cococabana

Thanks so much for all the replies and tips, everyone! I usually use a grinder to keep my girl's nails as short as I can but I think they could be a little shorter. Will bring her to the groomer before we move in. We also chose new laminate wood flooring with a little more texture than what's currently there. Seems like runners and yoga mats are the way to go to help build her confidence! Funnily enough, she never had a problem with wooden floors until she slipped on some very shiny laminate wood in my parents' house!

Hi all! My partner and I just bought our first house. Our current rented house is fully carpeted. In the new house, we hope to put down laminate wood flooring as the carpet collects lots of dust and isn't great for my partner's asthma. We've brought our grey to the new house and it took her a while to begin walking on the wooden floors. We just encouraged her and let her figure it out. Now she walks on the floors but each step is very careful and she still seems a bit nervous. Has anyone made the switch from carpet to wooden flooring and encountered the same issue? Did your grey eventually adapt? We plan to put down some rugs once we move in so hopefully that helps too.

They're the worst. They're actually banned here but the police don't really do anything about it. We'll keep going with the baby steps

Hi folks! Hoping someone who's been through similar might have some advice. We've had our 3 year old ex-racer for around 7 months now. Walks were the highlight of her day and she loved going to dog friendly pubs and cafes. Overall she was super confident outside and in new places. For the whole month of October, there were fireworks for Halloween. These spooked her and she began refusing to go out for walks most of the time -- we'd sometimes go if she felt like it. But for the last 2 weeks, she's refusing to go past our driveway even though there are no fireworks anymore. We've booked 3 sessions with a behaviourist starting next week. Until then, we've been driving to the local park for short walks and using treats to create positive association, she eventually relaxes a little while walking but noises that never scared her before trigger her. Xanax worked for one day and then didn't seem to agree with her after that. It's so upsetting to see her like this, it's like she's a different dog. We worry that it might not be possible to get her back to her old, confident self.

All of the advice so far has been great and Coco has been a lot better. We have a session booked with a trainer who specializes in helping greyhounds adjust to home life so hoping that will help too! Will update with any advice she gives. Remaining relaxed and not changing my behaviour when passing other dogs has helped -- didn't even realize I was subconsciously tightening the lead or getting anxious. She's also been getting used to being around my boyfriend's parents' retriever and terrier. She seems to just tolerate them for now but that's all we really want as long she's relaxed

Hi all! We've had our girl Coco for 4 months now. She's 3 years old and an ex-racer. She's settling in well - super affectionate, has started playing with toys and air snapping/barking when she wants to play, coat is healthier etc. One thing we've noticed over the last few weeks is when we're out on walks with her and other dogs are either passing or approaching to say hi, she growls at them and sometimes lunges and barks. Big dogs or small dogs, it doesn't matter She did this to a Pitbull puppy today and we're a little worried it's becoming a habit. She didn't act like this up until now, maybe 1 in 5 dogs she might have reacted to with a little growl but now it feels like real aggression at most dogs. Is this to do with mood or could this become a permanent behaviour? We were going to wait until 6 months in until we took her to some training classes but I wonder if we should do it now? She's a very sweet dog otherwise and absolutely adores people.

Haha we're still finding specks of blood around the place from weeks ago! She's doing well and the foam noodle advice was great and seems to be working!

@racindog @teri_d Thanks so much for your help! Turns out it got infected and she will need to get it amputated again tomorrow! Thankfully no infection in the bloodstream. So we're off to get foam rollers and anything else we can experiment with.

Hi everyone! We've had quite an ordeal with my girl's tail since we adopted her a month ago. When she arrived, she had a wound on the end of her tail where a door was accidentally closed on it. The vet bandaged it but it just wasn't healing so he amputated the tip. It's been almost a week. She had a check up a few days ago and the vet said it looked okay but wasn't dry enough for his liking. To be safe he gave us antibiotics to prevent and infection and put on a fresh bandage. We muzzle her at night to prevent her from going at the bandage but we woke up this morning and saw a good bit of dry blood soaked into the bandage. She seems to be pushing at it with her muzzle causing it to bleed, I imagine it's getting itchy at this stage. We're going to the vet tomorrow to get it checked out. Is there any way of preventing her from getting at the bandage? The cone doesn't seem to work as her tail is long enough to get into it. With her initial wound before amputation, the vet put a plastic syringe over it to protect it but it seemed very tight and caused swelling.

I've had Coco for about a month now and she's well settled. One really interesting and funny behaviour I've noticed is that she's learned to be completely fine with being left alone in her crate for 3-4 hours when I leave the house -- no whining, she just snoozes the whole time. But if I decide to go upstairs to record some music or get some chores done and I can't have her in the room with me, she cries like a baby! She really understands the difference between "Oh my humans have left the house for a while but they'll be back" and "How DARE my human have fun in a different room without me!". When I finish recording and let her come up to the room, she just sleeps -- exactly the way she would if she were downstairs alone! I find it so interesting how much they adore human company and how she only experiences separation anxiety when she knows I'm in the house.

This is a good idea - we were planning on ordering a longer leash to give her more breathing room in the park anyway.

I think the leash walking could be what's making her shy about peeing. We don't have an enclosed garden so we have to leash walk and she was definitely used to going in a turnout run. She also seems to be on high alert outside at night, maybe because she hears foxes or something, so that could be putting her off because she does always go in the morning. I think she will catch on eventually, just feel bad leaving her in the crate overnight. Unfortunately our bedroom is too small for the crate.

Yeah, we bring her for a short walk and then to the grassy patch near the house.

Good to know once a day poops are normal! Yes, I take her for a short walk, she never pees on the walk and then I bring her to a grassy patch opposite my house where she usually poops without encouragement and where she pees in the morning. Maybe there's something about night time that doesn't make her feel as safe to relieve herself.

Hi all! My partner and I adopted a 3 year old ex-racer a week ago. She is very sweet and settling well, the only issue we're working on is getting her toilet trained. She poops outside no problem but when it comes to peeing, she's very fussy. She had an accident on the carpet of our rented home a few days in. Since then I've brought her out very regularly to give her more chances to pee, particularly before bed time and have followed advice I read here. The rare time she goes at night - I give her praise, treats, and let her sleep with us. But most of the time she just won't go, no matter how long I stay out with her. She pees once a day at the moment, and there's quite a lot of it so she must be holding it. If she doesn't go, we crate her downstairs to prevent any more accidents on the carpet. She doesn't like being crated when she knows we're just upstairs (she loves her crate otherwise) and we would prefer her to sleep with us but I'm not sure what else we can do but wait for her to learn. I know some people say you just have to stay out until they go but I've been out until 2am some nights and it's not like I can force her to pee. Do I just continue like this and give her time?