What's Normal Sleep And Baldness?

[Guest vistawoman]

I just got Sunny, a 7-year-old retired racer, almost three weeks ago. She seems perfectly healthy but her butt is going bald and she sleeps A LOT, like all the time unless she's eating or we're going for a walk. She plays a little but honestly I bet she sleeps more than 20 hours a day. She's also REALLY tired after our walks (usually under two miles) or our weekly outings to the off-leash park where she runs and plays some but mostly likes to nose around by herself.

 

Is this normal?

[Guest Greyhoundbaby]

First - welcome to being owned by a greyhound. I can't answer the bald part - some greys just seem to have adorable, bald butts!

 

Now, on to the sleeping side. Ours sleep, on average, 20 hours a day. They are the laziest animals I have ever had the pleasure of being associated with. 2 mile walks are, in my opinion, probably a bit long for a grey. They've been used to sprinting and then resting for 3 days between events!

[Guest vistawoman]

First - welcome to being owned by a greyhound. I can't answer the bald part - some greys just seem to have adorable, bald butts!

 

Now, on to the sleeping side. Ours sleep, on average, 20 hours a day. They are the laziest animals I have ever had the pleasure of being associated with. 2 mile walks are, in my opinion, probably a bit long for a grey. They've been used to sprinting and then resting for 3 days between events!

 

Thanks! I have had other breeds of dogs, right now a rottie/lab cross and previously a bouvier/wolfhound cross and a purebred bouvier. They were pretty lazy but nothing like Sunny! I don't care if her butt is bald as long as it's not the sign of something wrong.

[tydyelady]

Lots of ghounds have bald butts. Ours has a fuzzy butt , very cute. And yes, the sleeping is normal, as I have found out. When ours goes to the dog park, he is exhausted for the rest of the day. After his walks, he has to lay down and rest. After his burst of the zoomies when we come home, or when he is excited, he has to lay down and rest. After eating a big meal, he has to lay down and rest. I think you can see the pattern here! Congratulations on your adoption. We have had our boy since March 30, and I am greytful every day that we were able to adopt him.

[GeorgeofNE]

As she gets more used to you and her new home, she might be a LITTLE more active, but Greyhounds do seem to sleep a LOT more than other dogs. Think about it. Aside from their turn out times, they're in a crate approx. 20 hours a day. What else is there to do but sleep?

 

Bald butts are so common that they hold contests at Greyhound events!

 

All normal!!

[Guest snowberry]

She's a middle-aged lady and needs her beauty sleep! Sounds pretty normal to me. Depending on diet, she may regrow some fur, but some greys never do. If it's getting worse, adding a daily fish oil capsule to her diet may help. Also, she may not be used to longer walks, but she can rebuild her stamina over time.

[kronckew]

blue, who has much shorter hair than millie, has a nice fuzzy butt. millie has the long hair, but some baldy patches on her butt, which has gotten a lot fuzzier since she retired tho. both also sleep a lot, as long as it's less than 24 hrs./day it's normal. they do not call them 45 mph couch potatoes for nothin'.

 

 

[Guest SoulsMom]

Sleeping all the time=Normal

Bald tushie=Normal

Just ask Soul

He's on premium dog food and supplements, and after having him a year he's starting to get some fuzz . . .as for the sleeping, Soul was pretty quiet when he first came home, and mostly slept if he wasn't eating or on a potty break. Now he's a hyper doggie, who still sleeps a lot, but also plays with his stuffies everyday . . . .I do want to add that I did have Soul's thyroid checked during one of our vet visits to rule that out as the cause of his baldness . . . just to be sure.

[Guest TBSFlame]

I just got Sunny, a 7-year-old retired racer, almost three weeks ago. She seems perfectly healthy but her butt is going bald and she sleeps A LOT, like all the time unless she's eating or we're going for a walk. She plays a little but honestly I bet she sleeps more than 20 hours a day. She's also REALLY tired after our walks (usually under two miles) or our weekly outings to the off-leash park where she runs and plays some but mostly likes to nose around by herself.

 

Is this normal?

I have a very lazy pack and I tell people at the Renaissance Faire that they sleep 19-20 hours per day. Mem is the only one I have that sleeps less than that and not by much. lol. I am sure your girl is fine, just retired. If you want a more active hound.......get you a 2 year old or a puppy. As far as the butt being bald, it may or may not grow hair. Tessie, had a bald butt and it took 2 years to grow hair but she now has a hairy butt. Congratulations on your new baby.

[RobinM]

Ya mean like this?

 

 

They do sleep a lot but I bet in time, she wil come around and socialize more. Try giving her something to chew on, like a knucle bone or stuffed kong.

[Guest pbailey1]

My dog had a bald butt when I first got her. Three months on Candiae food and NuPro supplements and she has a beautiful coat and all of her bald spots have filled in. Don't know if that might help your pup, but it did mine.

[Guest Cris_M]

Sunny sounds perfectly normal.

 

Both of my boys turned into wonderful walkers -- about 3 miles a day -- but they didn't come that way. If you want Sunny to go on long walks with you, it can be done. Start with shorter distances and check her feet after each walk. It takes longer than one would guess for a grey's pads to toughen up enough to do well on a long walk. Even shorter walks wore Duncan's pads smooth. If her stamina builds up before her pads do, check into some booties. Those really helped Duncan.

