; when it's cold at night, Zula will get on and off the blanket as she gets too cold/hot. As others have said, putting some clothing on your hound may work as well!

Just as an FYI: we were told in our obedience class that for "leave it" we shouldn't feed the treat that we were telling our grey to leave, and to instead feed her a different treat (same type of treat, just a physically different treat than the one she was eyeing up). This way she doesn't learn that ignoring a treat initially means she'll get it in a couple seconds. Imagine she's trying to get something that she can't have; just because she ignores it for a while doesn't mean that it'll be ok for her to go for it after that! The way you're currently training it is more akin to a "wait" command. Still a valuable command to teach, but there is some differentiation!

We found this Youtube video super helpful in teaching Zula to sit. (Fair warning, it does involve physically maneuvering your hound into position.) Once we used her trick a couple times, Zula would sit just with sliding our hand down her spine, and now she'll sit on command (at least, on carpet/rugs). Once she could sit, we actually found down pretty easy to teach, just by moving a treat towards the floor when she was in a sitting position.

We were told by our adoption agency to keep our dog crated for most of the day for the first week or so, and to feed meals exclusively in the crate, to establish the crate as a good and safe space. They also suggested that we keep the crate in an area where we spent more time at first, so that the dog would be able to be near us even while she was in the crate in the first couple of weeks. We have since moved it (maybe a month into adoption) to an area that's more out of the way. Are you putting her in that room/in the crate only when you leave her (either leaving the house or at bedtime)? Then she might be associating that room with your absence, which is probably why she's resisting going in. It might be useful to have her spend some time in there while you're still around, so that you're not creating that association. Same goes for playing music or leaving the TV on.

Those long grassy bushes are what Zula trances in too! One of them was trimmed back a bunch a couple weeks ago, and she still sometimes goes up to it and tries (spectacularly unsuccessfully) to trance.

First time greyhound parent here! I'd done a ton of research and reading when we first decided to adopt a greyhound, and I never read anything about trancing (aka weed walking or ghost walking). We've had Zula for just about two months now, and there are a couple different bushes on our usual walking routes where she loves to trance. The first time we saw it, we thought she had gone into prey mode! Now it's just an amusing stop during our walks. Does anyone know how common this is among greyhounds? It seems like greyhounds are one of the breeds where trancing is more common, but I was surprised that I'd never heard about it until I looked it up.

I haven't dealt with this issue myself, but I've read suggestions that you start getting up a little earlier than he does and starting the day before he has a chance to start getting restless and whining/barking. You can gradually push back the time you get up by a couple minutes a day until you've gotten to whatever time you'd like.

We have a couple of the squeaky toys that are only audible to dogs. TrustyPup and HearDoggy both make them, and our grey loves them both. The TrustyPup platypus toy was the first toy she ever resource-guarded (though we've since worked on that). You can buy the TrustyPup ones at Target, and the HearDoggy ones either on Chewy or Amazon. For both kinds, when they're squeaked it just sounds like a puff of air to human ears. If you're open to some less obnoxious squeakers, Outward Hound has a Fattiez line that makes a lower-pitched grunting instead of squeaking. I believe there are other companies/lines that have more of the lower-pitched noises too.