GreytNut

I think the group will be as surprised as I was. I've gotten 2 dogs of my own through that program, both of whom were beautifully trained. It could be that 3greytjoys' theory that he's thrown by the change in people and environment is the cause, or it could be that the inmate he was with just didn't teach him. If the latter is the case, they need to know so it can be addressed. It's almost 900 miles round trip to take him back so that's not happening. I am game to teach him, I just wasn't sure how best to go about it. He's a smart boy and eager to please, with no physical issues that I am aware of, so I think we can pull it off. I won't push him to learn faster than he's comfortable with... whatever he learns before he finds his forever home is whatever he learns. We'll just do our best. He turned a corner today... this afternoon he tried to climb into my lap. When he realized he wouldn't fit (85 lbs.) he settled for hiding his head in my armpit. If he keeps THAT up he might not be going anywhere.

Yep, the adopters will expect it. Jasper went through a cell dog program where he was supposed to learn all of these things. It's one of the ways the group makes the hounds more attractive to potential adopters - they come knowing basic obedience commands. The inmates benefit by learning how to train a dog. I have no clue what happened in this case. The artificial dog bed "hill" sounds like a great idea. Jasper is still a little protective of his personal space so I'm not sure hug and tuck is the best option for him. Leashing him to keep him from bounding the stairs should work well. I'll keep the clicker and a few treats on me at all times so I can catch him lying down. He does that a lot so it should be pretty easy.

Foster boy Jasper arrived knowing none of his basic commands (sit, down and stay). This came as a big surprise because he went through a program where he was supposed to have been taught at least that top 3. He's also having trouble with stairs, which he was supposed to have been taught. He takes short staircases by leaping the entire thing and freezes up on steep staircases. I've encouraged Riley to go up and down to show Jasper how it's done. I've also been moving each his paws one at a time for him and placing them on the steps to get him up. When we get to the last few steps he leaps them. Any adopter will expect that he has learned these things. He could also be spoken for at any time so we've got to work fast. He is smart and well-behaved. He understood from the get-go that he wasn't supposed to pee in the house and never had an accident. He learned how to get into the car and how to use the dog door just by watching Riley do it. He isn't terribly food-motivated though. All of my previous hounds have either come preprogrammed with the basics, or have learned stairs by watching their friends, or I haven't felt the need to teach certain commands (Raven never really needed to sit so I never taught her). What is the best way to teach Jasper? FWIW, we are on totally flat prairie so there aren't a lot of hills to teach "sit" on, which is how I would have done it. I bought a clicker so we do have that to work with.

Hardware store. You can find one that's just the right size and just the right style.

Frontline Plus is very widely used on greyhounds with a wide margin of safety (and all of mine have used it with no ill effects). For a flea problem though, I have found that Advantage works very, very well (more so than Frontline) and also has a wide margin of safety. If you have ticks too Frontline might be the better bet, but if what you want is just a bunch of dead fleas I'd go with Advantage. A quick call to your vet should help you decide if the product you want to use is safe for your dog, since she has medical issues.

We also have a broken greyhound. Riley cannot roach to save his life. Every once in a blue moon he will attempt it, but he immediately tips over and gives up. You should buy a lottery ticket. What are the odds of getting two in a row?

It's a multi-pronged approach. Correct when she's chewing something inappropriate and redirect her to something appropriate instead. Try to keep tempting stuff out of her reach so she's not set up to fail. Use bitter apple on stuff you can't put out of reach. Muzzle or crate when you can't directly supervise. She's still got a lot of puppy in her at this stage so it's not unusual behavior. Good luck!

Upon perusal of the chew treat selection at PetSmart yesterday, I didn't find any from China. That was good. I did, however, see a lot from India, Columbia, Argentina and IIRC also Thailand. While none of those countries have the bad rep that China does, they also aren't known for strict controls. I also don't see how it's possible for a company to keep a close eye on the quality of its product when the manufacturing process occurs so far away and out of its direct supervision. Unless they made in the US or Canada I pass them all by. I couldn't find any that were, so no treats for Riley.

Riley learned right away by watching my other hounds get in. The first time we put him in the car he had to be lifted, but the second time he looked at me like "I've got this" and hopped in after the others. He does need some help occasionally when his hips are hurting, but when he's feeling good he bounds into the back of the car. So if you have another dog--or can borrow one--who already knows the drill, it's often as simple as "Monkey see, monkey do." This is also useful for teaching the use of a dog door or stairs, BTW.

