Introducing Tari's friend Belle

Here is Tari with her friend Belle. Looks like Belle is not sure of Tari, but don’t let this picture fool you, they get along great. Belle is a cute brindled mutt… her owner’s words, not mine and is such a puppy, so rambunctious and playful… what fun and they grow out of that stage so quickly. This week she lost the last of her puppy teeth and was spayed. We are keeping the dogs apart for a couple of weeks for two reasons, one so Belle can heal from her sutures and the other, well… You’ll have to read the week of February 15th for those details.

Lorraine, Belle’s mom sent me other pictures for posting but I seem to have miss placed them in my computer. I will post the new pictures when I get or find them. Or maybe I’ll just have to ask Lorraine to resend them. Darn!

Look who has a new collar! Doesn't she look regal in her new gold Egyptian collar? Fred started calling her Queen Nefertari!

Week of Februray 15 through 22

This week we had a new development. We thought Tari was on the mends from her diarrhea. This was not the case. We have tried so many things and have concluded that she may have a parasite. So we are going to have to worm her. Greys are usually wormed before they are released to new homes, however this sometime this needs to be done a second time, which is the case for Tari. . This is the second reason that we are not allowing her to visit with her friend Belle. Worms can be contagious, do not want to take any chances. The Greyhound adoption agency supplied the pills for Tari since we are still in the process of fostering and have not officially adopted her yet. We are going to worm her two more times over the next two weeks, hopefully it will take care of the situation. This is not a pleasant thing to talk about but it needs to be addressed, because the purpose of this blog is to let others who may consider adopting or fostering a grey know what could arise when you take on this responsibility. With the good comes some of the messy stuff, but this will pass. (pardon the pun) Just a minor inconvenience - - We saw a noticeable difference in her stool within a day. Let’s hope that this continues.

On Monday Fred heard her bark for the first time. And now here it is, a week later and we haven’t heard another bark out of her.

We have a new habit, she now wanders off into other rooms and picks up anything that is not nailed down and brings it out to her quilt in the living room. Plays with it for a bit and then lays on it…shoes, the cat’s feeding mat, my stockings, you name it. It is almost comical. So I decided to move some of her toys into the bedroom and with in an hour she brought all of them out to her quilt. Did I mention Greys love stuffed toys? Tari tosses hers around and then lays on them. Greys tend not to be destructive when it comes to the soft toys. Isis, our last Greyhound was the same way.

February 14, 2010

Well, our little girl had her first accident. We do not know how we missed the signs for her needing to go out. She soiled her quilt in the living room. We wondered why she was not laying on it and why she kept moving it around. When I took her out for a walk, Fred went to straighten out the quilt and noticed that it was wet, poor baby…Too late to do anything about it. Can’t get mad at her or try to correct the situation after the fact. She would not know why we were upset. It is not uncommon for a grey not to know how to tell you that they need to go out. She seems to think she is telling us something by getting up and walking around. I wish we could figure out a way to get her to bark to tell us she wants to go out. I have a feeling she is going to have to train us on what to look for.

Week of February 8 - Part III and IV

Part III – working on getting her into the crate
We are working on the going to the crate on command. We are using the words “In your Box” as the command. The shorter the phrase the better they can relate to what it means. It has been a struggle. We can get her into the room and then she freezes right in front of the box. I then would have to move one foot at a time to get her to go in. Patience is necessary and you cannot get angry or she’ll think its punishment. Once in, she gets a treat, a biscuit. Food is a good motivator for just about any dog, but especially greys. She is no exception here. It took about 4 nights and she is now going into her box without me having to move her feet. In fact, one afternoon Fred and I were in the bedroom and we watched her walk in to the crate and out. This is a good thing. She has done this a couple of times over the past two days. There is no punishment associated with this. We are so glad. As of this Thursday she is going into the crate even when we do not have a treat in hand. But we do go and get one just to be sure to reward her. We soon will not even have to do this. One of the things that we do with Guinn, our cat, is when we say “bedtime” she runs down the hall to the bedroom. We are hoping that this will create the same reaction with Tari. Still do not have a picture of the two of them together. I think this is going to take time. Guinn has found a little nook upstairs to nap in.


