greytdaddy

We were walking our 2 greys at a park and some woman came up to us said "Those are the 2 ugliest dogs I've ever seen." My response was "Have you looked in a mirror lately?" Her eyes got big and she was speechless.

Why is it that I can be in the kitchen downstairs and call the greys who are upstairs and there is no response from them? But unwrap a slice of cheese and they fly down in the blink of an eye!

We attended the Great Lakes Greyhound Gatherings when they were up and running. We met Connie the first year we attended and we knew she was a special person. Always smiling and having an outgoing personality with everyone. Never a dull moment when Connie was close by. She was a good friend of the greys. Cammie, we offer our sympathy on the loss of your mother. We are pretty sure she stopped by the Rainbow Bridge, picked up a bunch of hounds, and crossed the bridge with them. We will miss her. Gary & Connie Holder Harrisburg, NC

Have you tried a thundercoat? They are available in many pet stores and Sam's Club. They do not work with all greys, but are effective on some. The trick is to cinch the band pretty tightly. That way the feel cuddled and secure. I think they go for around $30 to $40. We have fostered many spooks over the years and the coats seem to work well with most of them. Good Luck with your thunderphobic grey. Gary

Darlene, We are so very sorry to hear about Spy. We both know how much you love him and we think he knows it too. You provided a loving home for him along with all the love he needed. Please let us know if you need anything. We will be there. He's not gone, he's just gone ahead. You will see him again one day. Gary & Connie P.S. Give some extra love and hugs to your other 3 babies who will also be missing Spy. Love and prayers from Connie & Gary and the Holder Hounds.

