Skip to content

Category: Pets

The adventures of greyhounds and cats around the house.

Weekend Hound Report: Staying Warm

December 11, 2005 • • Leave a comment

Sweaters arrived just a day late for The Blizzard of 2005… er… The Ice Storm of 05…no wait…The Day It Got Below 20 and Some Bridges and Overpasses Froze of 2005:

Hounds in Sweaters

For you non-greyhound people out there, we’re not trying to humiliate our pups by dressing them up. They have no body fat to insulate themselves and so really do need sweaters when it gets cold, but even without sweaters, nobody froze. Phoebe (in red) revealed herself to be something of a scientist, carefully scratching, licking, sniffing and nosing every patch of ice on the back porch in an effort to determine the meaning of it all.

Daphne (in blue), who is a little less intellectual, displayed her alter-ego “dangerous greyhound” and kept trying to run full-speed across the icy patio and up the frozen stairs to the glass backdoor. Happily no bones were broken, and some cat litter on the steps helped her keep traction.

When the sweaters arrived, they tried them on and even though the weather had warmed considerably, the dogs seemed to enjoy wearing them. I suppose they know when they look good.

By the way, the sweaters came from Classy Canine, and they’re great.

[saveagrey]

Weekend Hound Report: A Whole New Daphne

December 3, 2005 • • 4 Comments

Since we lost Zephyr, Daphne has been going through changes, but the most pronounced have been in the month since Phoebe came along and Daphne realized that it was up to her to seize the mantle of canine leadership.

For the past three years, Daphne has been generally afraid to go anywhere in the house apart from the living room, our bedroom, and the study, which she only discovered back in June. Shortly after Phoebe came, Daphne started to develop an interest in the kitchen and the mysterious goings-on in there. At first we thought it was cute (look, she’s being brave), but then last week as my wife was making some peanut butter sandwiches, Daphne rose up on her hind legs, planted her front paws on the kitchen island, and took a piece of bread out of her hand. This was so unexpected that after my wife regained the power of speech, she could only laugh.

I prefer a dog that doesn’t steal food off the counter, at least not while we’re watching, but at the same time, I was kind of proud of big Daph because it’s so seldom that she asserts herself. I don’t know what kind of abuse or neglect she suffered at the hands of the monsters who owned her (she was a black-market greyhound, which means she was owned by people who were engaged either in a) illegal racing, b) illegal rabbit hunting, or c) illegal dog-fighting) before she was saved by a greyhound rescue group, but after three years, we’re thrilled to see her coming out of her shell and becoming more of a dog.

Of course that means now she may have to learn some manners.

In other hound news, my parents’ dog Nigel (who isn’t a greyhound, but we don’t hold that against him) wanted to ensure that no ants would be attracted by stray crumbs:

[saveagrey]

Weekend Hound Report: Strategies for Walking

November 28, 2005 • • 3 Comments

With a large tip of the cyber hat to Ironicus Maximus whose Friday Hound Blogging is one of my favorite traditions, and in the interests of being organized, I now commence with a regular feature: The Weekend Hound (or Cat or Hounds and Cat) Report, wherein the adventures of my furry friends will be related. If it seems odd to start a weekend feature on a Monday, then you’re probably more organized than me.

Phoebe and Daphne took their first walk together yesterday. Phoebe loves the idea of walks, but when the paw hits the pavement it really freaks her out (as described here). Daphne, on the other hand, is terrified and runs away when anything even resembling a leash begins to jingle. Sometimes, however, she is tricked by the large bipedal apes with whom she lives and as happened yesterday found herself out in public. My wife took Phoebe, I took Daphne, and we strolled down the street with each hound demonstrating her own approach to facing a dangerous world:

Daphne, who walks quickly knowing that it will be over soon, bases her strategy on the fact that if she walks fast They will not be able to get her.

Phoebe believes They can only see movement and so walks painfully slowly in the hopes that she will be mistaken for a large black and white rock.

When together, Phoebe likes to stay close to Daphne and so will actually pick up the pace. Last night’s walk, took only half the time that a normal walk with Phoebe alone takes, though we covered the same distance. I have resigned myself to the fact that Daphne will never like walks, but I think Phoebe will really enjoy them as she comes out of her shell as evidenced by the fact that she always wants to go.

[saveagrey]

Slow Greyhound

November 20, 2005 • • 1 Comment

When I take Phoebe for walks, I notice that she gets freaked out whenever we try to turn around, cross the street, go off the sidewalk into the woods, or do anything other than walk straight ahead.

If we go in a giant circle, finally coming back around to the house, she’s usually fine. If I try to coax her into crossing a street or turning around, it takes a great deal of persuasion. I can’t help but wonder if this is the result of prior training. She was a racer (not exactly retired, more like fired), and I’m beginning to suspect that the idea of turning around or running off the track, in this case the sidewalk, is anathema to her. She just can’t bring herself to do it.

So we walk along the sidewalk track each day, so slowly that passersby must think she’s the slowest greyhound in the world, which may be why she didn’t last in the racing world.

