GreytNut

I don't see why a down-stay shouldn't suffice just as well, if your hound finds sitting awkward. Some can do it, some can't. Riley does extended down-stays for each meal, anywhere from a minute to several minutes, and he's better-behaved as a result. I can leave the room and he will remain in the down-stay position until I release him to go eat. It's a great tool for stopping him from mobbing guests and not knocking over the person doing the feeding. I don't think he could manage an extended sit-stay though, and I wouldn't ask it of him.

I fed Authority for a while. The particular variety I was feeding didn't have wheat in it--Raven was violently allergic to wheat--but had beet pulp in it like Iams. We had firm poops. However, their coats got really dull and I had to feed quite a lot of it to maintain their weight. They just generally didn't look all that great. So it was not awful, and certainly economical, but I probably wouldn't feed it again.

I have 4-foot chain link and so far none of my hounds have tried to jump it but I've come up against other problems. I have found that loose neighborhood dogs can easily jump IN to my yard. The weather does a real number on chain link. The load of wind and snow has torn up the fence and it sags and has come loose in places and needs to be replaced after only 5 years. It has a smooth top rail, but the rail has bent under the pressure. Snow drifts easily bury it, meaning that after a snowstorm we have to leash walk because it's simple for them to just walk over a fence that height. When we replace the fence it will be 6-foot board on board, with a small gap between the boards so that wind can pass through (solid wood fences get blown down here).

Even my cat safe dogs have gone after outside cats (in one case, a cat that Argus was friendly with indoors - but outdoors he saw the same cat as prey). Cat safe indoors does not translate to cat safe outdoors. I agree that you should take your boy to the vet. Cat bites are really nasty and prone to getting infected in nothing flat.

You got some good suggestions above. It might be time to go back to Housetraining 101. Have you had Camo checked out by a vet to examine him for medical issues that might cause incontinence? This issue could be a matter of training and it could be physiological in nature. You might also consider another possibility. Does Camo seem otherwise happy? Does he get along with his companions? Is something in his environment or routine stressful to him? I ask because when we brought home our girl Fiona she fought constantly with our existing hound. She wasn't happy in our house and she exhibited some similar behaviors. She would go outside and do her business, but then come back in and pee in the house. Sometimes she would even catch my eye, then squat right in front of me and pee on the floor. She was sending a message that she was miserable. I contacted the adoption group for advice and they agreed. We returned her and she went to another home where she was the only spoiled dog. Her potty problems disappeared overnight. I am NOT suggesting that you return your boy. However, our hounds cannot speak so they have limited means with which to tell us that they are unhappy with a given situation. Peeing and pooping in the house, especially right in front of you, can be such a message. It can be self-perpetuating too. You are obviously frustrated and at the end of your rope (understandably) and he has to be picking up on that. It might be that his state of mind is a factor. A canine behaviorist might be able to help you figure out what it is and how to fix it. Your vet or your group will likely be able to refer you to a good one.

Now that Raven is gone Riley loves being an only dog. We had 2 for many years because Raven couldn't be an only and she kept outliving her companions. But Riley wants all the treats, all the attention, all the toys to himself. I suspect he'd be unhappy if he had to share again. It is also a lot less expensive with one hound and we can afford to spoil him rotten. But it really does depend on the personality of the individual.

There are plush toys with holes in them and smaller plush toys inside. The dog can pull the little ones out through the hole. Riley has one with squirrels in a tree trunk, but there are also birds in a tree and bees in a hive. If you're worried that she won't figure out that there are things inside for her to discover, you can make it easier by letting their tails stick out of the holes until she gets the hang of it. Amazon has them. They're made by Kyjen. There's Hide-A-Squirrel, Hide-A-Bee, etc. You can also get replacement critters to stuff into the toy.

I look at growling as doing us a favor. The dog is warning us that whatever we're doing is about to lead to serious hurt and giving us a chance to prevent it. The alternative is no warning at all and going straight to the bite.

I take a turnout muzzle with a poop cup and slather creamy peanut butter inside, then put it on Riley before going to work on his nails. It accomplishes 2 things. 1) He's so busy licking the peanut butter out of the cup that he doesn't care what I do with his nails and 2) If he does get snarly, he can't take a chunk out of me.

Sometimes they get a bit of runny poop at first, but we've never had any serious issues with it. Once he gets used to it you'll probably find that he has tiny crumbly poops afterward. Riley gets them twice a week in place of a regular meal - we were doing it once a week but his teeth look better when he gets them a little more often. I give them to him straight out of the freezer. He has to lie down on an oversized towel before he gets his turkey neck (he learned that really fast because every time he started to move it off the towel I took it back). He starts off licking it like a popsicle, but once he gets going he power chews through a large frozen turkey neck in about ten minutes. Then the towel goes into the washer. The vet says he's never seen a greyhound with such beautiful healthy teeth. We get our turkey necks online in 30-lb. boxes from My Pet Carnivore. We partially thaw them, then pry them apart and individually package them in gallon Ziploc bags and stash them in a dedicated basket in the chest freezer. It makes feeding time super easy.

