Pointy hounds thread! For new, old and prospective owners!

[SpaghettiTwirlerAndProud]

Share stories, advice and ask for help if you need it! There are a few resident hound experts (myself not included) in the doghouse, so, feel free to share! :)

Sorry about your parent Betsy, cancer is just horrible...

I think another reason Jane was so lovely and helpful was that she had suddenly lost her father not 11 months previously. So when I rang her in a flap to say I had to leave for Holland because my dad was dying and could she please liaise with the vet hospital regarding Sam's care she knew what it was like...
Either way, she was brilliant and I will never every be able to repay the favour...

We said that when we got whippetty, we spent a lot of time visiting him with the dc's and walking him etc before he came home and we would like to do the same with a future dog, so we could make sure we were making the right decision. They said that was fine.

They were quite a bit smaller than whippetty (who admitedly is on the big side for a whippet), but looking that some had quite wiry hair, they looked like the other half was probably terrier - but then I'm no expert.

Tbh, I hadn't thought about them being ex-traveller dogs, but that could be an explaination. I was concerned about whether they would be somewhat feral, but then I suppose they wouldn't consider them OK with dc's in that case? (aren't Dogs Trust quite conservative with these things?).

If they are ex-traveller dogs they will be excellent with children.
There are ususally lots of children on traveller camps, and if a dog was in any way a danger to the children the men of the camp would have disposed of it pretty quickly.
More than likely they are an unwanted litter who are not proving it be any use to the travellers (be it guarding, ferreting/rabbiting or fighting). And thus they are unwanted.

Our Sam is the softest, gentlest dog I have ever known and I think that is the reason he was put out onto the streets - he does not have that chase / kill insting that travellers require (after all they don't keep the dogs as pets, they have to serve a purpose)

That's interesting - I was really stuck for ideas as to who would dump a whole litter at a year old. Even the Dogs trust lady (also a fellow pointy owner ) said it was unusual for a whole litter to still be together at this age. However, she also thought they were younger than a year, but said the vet has aged them at about a year.

I already spotted the one I didn't want (the fattest, most vocal) and the one who from outside the kennel at least, I liked best (a pretty mainly tan and white girl, the smallest and most whippetty-looking of the lot).

I suppose the litmus test will be when we can actually meet them and see how they interact with dc's and whippetty.

Was Sam house-trained when you got him btw? I have to phone tomorrow and find this out for "our" whippetty-lurcher (as far as they can tell in kennels). I am afraid that could be a deal-breaker for us, as working half-days with 2 dc's I don't want to come home to dog mess each day.

Sam was kennel trained due to the few weeks he spent at the greyhound trust before we adopted him.
He had a few accidents in the house, but they really were few and far between (and to be fair most of those were when he was on steroids and thus drank more - needed to wee more)

I think with your other dog in the house your new whippety will pick things up very quickly.

How exciting, am quite jealous!!

You've adopted one of Jane's dogs and given him a lovely home! I'm sure she feels sort of indebted to you!

The whippety lurchers sound lovely - my neighbour has a Staffy X thought to have been abandoned by travellers when they moved on (she'd just had pups also so I think she was considered of no more use ) but she's the gentlest soul imaginable. Her friend called her up to say there was this lovely, friendly stray who'd sort of moved in with her. The other dogs weren't too happy and she knew my neighbour had recently lost her old Staffy boy so she came to live with her and she's totally soppy. And in pretty good nick according to the vet, given all she'd been through.

We took Billy to a family party today. He was the star of the show and I have never seen so much love tourism from a dog before.

I did spruce him up a bit before we left though - an extra long tooth brush and face/eye/ear wash and a bit of a scrub on the dry skin on his legs. Very buff and dapper.

"Love tourism"

Love it!!

He was such a tart. Even giving his paw up to people when they came and sat next to him as he was lying down on the carpet (Can I just say I've not taught/encouraged that. How did he know that was cute?) I walked in to find him lying on his side, gazing at my husband's cousin while she held his front left paw and stroked it gently...

Defo one in the eye for FIL who doesn't like dogs and had him relegated to the kitchen for the entire party. Silly man. So no one went in the lounge, they all just sat around the dog, adoring him. Seriously, I counted 3 people stroking him at once. And then when DS1 lay down next to him and dozed off and it just finished them off.

Awww, Betsy that is lovely lovely lovely....
Super when the dog is so accepted (and ha ha to your FIL!!!)

When I was driving home (rainy M25, I should've been concentrating more) I kept thinking about the probably pretty unpleasant life he'd had when he was working. He's got some deep scars all over - face, chest and legs in particular - and while I know their skin is really thin and must scar easily, all those must have hurt.

Pointy powerrrrrr!