Many of you will recall the posting about Super Spooky Eve posted in July by her adoption group It’s A Grey Area in Pearl River Louisiana. They were having some challenges in finding just the right family to adopt her and looking for a perfect match for this little Sweetheart. Because of her special needs and quirks she was also causing some chaos at the kennels and foster homes and not progressing happily. We are happy to say we are the proud new parents of Eve and it’s turning out to be a match made in heaven, with just a few little speed bumps along the way. Although we work as volunteers for Team Greyhound in our local area and were not looking to adopt at all…we love working with the shy, spooky furbabies best and when DH saw her story we fell in love with her. We then began sending e-mails, references, and making extensive phone calls to see if both her adoption group and we could determine if we were the right forever family for Eve. Once everyone had determined that we were a greyt match, Leslie and Britney graciously agreed to hold Eve for us until we could get down to them in August. Our son and his fiancé’ were getting married August 1, 2010 with a friends and family honeymoon cruise to the Bahamas immediately following the ceremony. We didn’t want to pick her up before the wedding and then have to immediately put her with a dogsitter. We thought this would probably confuse her even more. After the cruise, we headed to Pearl River, LA and picked up Eve on August, 10th, so she just celebrated her one month official “Gotcha” date with us. Today is baby Eve’s 2 year old birthday. We have been celebrating with her birthday feast consisting of Iams and Merricks followed through out the day with Liver Brownie Bites, Peanut Butter Biscuits, Rawhides, and Apple Cinnamon Biscuits. Eve has new toys, a fancy gold and crystal collar, a new muzzle, a new lead with her name on it, and a beautiful new coat on order from Gini’s Grehound Coats. We will be ordering a winter sweater/jammies for her from Gini’s too. Eve’s Progress Reports: We know from our experiences with spooky hounds that there would be challenges, but we were up for it. We love to watch the amazing progress as they slowly but surely begin to blossom and their true personalities begin to emerge. The ride home: Eve had to be picked up and laid into the van on her fluffy bed beside lots of new toys as she was too scared to jump into the minivan on her own. She settled in quietly and had up close and personal time with Mama in the back. We held off bathrooming as long as possible because we knew it was going to be stressful and gave it our first shot after about 3-4 hours. Knowing how lightning-quick a truly spooked Greyhound can slip any martingale and/or harness no matter how well they are fitted because they can rival any Yoga Masters contortions in an effort to escape if panicked, we weren’t taking any chances. She had her new martingale (lime green with pink flamingos on it from the adoption group), her adoption tags, a harness, her new ID tags with home and cell numbers on it, and 2 leads on her at each bathroom stop. Both of us took turns with her at each stop. When she was too spooked to potty at the 1st place, we decided to hand over the leads from DH to DW when Eve perceived the “trade off” as us ganging up on her and instantly had a combo “panic poo and pee”. Once that was over she greytfully leaped back into the minivan as she was now beginning to view it as her “safe haven”. She was really exhausted after all the new and frightening experiences so she began dozing while sitting up but refused to lay over even while nodding off. We finally made it to the first hotel after one other excruciatingly long bathroom stop. As with most spooks, everything scares them and freaks them out especially when you are trying to bathroom them on a lead for probably the first time ever. At the hotel bathrooming; all conditions must be met in Eve’s eyes before she will bathroom. There can be no lights, no moving cars, no airplanes, no people talking, no doors slamming, leaves rustling under foot, no flopping sounds, and no sudden movements. Then she must be taken to the farthest, most remote, darkest areas and given about 1 hour before conditions were just right for her last bathroom before lights out. Once in the hotel she promptly commandeered one of the beds and took up her usual position of sprawling full length across the pillows up against the headboard and won’t budge. Then we set up her “Cabana” pop-up tent crate from “It’s A Breeze”, Elwood, IN and put a fluffy bed in it, and let her have the security of a “den” for the night. This is a great way to go if you don’t want to haul a traditional crate, but want them to feel like they have a “safe zone” while traveling. Its all canvas mesh knit and oversize but takes up less than half the space of a crate. The second day on the road was pretty much a repeat except she finally relaxed enough in the car to lie over and really sleep. She wouldn’t accept any treats from our hand no matter how yummy until she discovered the combo packs of string cheese-mozzarella and cheddar. For Eve….everything is better with cheese and she took it quite eagerly. When we finally arrived home, she seemed to “know” her back yard. Although we still kept her on a long training lead the first week in the back yard due to all the strange sounds, she was much more relaxed and starting to settle in. We kept the training lead the first week until we knew she wouldn’t jump the 4 foot fence while getting used to the new digs. We live on a “fire lane” street so we have frequent fire trucks and ambulances which are very loud and scary. Her kennel in Louisiana was fairly secluded and quiet and woodsy. We live on a busy corner lot 2 blocks from a school, with church bells, bikers, joggers, ice cream trucks, remote control cars, skateboards, garbage trucks, noisy kids, etc, so there is a lot for her to adjust to. Once we bought our other two hounds (Lannie and Pearl) home from their houndsitters, she became comfortable with the 3 dog pack concept and is taking cues from them. She learned to fly up the stairs right away. Coming down however was another story. She began to view the Master Bedroom and Guest bedroom as her newest and cushiest safe havens upstairs and refused to ever come down. The first 2 weeks we had to harness her up and lead her down 2 steps at a time as she braced all four legs out like a donkey. She was also afraid of her own reflection in the door mirror at the bottom of the steps, so it had to be covered the first two weeks. She now views the living room as a cushy, fun place to hang out with treats and toys. She can give Tom Cruise’s couch jumping shenanigans a run for the money as she bounces on it frequently. She still doesn’t come to us yet when we call her independently, but will come up for “group treats” in the pack of 3. She enjoys full body massages and tummy rubs from Mama and neck and ear massages from Daddy. She will shyly creep up to Mama and stand quietly until she gets the massage, but keeps her head sideways until Mama stops. Then she’ll turn her head towards Moma until the massage is resumed. This is a huge improvement from the first week when she, as Lesley put it so succinctly “Eve viewed everyone with the terror of facing an ax murderer”. She is progressing nicely and even quicker in the house and bonding with us than we had hoped for. The public events are going to take considerably longer, but we’re patient and taking it all in stride at a pace that’s comfortable for all. We have had her to 3 different walking parks trying to socialize a little each week. These are still pretty terrifying for her especially when confronted with bikers, or joggers or any sudden movements. We are gently and matter of factly and firmly encouraging her to allow people to approach her and interact with her. She is still terrified, but is learning that “no matter what”, Mama and Daddy have her back and it’s really all “OK”. We took her to the Indy GPA event and she was scared, but did better than we anticipated. We think the biggest part of her challenges of having the more dominant dogs at the kennel sort of gang up on her stem from 2 factors that we are working on and is easier with only 3 dogs than a whole kennel of a variety of personalities. They perceived her as weak and fearful and therefore an easy target because of her extreme anxiety with people. However, with the dogs themselves she is very brash and rambunctious, excitable, and full of puppy exuberance. She has no clue about the “pecking order” of an established pack and needs instruction from humans and spook members both on how to fit in and play nicely without upsetting the applecart so to speak. We’re working on this daily and feel 3 is her perfect pack size. She is a delicate and dainty 55 lb petite fawn beauty, but when she runs into you or another hound it’s like being hit by a Mack truck or stomped on by an elephant. Daddy does the 5:00AM feeding then brings them back to bed with Mama. Eve sleeps quietly all snuggled in her blankies till about 9:00AM when Mama says “where’s my wakeup girls?” or Eve decides it’s time Mama gets up so she bounces up & down off the bed like a kangaroo on a trampoline and tries to zip around the small bedroom like she’s at the Indy 500. We decided to keep her name as Eve, although had we seen her full body first, we may have been tempted to name her “Sneakers” as she sports 4 white paws (not socks) which looks like she’s wearing sneakers. We may have also considered the name “Willow” because she is so willowy and elegant, but we now know she will be our “Forever Eve” or little Eva the Deva and Eve-alicious little treasure. Happy Anniversary and Happy Birthday Eve! Have some pictures but don’t know how to post them. Also lost our camera 2 weeks ago, so it may be awhile till we get a new camera. Greytmama (Connie) & Greytdaddy (Gary)

