Are you a Greyhound, Whippet or Lurcher owner? Come and have a seat on the new Pointy Hounds cushion!

[TheCunnyFunt]

Pointy hounds include-
Greyhounds (Grunds)
Whippets (Whippys)
Lurchers
Italian Greyhounds (Iggys)
Salukis
Afghans
And any others I have forgotten. If you are a new pointy hound owner, an old and experienced owner or looking into getting one of these fabulous creatures, come and have a seat (that's not taken up with a hound).

Share advice, stories and shopping tips!
AK Creations
Bonnie dogs
GRWE shop
Our very own Scuttle's Milgi coats
Silver Peacock

Jake
I didn?t really want you,
I wasn?t really sure,
And I?ll admit I had my doubts,
When you first came through that door.

Not small, or cute, or fluffy,
With big, soft puppy eyes,
But tall, and thin, and bony,
With bald, pink, bulging thighs.

You weren?t the kind I had in mind,
Not in any way,
?Perhaps it would be better if I took you back today,
Before we know each other,
It really won?t be kind,
To keep you here for one more day,
And then to change my mind.?

But against my better judgement, I decided you could stay,
And quickly I discovered you were kind in every way,
Your gentleness and patience, they really stole the show,
?Why these dogs are wonderful, I must let others know!?

For you?re my gentle giant,
Who just needed the chance,
To show us all what you could be,
To wipe away that history,
And dispel our preconceptions, which put us all to shame,
And so we come to know and love,
What lies beneath that frame.

And now I?ve come to understand,
What I missed right at the start,
That greyhounds need that great deep chest,
To house their great big hearts!
By Denise Dubarbier
:)

I am very norty too. I have been grinning away like a loon since the stockings have been at the embroiderers - kept dithering about telling you the test name but decided to wait and give you a nice surprise Someone else here will be getting a nice surprise too with the other stocking when it is complete

The clicker training demo was absolutely fabulous - held at Quiet Tiger's place. Got a fantastic opportunity for some chicken porn, a cute baby sheep, meeting her gorgeous and snuggly new sheepdog pup, and the demo itself was brilliant with the horses. However, the lessons learned are of course applicable to dogs (and indeed many other animals).

I think the way that young DD is going with her dog training, we'll be seeing her in the ring very soon in Junior Handler classes - her and Sprocket could be an unbeatable combo.

Am at Adie not finding a home yet - hope he does soon. Glad you enjoyed the meet and greet though - bet it was cold though!

Also, DH took the dogs out while I was at the demo today. He did the girls first at our local park which is also v popular with fishermen. Callie was off lead (her recall is usually quite good and with no teeth, she can't do any damage to cats), but met a fisherman by the side of the lake who had cooked himself a little tray of sausages......

I think she was planning to run off with them and sort of eat by sucking them Fortunately the fisherman was apparently very nice about it, and most of them were saved - phew!

You norty Scuttle I can see where Sara gets it from now :o
The stocking is gorgeous, I love the bones design.

They clicker trained horses? That sounds amazing!

The meet and greet was good, very cold so we weren't massively busy. At one point some lunatic thought it would be a good idea to walk their in-season sharpei bitch right through the middle of all the greyhounds (7 in total, 5 males). The boys all went nuts! Adie nearly yanked my arms out of my sockets!

Yes it was Cunny. The lady who did the demonstration has a website here - she, like many horse people also loves dogs and has used clicker traiing for agility etc. She works regularly with Quiet Tiger and her horses and it is so interesting and lovely. I can't tell you how nice it is to see horses enjoying their learning (and the people too!). We were all having a coffee afterwards and there was a great deal of chortling about the way AT nailed CM.

Am at the idiot who would bring a bitch in season to an event like that!!! Having seen the effect of Norty Minx on Andy (who doesn't even have any balls and is getting middle aged) I can imagine what it was like! Hope it doesn't put you off going to events though - actually meeting a greyhound can be an interesting experience for many people who have so many weird preconceptions about them (too bony, need 5 hrs exercise a day, will eat DC etc etc ) .

Ooh that looks interesting, I'll have a read of that later.on. Sounds like it was a good day out.

It hasn't put me off, I've got my name down for doing the christmas market already and it's not for another month :o
Adie got so much love, he is a serial love sponge :o and totally beautiful too. If someone gave him even a smile he'd dive over and go in for a lean. I think the fact that he is so strong puts people off.

Scuttle, what exactly is a corn? Sprocket has had really hard, crusty and cracked skin on his paw pad for a few weeks which I am assuming was the corn. I looked at it today and the crusty layer has now gone, and underneath where it was, is now smooth and white-ish and still a bit hard.
He is now walking perfectly fine, not a hobble or a limp in sight!

I am confusef as to what is what [hconfused]

Gah. Might be out of our weekend of drama although I don't want to speak too soon. Billy managed to spear his front left leg on a tomato cane in the back garden (who knows how, it was dark and he'd seen something down the garden.) Cleaned it up Saturday night and by Sunday morning his leg just above the paw was really swollen. He seemed fine, eating and drinking but unable to walk. Just as I discovered this I realised the sound coming from the lounge was DS2 vomiting. DH about to fly to Spain for work.

Made it to vet hospital after DM came up and he had a big injection of anti bi s. He cried soooo loudly, poor thing. I was surprised as he'd not batted an eyelid during his routine vax....

Hope everyone else is well! x

Oh no Betsey, poor Billy, he'll be on first name terms with all the staff there soon! And poor DS2, how is he today?

[hshock] at Billy! Sending hugs and woofs for a very speedy recovery, for both His Lordship and DS.