DH does the one arm around the chest, one arm under the butt lift. I am not big enough or strong enough, so Riley and I have worked out a deal. He stands up and puts his front end into the car, and I come along behind him and push his butt end up. Tiny did the same thing. Sometimes he will jump in on his own, but when his hips are bugging him he just needs the extra boost.

Riley had big time SA for the first few weeks that he was home. I couldn't even go to the mailbox without him losing his mind and howling as if his heart was breaking. He discovered that he could stand in the garage to howl, and then his voice would echo off the cement floor so that it was like shouting into a megaphone and the whole WORLD could hear him. Oy vey. I started with leaving the house for just a couple of seconds, standing on the porch and then coming back in. Then down to the bottom of the porch steps and back in. Then to the mailbox and back in. Real baby steps. The big thing I needed to teach him was that whenever I leave, I come back. I always come back. The other huge help was completely ignoring him for 10 to 15 minutes before leaving. No eye contact, no talking to him. No fuss when leaving, just out the door I went. I did the same thing when I returned. I did not acknowledge him for 10 to 15 minutes after returning (it can be reeeeally hard to ignore the happy dance, but it was necessary). The object of this was to make my comings and goings completely boring and a non-event. And I still do it to this day with Riley, because whenever I start loosening up on it he starts backsliding. Other than that, time and patience. It took about 2 weeks for major improvement, and about a month for pretty much complete resolution.

Due to the fatty content of the pig ears--though we didn't have any problems--I eventually switched from those to a mix of CET chews from the vet's office, Dentastix, frozen chicken feet and frozen turkey necks. The turkey necks do the best job of keeping teeth clean. The others are fed more for chewing enjoyment. I was reluctant about the CET chews because rawhide treats can cause blockages, but the vet told me they are more digestible than ordinary rawhides and pose much less of a hazard. Riley gets one of those daily. The Dentastix are given as an after-dinner treat, the chicken feet are an occasional special treat and the turkey necks are given two days every week as a meal replacement. Riley has gorgeous teeth and REALLY strong jaws.

I've fed them as treats before with no problems. They really liked them. Just make sure to check the label to see where they were made. I gave them up to a few times a week. The only problem I can see is if your dog has issues with eating fatty foods. Pig ears do have a fair bit of fat in them.

That sounds like a reaction to pain. I suspect he hit a sore spot. Many dogs will snap reflexively at something that hurts them (and that has nothing to do with viciousness). A serious bite would leave a heck of a lot more than a puncture. My first stop would be the vet's office to see if they can figure out what hurts. Another possibility she felt overwhelmed and was telling him to back off. Was she licking her lips or yawning a lot? Those are signals that she may have been uncomfortable with what was going on. Since they aren't as obvious as a growl a lot of people miss them. Again, it doesn't sound like a vicious attack. It sounds like she was saying, "Ouch, that hurts! Stop it!" or "Hey, I'm overwhelmed! Stop it!" If she'd really meant to inflict harm she could have ripped him open, and she didn't do anything of the sort.

I'm glad she's starting to come around! Don't know if this will work for you, but it did for us.... Raven came to us very shy, borderline spooky. She took to me OK but at first she was terrified of DH. Men just scared the poo out of her. So we tried bribery, and it worked wonders. DH brought her a Super Awesome Toy which she loved. He also showered her with treats. It worked, almost a little too well. She became a total daddy's girl. So see if bribery will help Greycie come out of her shell. If you can find out what she likes, you might be able to use that to your advantage.

That's a tough situation. We never allow the cats out with Riley unless it's under strict supervision. He's like your Zoe in that he's cat correctable, but not truly trustworthy. We are continuing to train him and he's gotten much better, but I still will probably never completely trust him. The cats have the run of a large bedroom and all of their food, litter and toys are in there. They spend most of the day lounging on the bed or in the window. They come out when someone can closely watch. We close the dog door, Riley goes to his bed, and then the kitties come out. If we have to leave the room for any reason the cats get put away. In your case it sounds like even supervised interaction is out of the question. You will have to carefully think about how to keep your kitties completely separated from the dogs with no common areas, and consider safeguards to keep it that way (i.e., self-closing doors so someone can't forget to close one, an extra door between the cat area and the dog area that functions like an airlock, whatever works for your setup). If you can't be certain that your cats will never cross paths with your hounds, it's probably best to rehome the hounds. Your cats deserve to be safe, your dogs deserve not to be constantly tempted with prey they cannot have, and you deserve to be able to relax in your own home.