Hound of Adventure

November 15, 2005 • • Leave a comment

Everytime I go to the front door, Phoebe follows. When I go out to get the paper or to the mailbox, she peers out the front window. It’s obvious she wants to walk, so I’ve started taking her. She does well, but usually about a quarter of a mile from the house in any direction, she just stops. I suppose her fear takes over at that point and then she becomes Frozen Dog, forcing me to coax her along one step at a time until we get back to the house, usually in twice the amount of time (if we’re lucky) it took to get to the turnaround point.

Then the next time I go to the front door, she wants to go for another walk.

I’ve gotten in the habit of walking her to the mailbox or to the end of the driveway to get the paper, but since it’s only fifty feet or so, it seems mean, though I don’t think she minds. It’s clear this dog has a sense of adventure, but for now, I think she only wants short adentures where she can’t get in over her head as she does when we get a quarter mile from the house.

Car rides are also proving to be great fun, and when we get out of the car she’s fine until we’ve reached just about the point where it’s time to go back. It reminds me of Tigger taking Roo to the top of the tree and then not knowing how to get back down. Tiggers don’t climb down. Phoebes don’t walk back to where they started.

Still, we’ve progressed a long way from the first walk when I had to carry her (all sixty pounds) nearly a quarter mile back to our driveway after a dry leaf skittering across the sidewalk had induced temporary paralysis of the legs.

Maybe Daphne is the smart one; she runs and hides when I get the leashes out.

Of Ghosts, Goblins, and Animal Emergency

November 4, 2005 • • 4 Comments

Monday – Halloween: Daphne hid from the vicious trick-or-treaters who kept coming to the door and continued her tradition of guarding the couch in the study. Phoebe, experiencing her first Halloween away from a racetrack, followed me to the door eveytime the bell rang and peeked out with great curiosity at all the costumed kids.

Wednesday: We learned something interesting about greyhounds that we had known, but never really thought about: their skin, which is paper thin, tears very easily. This can be problematic since these are big strong dogs. I came home Wednesday to find that they’d been playing (as they’ve started doing lately). I was home for about twenty minutes with Phoebe whining, whining, whining the whole time while Daphne hid in the study. As it turns out Daphne had been nipped on the scruff of the neck, and her skin had torn. (Perhaps the whines were her version of ‘Timmy fell into the-I mean-I accidentally bit Daphne.’) So I took her to animal emergency, a place with which I am way too familiar.

One of the vets glanced up from a boxer whose ear was bleeding all over the floor, and asked, “Greyhound tear?” without doing much more than noticing the greyhound standing in front of her.

“What?”

“You know, when they play,” the receptionist offered, “their skin’s thin so it tears.”

I nodded. Daphne shivered. “This is our first time with this. How do people prevent it?”

The receptionist shrugged. “I think they just let us sew them back up.”

So sew they did. The vet had to put Daphne under and extend the wound so that he could put a drain in. When I picked her up Thursday morning it looked like her head had been sewn back on, but it’s not as bad as it looks. Of course she looks like Frankenstein’s hound. This was sadly too late for Halloween by a few days.

Thursday: When I got Daphne home, Phoebe followed her around, crying and crying and licking her face. I suppose this is the canine version of abject apology and prostrating oneself in guilt.

All was well when my wife got home and both dogs barked. Phoebe, it turns out is a barker, but Daphne, like most greys does not bark except when she’s in a very good mood. This was bark number seven in five years and a good sign coming from a hound with a drainage tube in her neck.

Friday: We separated them on Thursday while we were gone and will continue to do so while Daphne heals and maybe for a little while beyond so as to avoid anymore roughhousing.

There seem to be no hard feelings. When I got home today they were excited to be reunited, followed each other around, and clearly wanted to play. Now they’re curled up together on the couch.

Phoebe at the Vet

October 30, 2005 • • Leave a comment

A hound update, of course. Phoebe made her first visit to the vet yesterday. She seemed to enjoy the ride in the car more than I thought she would. Daphne went along for the ride and stayed low in the back of the car in case there were enemies about. The vet looked Phoebe over inside and out and found no problems. She’s a prefectly healthy dog.

After the vet, she discovered the study, a room she hadn’t been in yet, and I had to ask her not to eat one of my books, but she didn’t seem to mind when I traded her a nylabone for the book. She’s still following Daphne around, still unsure about the humans, but very very curious.

Hound Update

October 27, 2005 • • Leave a comment

Okay so Phoebe seems to have adjusted to the idea that the humans will be gone for the better part of each day. I am happy to report a lack of destruction for the past two days, and she seems genuinely excited to see us when we get home. She even barked at me when I walked in (a very high-pitched bark that sounds odd coming from a dog of her size), which was startling since greyhounds aren’t known for barking. She apparently learned the skill from a doberman in her foster home.

She’s still shy when we approach; obviously she’s not used to being treated well by people, but then mistreatment is the life to which most racing greyhounds are accustomed. I love the dogs and watching them run together in the backyard is great fun, because they truly love to run, but the greyhound racing business just turns my stomach. I can’t imagine mistreating these beautiful animals. Dogs are great. People suck.