Riley gulps treats of any kind. He never questions what they are and he never chews them. On the plus side, this makes him remarkably easy to pill. On the not so great side, he also gulps his Heartgard chews. I have heard that this reduces or completely negates the effectiveness of the medicine as it is not absorbed by the body if it isn't thoroughly chewed. I looked at the FAQ for Heartgard and they recommended "administering the medication in a manner that encourages the dog to chew." I have no idea what manner that would be. In the future we'll probably cut up his chew into little pieces before giving it to him. Anyone know the scoop on this?

Riley has a plush tree trunk with holes that has little squirrel stuffies with squeakers hidden inside. He has to root around in the holes to find the squirrels and pull them out. He enjoys it. I've seen similar toys with bees in a hive and birds in a tree. There are also toys called Egg Babies, which are plush animals such as a shark or platypus with a Velcro strip. Inside are stuffed eggs. The dog has to figure out how to get the eggs out of the toy.

Thank you! Just ordered some of that for Riley. He's coming off a course of antibiotics and he's had terrible diarrhea. Probiotics seem to be helping but they are slow to kick in and we still don't have totally firm poops yet. I suspect the L-glutamine will help to soothe his tummy. To the OP and to RMarie, I hope you find out what it ailing your pups. Have you tried adding human probiotics like Culturelle and/or plain lowfat or nonfat Greek yogurt to their food? If your vet gives it the green light, it might help. It's not a quick fix because the good bugs need time to build up their population.

Wire crates are much easier to escape from than the plastic Vari-Kennel types. Argus ripped the living daylights out of himself escaping from a wire crate when he first came home. Like you, we decided to try leaving him uncrated. He was good as gold. Not all hounds tolerate being crated. Some love crates. Riley tried to steal a crate from a visiting hound.... When we set it up he immediately crated himself and refused to come out. But he is fine loose in the house so he doesn't get crated. None of my other hounds have been good about being crated and they have all been trustworthy in the house so we didn't force the issue. If your hound has a talent for taking the muzzle off when unattended, you might try purchasing a muzzle keeper to help it stay on. Riley can take his muzzle off in a matter of seconds without a muzzle keeper.

Tiny did that. He would get overwhelmed and nit all over me. The breaking point came when he nitted a neighbor's son. Tiny meant no harm, but the neighbor saw this big dog putting teeth on his kid and his eyes nearly popped out of his head. For Tiny's own good, he had to quit putting his teeth on human skin. I got him to stop by yelping when he put his teeth on me, then turning my back on him and standing like a statue with my arms across my chest until he calmed down. As soon as he realized that nitting yielded him the opposite of the result he wanted (play and attention), he backed off. He decided to redirect his excitement by running to fetch a toy and squeaking it like crazy, which was harmless and pretty cute.

Argus used to get charley horses. They would wake him up in the night and he would scream bloody murder. Scared the heck out of us. He would get up and start limping. We would rub his leg for a few minutes to relax the charley horse and then he would go back to sleep. He did have nightmares after he was attacked by a loose dog. He would growl, whimper, cry and shiver in his sleep. But he only screamed when he got charley horses.

Dawn dishwashing detergent. Seriously. It works better than any dog shampoo I've ever tried. We use the plain purple stuff. The suggestion actually came from someone on GreyTalk who worked in a racing kennel where they used it to bathe their dogs. You wet the dog, squirt a line of Dawn from base of skull to base of tail and that's enough for the entire bath. Work it into the coat and rinse thoroughly. Done. It gets the dog thoroughly clean without stripping the coat and causing dandruff, gets white parts really white and leaves the dog shiny and soft with no fleas (if fleas are a problem in your area). Prior to that we used Buddy Wash, which is good stuff. But I swear, Dawn works better (even with Buddy Wash we saw flakes after baths). And it's super cheap. Bonus: it's gentle enough that you can get away with washing kittens in it, which is really handy if you find a kitten that's been residing in a parking lot and is coated with motor oil. P.S. Hand-held showerheads make dog bathing sooooo much easier.

I don't think they consider children dogs, but they do recognize that they are juvenile humans and thus lower on the pecking order than a mature human. They do seem to try to push them around more than they would dare with an adult. On the flip side, they also seem to tolerate stuff from children that would get an adult bitten. Example: Argus loved children, but he would sometimes take advantage of them. If a child had food in his or her hands, he wouldn't think twice about stealing it right out of their hands. He would never have tried that with an adult. On the other hand, when we went to my MIL's house my little niece saw Argus and immediately jumped onto his back before we realized what she was doing. She thought he was a horse. Argus lay down on the floor without so much as a peep of protest. He would've bitten a strange adult who grabbed and straddled him. Our dogs have all been fond of children, so these observations are based on that. I'm not sure how non-kid-friendly dogs view children.

