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! :)

My dad said he stopped at traffic lights and the car was jigging up and down and he's just like 'wtf is goin on?' looked behind him to see the dogs going at it hell for leather :o

Sychronised grund team :o I love it!

I'm going to make this renowned livercake this week then start serious recall training. He's pretty good already, but I don't think he's trustworthy enough to come back out on a walk.

Wish us luck!

We buy dried liver for recall, they are called "ProReward 100% Dried Liver", the same company also does 100% dried chicken. Whippetty loves them (we can't use cheese as ds2 has a dairy allergy, so we can't have cheese in the house). We buy them from ocado.

Handy hint, don't EVER make liver cake. Bad smells never make me feel sick or anything but uncooked liver cake mix had me running to the loo heaving my breakfast up.

On the bright side, Sprocket loves it :)

I'm training my dog using little bags of raw liver/heart that I keep in the freezer, I have to say my friends think I'm quite mad but whippety recalls even when I don't ask him too . It's been hard on the beach this week though as it's the holiday season and there are many many more people than usual and some of them have food. The lady that does puppy training makes liver treats and she puts star anise in or something and they smell gorgeous.

Whippety has just disgraced himself by very forcefully attempting to shag the arm of a visitor, not long until that trip to the vets...

I was howling with laughter reading about the boxers - um, that is definitely "dogging"!!!

Yes, it is mad with all three of them. I will have to see if i can video it. Synchronised grunding....

Ours would walk over hot coals and flaming lava for liver - it's even worse than cheese for being like crack cocaine for them. I just cook it really gently in the oven, wait till it's cooled then chop it up. Small quantities though as it does have certain effects...

Muses on why virtually every conversation about dogs invariably ends up talking about poo.....

Livercake is a miracle! I've just gotten Sprocket down stairs all by myself with no help from DP, I left a trail of cake from the top of the stairs to sprockets bed and he was that excited about it he didn't notice where the trail led to and before he knew it he was on the landing :o he just thought "Screw this" and he came down!!!! All by himself, with no picking up, pushing or pulling :o
I'm so proud of him :)

There is a sad ending to the boxers story, they ended up having puppies (which unfortunately weren't an accidental litter), my dad had read somewhere boxer bitches go funny if you don't let them have a litter by 6yo, so him and my sister bred their boxers :( there were 7, 1 died and my dad kept 1, so that's 5 more puppies in the world, they were ready end of Nov, so guess what most of them ended up as? Dad ended up keeping 3 till xmas eve :(

We were offered one, my dad said he would give DD one as a gift because DP said he didn't want a boxer so my dad said if he gifted one we'd have to have it. Huh, if it's anything like DDs christmas present we'dve never recieved it! Still waiting for her christmas present and card. Worst thing is, he lives 15 minutes away and is always in our town.

Oh! Forgot to mention, took Sprocket to a mainly secure field, 3 sides are secure, one side has a few exits in the hedge, tried a bit of recall with him and he was a star, zooming back to me everytime he spotted the cake in my hand, until he saw a blasted tabby cat in the hedge on the far side of the field, he started trotting off with his ears up and I'm trying to see what he's spotted (bloody thing was invisible to me till it moved!), then he started running. Oh my, I've never seen anything so amazing as that. He spent ages marching up and down looking for this cat, meanwhile I'm pushing DD over this field in her buggy, trying not to bump her too much. Finally got over to him and he comes trotting up all "Ooooh finally made it then? I've been here ages! Oooh is that piece of liver cake in your hand for me? Oooh smells delish!"

He's never slept so long in one go as he did yesterday afternoon. I've never seen him so alive as he was yesterday. It really cheered him up, he was practically laughing when I got his lead on.

Extra constant vigilance from now on! Binoculars if I have to :o

Woohoo, way to go Spaghetti and Sprocket!! Great news both on the stair mastering and on the recall!

It is lovely seeing them all 'alive' on a walk isn't it. We head over to a large local wooded common ever Friday afternoon with three other ex CCGT dogs (one whippety lurcher, one saluki lurcher and one ex racing grund) and it is marvellous to see them running, playing, chasing, absolutely fab.