I would like to add one thing to this if I may. While the hounds and cats may get along in the house, outside may be a different matter. Sometimes it seems that once outside, all the rules are tossed out and anything goes as far as the grey interacting with the cat. Not sure why this is, but it sometime happens. Good luck with your training. Gary

If you find my old thread,,I think it was there,,that someone posted that the guru of Osteo,,Dr Cuoto,,stated in all his years he has only seen osteo start in toes twice, that it is indeed very rare. A couple of other posters told me that it could of course be another cancer which is why I did the fine needle aspirate. as one poster told me, she would not remove a toe without finding out why. As I told you we found nothing on the test and now, a couple of weeks later the lump is getting smaller and the pinkness that was ther eis all but gone. I hope you get the same type of results. Our Lissa was one of the two hounds Dr. Couto was referring to. We ended up having her toe amputated and she had no more problems in that area. Dr. Couto told us that while osteo starting in the toe is very, very rare, the chance of osteo crossing a joint is even more rare. Lissa had no problems whatsoever regarding the amputation. She lived 2 more years and crossed to the bridge due to problems with degenerative back end disease (not sure of the proper title). We miss Lissa so much, as does her vacation mom, Darlene.

greytdecals said "Dr. Couto, Oncologist at OSU Vet Clinic, said that in all of his career he has only seen bone cancer twice in the metatarsals out of all of the greyhounds he has treated for bone cancer(which we all know is way too many)....one of those is our Maggie-Mae." Our girl Lissa was the second one that Dr. Couto was talking about. He told us at the time that cancer in the toe was extremely rare. He knew of only one grey that had ever had it. We had Lissa's cancerous toe amputated and she did fine with one less toe. Lissa crossed over, but is was not due to cancer. She lived a couple more years after the amputation. We are sending prayers that all will be well with your hound. Gary & Connie Holder

Darlene, We know how hard it has been and how agonizing it is to make this decision. We also know that you have to do what is right in your heart for Reggie. Connie wants to know if you would like her to come over tomorrow afternoon to do some healing touch and crystal energy work to help clear his energy fields, aleviate some of the pain, and help prepare him for his crossing to the bridge. We were planning on leaving around 5 or 6 Saturday morning for Wisconsin. However, if you are able to get him an appointment first thing Saturday morning, Connie can transport you and Reggie in our bigger van so it is easier to get him in and out without hurting his leg. We already have comfy beds set up in the back for him. We really don't want you going through this by yourself, especially since you have always been there for us and our hounds. Give us a call later tonight or tomorrow and let us know. Love and light, Connie & Gary

Sadly, we have 2 babies that crossed to the Bridge. Ladybug, who passed from a massive heart attack on January 26th, and Lissa who crossed on December 8th. Momma and Daddy miss you babies. We love you both! Connie & Gary Holder

Larry, we are so sorry to hear about Indy. We remember him well from the meet-n-greets and how well behaved he was. Run with the wind, Indy. Gary & Connie Holder

Nancy and Bob, We are so sorry to hear about your loss. Major was always so stunning when we would see you at various Greyhound events. He is in good hands with the rest of our dearly departed hounds at the bridge. They are waiting for us and we WILL see them again. Gary & Connie Cruiser's former fosters