 

But, be warned, once you get Sunny on a long, regular walk, she may give you what for if you miss it. A day without a walk is not a sleep-a-thon around here anymore!

 

Congrats on your new girl!

[Guest FireFae]

I was told by my adoption agency that while racing thier bums are shaved for massage, sometimes after they find a home it grows in, some times it doesn't. Anubis Is still working on filling in... i dont honestly think we're going to get all fuzz though.

 

Oh.. and if he could sleep more than 20 hours a day... he would.. but eating and potty take a minutes each.... he's working on making them faster so he can get more rest...

[Jiffer]

I was told by my adoption agency that while racing thier bums are shaved for massage

 

OMG.. insert maniacal laughter here!!!

Trust me, they don't shave their bums. I've seen plenty of furry and non-furry behinds coming straight from the track or holding kennel.

 

There isn't any particular reason their bums go bald. It's odd but I found that if they gain muscle, they lose fur. If they lose muscle, they gain fur.. so I'm thinking there is some type of relation there.

 

In our pack, two have really furry behinds, three did/do not. Icarus, Atlas and Orion are all littermates... but only Icarus was bald as a plucked turkey.

 

As for sleeping.. you've now been introduced to the greyhound AKA Coma Dog. Mine sleep a good 20 hours a day. They have their little spurt and then they are spent.

 

The order of living goes as such: wake in the morning after an 8 hour sleep, go potty and run around in yard, eat breakfast, nap for 20 minutes, go potty in yard again, nap for 9 hours, go for potty in yard, nap again, eat supper, nap for another hour, go for 45 - 1hour long walk, nap, go potty in the yard and run around like nuts, then bedtime. Repeat every day!

[Guest FordRacingRon]

Leia actualy was a high energy dog at 2 1/2 when we brought her home She was up almost 6 hours a day,,almost unheard of,,and that was after walking 3-5 miles per day. FYI it did take a while to build her up to that walking. But now, almost 2 years later and at the old age of 4 1/2 she has settled into her routine of up to 20 hours a day sleeping.......so yeah thats about right. She gets 2 walks a day,,maybe 2-3 miles on the first and maybe a mile on the second.

 

I always felt proud that she was one of the few that didn't have a bald butt.

 

Whe I was adopting a foster dad told me greys are like rechargable batteries. They charge about 20 hours a day and run the other 4. Leia is like that. Sleeps all night and ready for a good walk. Then sleeps till noon and wants a snack (usually a couple of cookies or one of those chicken breast things they sell at Costco). Then sleeps until the afternoon walk and back to bed until dinner. After dinner sleep until evening snack time (usually a bullystick) then back to bed for the duration,,except for the last turnout for the 11 pm pee.

[Guest Stretchy]

When we got Stretchy he was only a year old, so he had quite a good bit of energy, but now at 2.5 years old we have noticed that he has gotten much lazier! I don't think that he sleeps 20 hours a day, but he is not far off from it.

[Guest Greensleeves]

We used to tell people that Whistler was in training for the Sleep Marathon.

 

And while it's true that greys LURVE their beauty sleep, I think that there are a couple additional things going on with your girl:

 

1. She's new, and a little overwhelmed. Sleeping is a defense mechanism against dealing with that stress. Over the next few months, she'll no doubt become *slightly* more active (meaning, she'll get up to change beds several times during the day. ).

 

2. She's TIRED! Two miles, for a newly retired racer? OMG--you're wearing the old girl out! Try more frequent SHORTER walks, and build her up to that distance. They're SPRINTERS, not long-distance runners!

[macoduck]

My greys consider any walk longer than 20 minutes to be cruel punishment. While we don't get to walk every day, the days that we do they sleep like logs.

[Guest vistawoman]

OK, I'll shorten her walks. I thought maybe I was asking too much; I don't think her former family walked her quite as much as they said they did. She does get very excited about her walks, though, so I know she enjoys them.

 

She's getting a little better about hanging out in the living room after dinner. Usually she just eats and goes back to bed and my other dog is such a follower that she goes with her, so my companion animals are not very companionable. I think as she gets more comfortable she will come out of her shell a little more. In the meantime, I'll just talk to the cats, I guess.

 

Thank you all so much for responding; it really puts my mind at ease.

[Guest ThunderPaws]

Congratulations!! Sounds like a perfectly normal 7 year old greyhound to me!

 

My dogs sleep a lot, too. Except on weekends when we like to go for long walks. My GreenBean got a 5 mile long nature hike for her 11th birthday. She loved it and pulled the whole way. But at home my princess likes to take beauty naps, lots of them.

Puppy Diesel is another story, he usually goes non-stop! But as he is getting older, he is 16 months now, he takes naps on the couch, at least for a few minutes.

[Batmom]

I have had Zema (who is 9) for almost 7 years. Her butt is bald in the summer. Every summer. In winter she grows some hair. Up till she was @ 6 she was a wild thing. Since then she has gotten lazier and will snooze the day away if nothing is going on.

 

Joseph is 4. I've had him for a year. His butt was bald when I got him, and it's pretty bald now. He is very lazy for a young dog and sleeps a good 18-20 hours most days, although if something is going on, he's game and durable.

 

My late dad referred to the greyhounds as "plant life." A frequent question at greyhound meet-and-greets is, "Is that dog alive?"

 

:lol

 

Your pupper will probably enjoy a 2-mile walk if you work her up to it gradually.