I don't know what do about sprocket now, he's getting more and more anxious everytime we go upstairs in the evening, ie to bath DD. He just stands at the bottom and cries, he's desperate to be with us but refuses point blank to get on them! He'll go up and down if you pick him up and put him on a few steps up or down. I left a trail of hotdogs, roast chicken, cheese AND liver treats (all this at once) up the stairs to tempt him up, he ate what he could reach, sniffed at the rest and went and clambered back up onto the sofa what dog in their right mind wouldn't do their utmost to get that feast????

Oh Gritters, poor darling sprocket - he wants to be with you but really hasn't got his head round the stairs. Please keep doing the thing of giving him a helping hand up - keep at it, and he WILL eventually get the hang of it. Remember he is a pointy - they are handsome and loveable but are not blessed with brains. You can practically see the brain whirring when one of ours goes up and down stairs - if I put that leg there, and that leg there and oh bugger what do i do?!! It has taken him a year to learn them and he is still not as confident as the other two, who go charging up and down them without a second thought. I guess the spatial awareness/co-ordination is just too much at one go for his lovely little head, though he is blonde.

Betsy, I know what you mean about their previous lives. A lot end up having their ears sliced off as it means they can't be identified. I was with a lady on Saturday who had adopted a lurcher who had been pretty badly mutilated - fortunately he is settling in nicely, but it's heartbreaking. What I find so humbling is that so many dogs (and the one on Saturday was like this) are still so eager to please and friendly, despite the horrors they have endured.

Fortunately the racing industry in the UK is shrinking, and there is more and more awareness that retired racers can make wonderful companions. Twenty years ago, it was practically unheard of - nowadays, it is much more well known. Thanks to tireless campaigning there is also a great deal more awareness of the way the industry discards so many dogs and the conditions while they are racing.

Hey scuttle fancy sending Andy on a holiday to lincolnshire? He could come and show his brother how it's done :o I really wish I could borrow someones dog to show him but my sisters dog doesn't like black or white dogs, MIL has 2 dogs, 1 hates strange dogs and black dogs, and the other is petrified of sprocket because he's so big! Soneone else I know has a dog but it's really fat and has difficulty with stairs now and ours are a lot steeper than his. And I don't know anyone else with a dog.

Gritters, do you remember Billy's protest wee when I bathed the kids? Well, it settled down eventually. I think they are creatures of routine and eventually the routine settles in and they know you're coming back. Equally with the stairs. Billy does stairs when we're out and about now but we just kept on trying and then one day, no different to any other, he just did them. He still won't do stairs indoors though but that's OK because he's a downstairs dog. And we keep small furries upstairs in the kids playroom too so it's just as well!

Gritters, just a thought. Why not contact your home checker/adoption co-ordinator? They may well be willing to bring round a specially trained "stunt" greyhound who is willing to do a bit of one to one coaching with Sprocky boy. I was with a lady who recently adopted on Saturday afternoon, and am likely to do some more walks with her shortly, and both grund charities I volunteer for regularly do this sort of thing, home visits, joint walks etc... Basically, it's recognised there's sometimes things you need a dog for who can show the newbie what to do...

Strangely, ours picked up certain habits (counter surfing etc) with no trouble at all.... as I reflect on the butter dish...

I'd already thought of that, that's why I said about Andy coming up :o and I know he can do stairs. I'm going to ring Jill later on and hope that she'll be able to help, she has 3 of her own, so hopefully at least one of them will be able to do them! And if not, then Kev and Mandy, the charity bosses. Think they have 2 or 3.

Sounds like a plan! Wish we were closer Would love to meet Andy's family...

Well, 1 of Jills grunds does stairs. Kind of, he does 2 on the way up and 1 on the way down he's 10! Haven't rung her yet though, saw her son at the petshop yesterday and asked him.

Sprockets bed arrived today, that one I linked to on ebay for £24.99, I think he likes it, he's barely moved off it since 11am when it arrived! He's actually abandoned the sofa it came from germany and they only dispatched it on monday!

You never know scuttle, we might end up in wales one day for a holiday :o

Ok totally going to out myself here but oh well :o Sprocket on his bed, hopefully I've managed to make it all pubic so you can see. If not then god only knows what I have done instead.

Pubic? It's not pubic. It's hopefully pubic.

Oh ffs. PUBLIC

That's more like it.

Just tried to see it, but it's taken me to a strange place in FB. Don't worry about outing yourself, there's lots of us on here who end up as FB friends and so far none of them have turned into axe murderers,in fact a lot are really, really nice. Must be because we are "pointy people"...

Really wouldn't want to see it if it was pubic though....

I just tried to click the link and it took me to something that looked a little like MY fb page - how odd.....

Scuttle, no axe murderers or odd people yet on my fb page, well, apart from some strange greyhound loving lady who lives in Wales

Can't wait to see the gorgeous Sprocket, but nothing pubic please...