Part IV - Cleaning her teeth
I started working on this almost as soon as we got her. You do this by examining the teeth, opening her month and touching her teeth. She was fine with this. Then I started to carfully pull the lips back. Not a problem in the front but she is resisting when I try to check her back teeth. I just might be better off waiting until she is lying down and try it then. It is important to keep after a grey’s dental hygiene. They have such long jaws that when they eat they do not get all of the food off their teeth in the very back and this causes bad breath. It also helps to stay on top of the teeth because dental work on dogs can be expensive. I started to use the rubber finger brush with beef flavored toothpaste. Yes, they make doggie tooth paste and I also have a doggie toothbrush, which I haven’t started to use yet - - I’ll need to build up to this. I’m also thinking of picking up one of those greenies which are supposed to be good for dog’s teeth. Maybe I can get out tomorrow and get this.

I did missed a milestone yesterday. Fred said he heard her bark for the first time. Fred believes that she did this to get his attention. Oh well, maybe the next time I'll hear it. There is always something to look forward to with a grey. We are having lots of fun with her.

Week of Feb 8 - Part II - Something new

Part II – Something New
We got 25 inches of snow over the weekend and they forecast another 12 to 15 for Tuesday and Wednesday. Fred was cleaning up the ice on the driveway from the weekend snow to get ready for the next onslaught.. He did not bother to put Tari in her “box”, this is what we call the crate. And once again she got to the toilet paper. This time we got a picture of it. Fred said that this was not as bad as the first time. I thought this was a cat thing? How can we get mad at her?

Our first Greyhounds - Isis

By the way, several people have asked that we post a picture of Isis. She is the dark brindled and white lady above. She was just as easy going as Tari…well actually even more so. Once Fred was waiting for me outside the mall and a man walked by having to step over her, Isis never moved, the guy came back to my husband and said “Sir, I think your dog is dead”, at this Isis lifted her head. They had a laugh. Yes, she was that trusting. We loved her. She lived to be 14. That’s good living for a grey.

In our heart forever ~

Isis December 1990 - January 2005

I apologize for the picture. This is taken from a scan.

She is still beautiful!

Week of February 8, - Getting use to the Dremel

Part I – Getting use to the Dremel
We have a couple of goals for Tari this week. One is to actually be able to trim her nails with the Dremel, train her to go in her crate on command, brush her teeth, and of course, stop her from getting on the kitchen counter.
But first check out this snow! This is not normal for Delaware. We usually get ice not the real white stuff. As far as I am concerned this is enough for the next 10 years.
Ok, back to Tari. How are we doing with her training? I did try to use the Dermel on her nails. Not a problem. Only did a little bit and I did this while she was lying on her side. She didn’t even so much as lift her head. I will continue to do this over the next couple of weeks until we have her nails are short enough. Doing this a little at a time will help the quick to recede so not to cause any injury. These dogs will tolerate just about anything. Our first Grey was the same way.

Sunday February, 7, 2010 - Super Bowl Sunday…

GO SAINTS! It has been a while since I have written anything, so I need to catch up. First of all, my Saints came marching in with a win of 31 to 17! Whooho!

We had a storm that started Friday night through Saturday evening. This storm dumped 25 inches of snow. This is a bit much. We had to have someone plow us out. Tari is not real happy with the white stuff, after all she was in Florida only three short weeks ago.
We bought a Dremel to trim Tari’s nails. I started with turning on the device, at low speed, near her to get her familiar with the noise. Let her sniff it while it was running being careful not to let the sander get too close to her nose. It did not seem to bother her at all. A little curious, that was all. I have a feeling that I will be able to use it sooner than I thought. I did mention that she is getting more comfortable didn’t I… well she is very comfortable in our home, so much so that we caught her twice with both paws on the kitchen counter trying to get to her food bowl. We do have to put a stop to this! Luckily we caught her both times. A firm “no” stopped her in both cases and she has not done it since. This dog is a fast learner. In case you didn’t know, Greyhounds tend to eat very quickly. They practically inhale their food. What we do is prep her food about 10 to 15 minutes before serving her by adding water to her dried kibbles (we feed her ProPlan) to soften the food, this helps her to avoid choking on dry bits of the kibble. Not that she has had any problem. Another trick we were told is to place an upside down glass in the middle of the bowl. This makes them slow down a bit. All greys love to eat. It is important that their food is measured and that you feed them twice a day. The last thing you want is a fat uncomfortable greyhound. Their body structure is supposed to be lean, not skinny.