The Pointy One sleeps very well that night which is great as it means he is not mithering us at 6.30am for a wee and breakfast so we get a bit of a lie-in

I have a feeling his old owner may have done a fair bit of recall training with him, he's really good (apart from when he spies cats) and I thought greys were supposed to have shoddy recall? Ahh well, I'm pleased with him anyway :)

I wish I knew someone else round here with greys so he can have a greydate (greyhound playdate :o). There is the woman round the corner from me with a whippy and a grey but I never see her and I don't know where exactly she lives.

That's great news about his recall! Where is this liver cake recipe?

Billys bad leg never went away so we went back to the vet today. Spent ages in there and the vet says he has arthritis in his right hip and knee

Poss as a result of bad diet/tough training/accident. Poor chap. Got some info about a therapeutic masseuse who comes to your house and teaches you techniques to get the limb moving freely again and got some dietary supplement (so expensive.) all claimable on ins thank god!

On the upside we walked him in a very doggy park on the other side of the borough next to the vet and met another large black grund called jimmy. Seeing them meet was a total treat. Lovely!

Livercake microwave recipe

Be warned, the stench is horrendous. It's worse when it's being mixed with the flour. I was heaving and wretching.

That's good and bad about Billys leg, good in the way that you know what's up with it now, bad because of obvious reasons :( bless him. Do you reckon he would tolerate a doggy hydro-therapy pool? I've heard they're meant to be brilliant for arthritis if you could find one near you somewhere.

So proud of Sprocket right now. I just turned around to go upstairs to help him down and there he was, halfway down, ALL BY HIMSELF :o :o :o

Well done Sprocket!

Betsy, so sorry to hear of Billy's arthritis. Not sure if you have discussed with vet, but we have found hydrotherapy to be literally a lifesaver. It has made an enormous difference to our elderly greyhound bitch. With arthritis, the key is to maintain as much muscle tone as possible around the affected joints thereby helping to slow down the vicious spiral of sore joint/less movement/muscle wastage/less flexibilitity/less strength/more joint problems etc. Find out if your insurance policy covers it - may be worth a try. We are paying for ours off policy but don't mind as we can see such a difference. Initially she went once a week for about three months, and now she is on a fortnightly visit.

Sprocket, Andy says you are a very clever boy!!

The vet mentioned Galen Therapy (just started another thread on this) and the vet nurse said she used a therapist like this for her rescue chap. It has made a huge difference to him apparently and they teach you how to do it so you don't have to keep calling them back. The leaflet we had also featured a pic of an elderly looking greyhound being manipulated by a therapist; the dog had a look of complete relaxation on its face!

I can will out about hydrotherapy too. There is a big vet hospital in the next borough and I'm sure it will offer it.

I've also contacted the kennel too; the vet really wants details of his racing injuries and the lady who runs it is going to call his trainer in the hope that he can supply more information. I don't care if it's inappropriate or not the done thing for this to happen; I think it's ludicrous they don't pass on their vet records given the crashes he's had!

But... he's not in extreme or immediate pain at all and still loves his walks and a good old crazy 5 minutes. And it's made NO difference to how we all feel about him so it's no biggie really.

If you look at his racing record on the database, you can see which races he's crashed in - doubt if they would have kept his vet records to be honest.

Or some information passed on? These poor dogs.

You might be lucky, but I would never expect it, and it's much more common to have virtually zero info (other than the racing record).

Part of the problem is the curved tracks - some are worse than others. Which track did Billy race on mainly? Also there is the issue of frequency of racing - plus many racing dogs are kept in cold, unheated kennels, are resting on concrete, plus the diet isn't the optimum for long term joint health.

I think the thing with arthritis is that although it's a manageable condition, you know you can never actually cure it, and over time it is likely to degenerate, so managing it aggressively in the early stages through careful lifestyle choices, maintaining flexibility, diet, etc is enormously helpful. With our darling girl, my hope is that she will die with arthritis, rather than because of it, if you see what I mean. She's 13 now, and is otherwise in very good health.

I just sat on Sprocket :o dozy dog chose to walk right behind me just as I was squatting to go in the freezer. He got a bit of a shock as my backside connected with his back. He's ok now though after an emergency cuddle and a small chunk of liver cake.

I hope you get some sort of therapy sorted for Billy soon Betsy, It should help him lots :)

I'm not sure who was more surprised - your bum or Sprocket!!! [bugrin]

Oooh I forgot about the easter smilies! I meant [bugrin] and [busmile]

I think Sprocket was more surprised, he did that funny sideways skipping thing with such an indignant look on his face [bugrin]