This sounds like it will be as much of a retraining of the human as a retraining of the dog.

Frozen here, straight out of the freezer. They last longer and oh boy, does he love his meatsicles.

Do you use the same tone of voice to give commands that you do to call, or to praise? I might have been taught old school methods, but I always thought that you use a happy sing-song voice to call your dog to you (which I do, and for the same reason you do, and to excellent effect) and also to praise. But you use a no-nonsense tone to give a command, i.e. go to your bed. If you don't get a response you use a sharp tone to get your dog's attention. Responding to your command gets praise (in the sing-song voice) and not responding gets correction i.e., getting marched off to bed. I'm certainly not advocating that the OP yell and snarl at her dog, but I would think that using the same tone to command that you do to call or praise would confuse a dog. As an experiment to see if tone really does matter I tried getting Riley to sit in the same sing-song tone I use to call / praise him. Crickets chirped. Tried it again. Nope. Tried asking "Sit?" as if it were a question. No go. Told him to sit in the usual command voice. He sat. Obviously what you're doing works very well for your hounds because you've done a lot of advanced training with them, but Riley just gave me a blank stare like I was speaking in Swahili. So now I'm confused.

Yes, absolutely, but it's the other way around. I tend to be the disciplinarian and DH is very lax with him. Then he wonders why Riley listens when I tell him to do something, but just stands there when he tells him to so the same thing. I think the difference is tone of voice and intention. If you tell your dog to do something in a voice that says, "You will do this thing and I expect nothing else" and if there are immediate consequences for not doing this thing, i.e. getting grabbed by the collar, frog-marched off to bed and told very sternly to lie down, your dog will listen. If you tell him to do something in a voice that says, "You will do this thing but only if you feel like it, and I hope I don't sound too bossy," your dog will not listen to you. It is important that YOU follow through, not your BF. Otherwise you're reinforcing the idea that he doesn't have to listen to you, he only has to listen to your BF. DH struggles with it too. I know he finds it frustrating. He just needs to find the Voice of Authority. He'll get there with practice, and so will you. ETA: I'm assuming you are clearly asking things of your dog that he already knows the commands for, and that he's willfully choosing to disobey rather than simply not understanding what you want from him.

I just recently found them too. Their prices on Dasuquin are the best I've seen anywhere. They have a very nice selection of toys too.

My Pet Carnivore has whole prey rabbits, rabbit heads and ground whole rabbit. We got Riley a whole frozen rabbit with our order today and he's going to go ape for it. We get our turkey necks and chicken feet from them too. They do ship. http://mypetcarnivore.com ETA: My Pet Carnivore does not use denaturants, if that is of concern to you.

Dasuquin Large Dog with MSM. Also wild Alaskan salmon oil capsules from Sam's Club and ProDen Plaqueoff. Riley has bad hips and the Dasquin with MSM seems to help a lot with the stiffness. The salmon oil keeps his coat soft and dandruff-free, and the Plaqueoff (in conjunction with regular chewies and turkey necks) keeps the plaque on his teeth to a minimum. It also makes it so that any plaque that does form on his canines is very soft and easily scrapes off with a fingernail.

Sometimes the chewed edges of a Nylabone do get a bit sharp. I would also be concerned about the possibility of pieces being swallowed, if it is one of the durable non-digestible chews. When I worked for a vet the most difficult surgery I saw was a Schipperke with a blockage from the end of a Nylabone. It wasn't that it was so difficult to remove in theory, but it practice it was so slippery that the vet couldn't get a grip on it. She tried and tried and was about to close the dog up and call it a failure when it finally came out. After that I threw all of our dogs' Nylabone chew bones in the garbage. A more digestible treat like a bully stick would probably be a better bet. Easier on the mouth and less of a hazard too.

Sounds like you got a really easy first dog. FWIW most of the greyhounds I've had have been very easy to housetrain and quick to learn the rules. A couple of them presented unique challenges, such as extreme shyness or separation anxiety, but nothing that I didn't learn to handle. They have all been much mellower and easy to work with than other breeds of dog I have had. Your hound may change some as he becomes more comfortable in his new home and his personality blossoms, but I doubt you'll experience a rock-your-world behavioral change. Congrats!