Cunny,it's unusual for a corn to cover the whole of the paw pad. Have you been moisturising it? What you've got left sounds like it could either be a small corn or a piece of scar tissue - hard to say without seeing it. To be honest, if he's OK and not limping, why worry? [hwink] I'd keep moisturising if that's what you've been doing, but otherwise leave alone. The thought that went through my mind when you described the removal of the rough skin was that he'd had a pedicure! [hgrin]

Anyone got any good suggestions for housetraining a 2 yo dog that's been in kennels for at least 3 months and goodness knows where before that? Her control is impressive... but her choice of location requires some work.

Just the usual, Mistle. Expect accidents at the beginning and make sure you remove them using the appropriate cleaning products to remove any trace of smell that would encourage her to go again in the same spot. Using a good routine, take outside first thing, after meals and at regular intervals during the day and praise LAVISHLY whenever a performance happens, whether out on a walk or in the garden. Most greys pick up the general idea within a few days and when there have been accidents with ours, it's been down to us not reading the signals or leaving it too long.

I'd also expect a few "loose" motions just after adoption - almost every dog has this as they cope with stress, and if you have changed diet, feeding times too. Might also be worth checking how often/what time she was used to being fed - if she has changed from being fed once a day in the morning say, to twice a day on a different food her internal transit clock will have changed and she may be needing to go when you are asleep for instance.

We've got the same food - and we're trying to feed the same amount at approximately the same times. Its just not knowing that you're meant to do that sort of thing in the garden that's the problem. However, we now have a lunge rein (our garden fence still needs work) and DH has managed to have a successful wee break with her (for her, not him!) this afternoon! She is going to have to have a bath this afternoon though I understand - she smelled bad anyway, but managed to roll a bit before DH stopped her when walking. I'm sure that we'll get there though, she seems keen to please.

Tbh Scuttle it really wouldn't surprise me if he'd helped himself to my manicure set [hgrin] thinking about it, I had a look at it when we got home from our walk, the crusty layer was still there, he had breakfast then buggered off upstairs, then I checked it again when he came down and the crusty layer had gone [hshock] [hhmm]

I felt really pleased last night, we went to bed, Sprocket stayed downstairs as is normal now, then after a while he came upstairs, had his usual bedtime snuggle and he then settled himself down on my sheepskin rug and dressing gown, ignoring his memory foam bed [hhmm] and stayed there all night! I was very [hshock] when I saw him still there this morning. Until I went downstairs. I discovered he'd dug his downstairs duvet into a ball so he couldn't lie on it so he gave up and that's why he came upstairs :(

I got woken up by the dog (a pointy-ish) when I was little, staying at my grandmother's house - went downstairs, looked across the beam that divided the kitchen and dining room and saw what looked like blood everywhere - ran two twisty flights to rouse my parents - DF rushed down - and found that the dog had eaten one and a half damson pies (we had eaten 1/2 a one for pudding between 4 of us to give you some indication of size) and the dog was crying as her basket was full of damson stones and the two (clean) pie dishes.

[hshock] [hgrin] Was the dog ok? Bet that was fun to clean up [hgrin]

Now THIS is what I call a hot dog! Or as DP says, less like a hog roast, more like a dog roast :o

He didn't last there more than 5 minutes :o

Yes the dog was fine - she had a cast iron constitution.

Making tracks on the housetraining - the garden is now, apparently, an acceptable place to use (as well as the house) which is definite progress - DH says he's been taking her out regularly and that seems to be doing the trick at the moment.

That's great news, Mistle. Our pointy friends are not blessed with huge brains, so it takes them a while but once they get the hang of it, they are usually pretty good.

Was out the garden earlier topping up the bird feeder, and Mick was out with me, and nearly went in the pond again - it seems to have a magnetic attraction for him! For some reason, it tastes so much nicer than the plentiful and regularly topped up bowls of water we have in the house.

Oh I'm so glad she's getting the hang of it. I'm no help wrt housetraining as Sprocket had already lived in a home for 2 years before he came to us so he was housetrained already.

Scuttle one of MILs spaniels is like that, he much prefers to drink out of the dog bowl outside that's full of rainwater [hconfused] and a family friends boxer loves to drink out of their pond, the fish love it too weirdly enough, they always swim upto him when he's drinking out of the pond his owner says she's always worried he'll drink one up by accident :o

I must also admit to not being good with house-training. Woody came to us fully trained (we didn't have a clue whether he would be or not) and when we got Jessie, she followed Woody's lead. I think she has wee'd in the house about 2 times.

That said,I had quite a disgusting experience today, where Jessie pooh'ed moved forward, waving her tail in the old pooh, pooh'ed again and then tried for a third time. By which time, her tail was a lovely pooh yellow colour and I had to wipe it down with tissues before continuing on our walk.

Cunny I am very jealous of your wood burning stove. I have still to persuade DH we really need one.

You'll be please to hear we've had approximately ONE WHOLE DAY with no accidents from Billy now.

(I mean impalings, skinnings, etc etc.)

Is it just me or does Billy's (mis)adventures remind anyone of the drummers in Spinal Tap?

Hope he's recovering.

Betsey we have 2 fires, we have the stove in the dining room, and we have an open fire in the front room. No other reason than we get free wood for burning (BIL owns his own bespoke joinery) and we love them :o
I am so pleased to hear Billy has gone so long without an accident :o

Magrat, that is disgusting! Poor you!

Scuttle Billy actually reminds me of my brother and my neice. They are both very accident prone. My brother has crashed his cars so many times everyone has lost count (of both crashes and cars!) and we're all very surprised he is still insurable and also more importantly, alive.

My neice who is 4 in February has dislocated her arm, walked off a bed and got concussion, trapped her finger in a heavy door and almost severed the end of it off (all these 3 were before her 2nd birthday!), pulled a wardrobe over on top of herself and has fallen over countless times and she usually has scabby knees.