Red raspberry leaf capsules work wonders for hound and human diarrhea, stomach cramps (and for humans, menstrual cramps). You can get them cheap at a health food store. Two capsules down the hatch for the brand we use (Solaray, IIRC) but check the label. Dosing is the same for humans and hounds.

He looks good to me. He has a bit of a stocky build so the standard 2 or 3 visible ribs rule might not apply. I have found that hip bones are a much more reliable indicator of body condition. I like to be able to clearly see the points of the hip bones. They shouldn't jut out like mountains or the dog is too thin, but when they start to disappear the dog is getting heavy. You should also be able to just see the outline of the spine. It shouldn't look like an alligator spine, but it should be visible if you look for it, or at least easily felt.

She was named after an old Little Richard song called "Short Fat Fanny." In it, he opines that he doesn't want to dance with Long Tall Sally. He wants to dance with Short Fat Fanny, who has a hot temper. Funny thing is, she was skinny as a noodle. Her foster mom wrote on the envelope her adoption paperwork came in, "But... I'm not fat at all!"

Raven was a strange mix of happy and anxious, loving and spook, happily retired pet and determined escape artist... she was just a walking contradiction. When she first came home she was incredibly spooky. She warmed to me after a while but was still nervous around DH and pretty much all men. Then one day DH brought home the Magic Toy. It was a floppy cow (maybe it was a giraffe... it was weird-looking to be sure). Whatever it was, Raven loved it. She carried it around, snuggled with it and thought it was the best thing ever. And DH was the best human ever for bringing it home to her. From then on, she was Daddy's Girl. She was comfortable at home, in her own element and with her family. She was not OK with the outside world. She pulled out of her martingale and ran, and I chased her for 3 hours through the San Bernardino National Forest to get her back. She wriggled out of an "escape-proof" harness and took off down the street. I drove after her, then had to abandon the car when she left the road. I realized after I was already out and running that I'd left the car in gear and it was rolling away. I had a choice of getting the dog or getting the car, so I went after the dog and let the car roll into a lamp post. Priorities, you know. Fortunately she stopped on someone's porch, and thinking that she was home, waited patiently to be let inside. Got her. Eventually she became OK with the outside world too. We could stop calling her the Rubber Dog or Houdini and relax a bit while out on walks. She learned to let strangers *gasp* pet her without having a meltdown. She learned that going new places could be fun, and that there were often treats involved in such outings. She came out of her shell. As dysfunctional as her relationship with humans was, Raven was *fantastic* with other dogs, especially greyhounds. She could get along well with any canine. It was her gift. She couldn't bear to be an only dog, but as long as there was another canine around she was fine. She patiently put up with Argus, who was an obnoxious alpha (you might say bully) and constantly pushed her around. She put up with Tiny, who was the only surviving member of his litter and had no social skills. Even when he frantically nitted her because he didn't know how to appropriately initiate play, she stood there and sighed. She stoically dealt with Riley and his megalomaniacal tendencies. She eagerly welcomed play dates and visitors. She fell in love with the handsome dog next door, and he with her. They would play by running up and down the fenceline together. She would sometimes let him win. But as always, age happened. Her eyes clouded up. Her back end weakened. She ate prodigious amounts of food but couldn't keep weight on. Incontinence and eventually dementia set in. She wandered around the house frightened and confused, like she couldn't remember where she was. She wandered out the dog door into a blizzard and wandered in circles until I noticed she was missing and went out to rescue her before she could freeze to death. So a couple of months shy of her 14th birthday, we said goodbye. Pretty girl. Patiently enduring Tiny's enthusiasm. He eventually learned how to behave and became a great companion, so her patience was well rewarded. (And yes, Tiny really was HUGE.) Evita the Oriental Shorthair was her "puppy." She adored Argus, our first greyhound. She played well with Riley, who doesn't really play well with anyone. Her laughter was contagious. And her favorite thing ever was freshly cut grass. She would roll in it and breathe it in... oh, bliss.

I used to use a snugly-fitted 5-point Surefit Roman harness from Premier on Raven because I thought she couldn't get out of it. My spooky girl in her heyday was known as the Rubber Dog for her ability to escape from anything, including a martingale collar. Then a tall man with a hat came up to pet her and she leaped into the air. Three quick twists and the harness was lying on the ground while my spook was shooting down the street like a comet. All turned out OK but after that we switched to a slip lead. It's the only thing she's never gotten out of.

I tried everything with Tiny to break him of this habit, from pineapple juice to green beans to meat tenderizer to For-Bid. Some of it worked for a little while but then he got used to it. The only thing that really worked was snatching up the poo as soon as possible and using a stool guard. For a while Tiny would try to squish the poop through the stool guard to get at it (he was a real hardhead) and then he'd rub it off on me. Thank goodness he DID get over that... and thank goodness none of the others have been poop eaters.

Raven could have a 60" by 60" bed and she would still fall off. It's known as "bed failure" and it refers to the dog, not the bed. You'd think after having this much experience lounging she would be better at it, but no. Every time I look over at her, either her butt or her head is on the floor. And her bed is big enough for 2 dogs.