Saturday February 6, 2010

OH MY GOODNESS! We have at least 20” of snow…and still coming down! I went out and shoveled a path, and opened a patch of ground for Tari to use for her business. Came back in to get her and wouldn’t you know… she wouldn’t use it. Things you do for your dog. So we plowed through the snow Tari leaping over the snow the best she could. The roads have been plowed so there was only about 2 inches of snow there and Tari did what she needed to do. We walked down the street and back. She started to pull me because she wanted to get back to the house. Once we got to the driveway she started to leap and got tangled up in the leash… this is not going to work. I took her off the leash and she just hopped down the drive to the back door where Fred was waiting for her. Tried to go back out again around 11:30AM because she still had not done #2. Took her out and she hated it. Would not even go in the snow, she really was fighting me, so in we went back in. The picture above was taken at 11:00AM. My guess is that we have about 22” of snow at this point and still snowing and blowing in all directions. We are standing on the path that I shoveled earlier.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Looks like we are now moving into a new phase. Tari is starting to show more personality as a pet, and is now more comfortable exploring the house. This past Tuesday Fred said that she was walking around the house quite a bit, into rooms that she normally did not go into such as the dining room. She really was not out of his sight much during the day… so Fred thought. But when he returned from taking her for a walk, and passed by the master bathroom… low and behold, toilet paper was all over the bathroom torn into bits! All Fred did was chuckle and cleaned up the mess. I kind of wish he had taken a picture so I could post it to the blog for you to see.
She is becoming more playful with her toys and greets people with great gusto. She is a bit of a jumper, so we’ll have to work on training her not to jump on people. This is going to take some work. She is really strong…and loves to greet everyone.
Today is Fred’s birthday and we were planning to go out for dinner but a pretty big storm has been forecast, so we decided to stay in. The snow started at 4:00PM, I took Tari out for a walk before the big snow started. Then again took her out around 7:30PM and we had about at least 4”already. She seems to like the snow but is always anxious to get home. I think because of the cold weather. Of course, we ran into our friends, Lorraine and Belle, she recognized them and wanted to go over. The two dogs get along well. We did and it is very clear that she favors people over dogs… or is it Lorraine… rather Lorraine’s pocket which has treats in it. Both Lorraine and I looked like abominable snow men we were so bundled up. Have a feeling that tomorrow is going to bring in much of the same.

February 2 - Knows her name

Here is Tari, keeping me company in the kitchen.

We wanted to see if she really knows her name. When I came home from work on Monday I called her and she only lifted her head and with some encouragement from Fred, she came to greet me. On Tuesday night, when I came home, Fred tells me that when I opened the back door, she lifted her head and when I called her she jumped up immediately and came to me. By golly, I think she has it!

Now we have to work on getting her to go in to the crate on command. When we take her to her crate there is a hesitation, but can you blame her? She is really enjoying her freedom. The biggest thing we are careful about is, this is not a place of punishment. We will continue to work with her on this. Eventually we are going to have to wean her from this open crate to a closed crate that we had for our last greyhound. That crate is a little smaller but sometime that gives a dog a more secured feeling. Afterall dogs are den animals. Hopefully will take to the closed crate the way Isis, our last greyhound did.

Febraury 2 - Tari week two

As of Saturday it seems like she is starting to respond to her name. We had snow today, not much but enough for Tari to run through. She was careful and only stayed on the top of the hill of the backyard. It was a bit slippery. Tari is now learning that when we say "are you hungry?" that we are going to feed her. So she is catching on pretty fast.

We are finding that she is so people friendly and pretty much ignores dogs that bark at her, almost as if she is above all of that noise. Would you believe we have not heard her bark yet!

I went out to brunch with the DeDiningDivas this afternoon, check out our blog, dediningdivas.blogspot.com. We went to the Blue Parrot in Wilmington. The review should be posted in a few days. After the brunch, when I got home, I took Tari out for a walk, hoping that I would run into one of the other Divas, Lorraine and her puppy Belle. She had to walk her dog also, so we took the two dogs around the block. Belle is so full of energy, and Tari is such a lady and more mature just walked along with Belle jumping on her every so often. At one point,Tari had had enough and just gave Belle a little warning to stop. No nastiness just a soft snap. Belle understood the warning and kept up the energy and was not bothered by the slight reprimand. Interesting how dogs have their own ways of dealing with one another. Lorraine and I just stayed out of it.