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

[TheCunnyFuntIsAGrittersWife]

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
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
:)

Oh definitely :) DDs birthday is the day after mine and she's the best person I know :o

Wow, I wonder if there's something about Geminis and their attraction to pointy hounds?

My sisters dog is a Gemini too, his birthday is 14th. He's a Boxer though.

My sister's birthday is the 14th too. She doesn't have a dog though.

Thanks for all your replies wrt harnesses and collars. I guess I'll start with a fishtail then, see how we get on with that.

So excited, I just love whippets. So beautiful and gentle.

Two of my friends who are geminis have lurchers. Apparently Gemini is my rising sign (i have libra sun) maybe it's an air sign thing!

We used to have a harness for Sam. But due to his odd shape (he is a whippet lurcher so ever so slightly broader than a pure whippet) I struggled to be happy with the fit of it.
We then bought a fishtail which needs to be on quite tight to avoid him backing out of it. It looked a bit uncomfortable so when we had a bit of money put by I followed the lead of two friends who had nice, 40mm wide martingale collars for their whippets and whippet lurchers. We ordered a lovely one for Sam last week from Kitsch Collars and are very happy with it

I have a confession, I've been very norty I've arranged with the lady who runs Dog O Nine Tails to make Sprocket a martingale. She'll take it with her when she takes her stall to the local dog show we're going to next month and just 'happen' to have a martingale in the style I want to fit Sprocket perfectly. And because it's my birthday the day after we go to the show, DP can't say no to buying me it :o

Cunny... Sneaky... I like it

Hi Pointy Hound people,

I'm after some advice and am going straight to the experts! We are going to adopt a rrg and are all very excited about it. We recently visited a rescue and totally fell in love with a gorgeous black girl. I'm not sure why but it just felt like she picked us and I didn't want to look at any of the other dogs.

Long story short, she was tested with a small dog and didn't react well so they have classed her as not small animal friendly but... we have a cat. The guy who runs the rescue said we seemed to be perfect for the dog and that he was sure that the gh and the cat, if introduced properly would be able to call a truce but that if it didn't work out we could take her back :( I don't really want to put her through taking her home and bringing her back if there is really no chance of it working out. Do any of you have any experience of ghs and cats especially if the gh reacted badly to small dogs. Thanks every so much for any advice.

Hi, didn't want to leave you unanswered though no direct experience (deffo not a cat person). My lurcher is not small furry friendly, but she reacts OK to small dogs once she recognises them as dogs. Therefore, could it be that whilst she didn't react well to a small dog, she might be fine with other animals. OTOH, I'm not sure I'd be happy with a rescue that was happy to use my existing pet to try out their theory. We knew our whippy was not cat friendly because when we first met him, a cat was in a crate in the same room. He went ape. Cat was safe (in crate) and whippy was taken away quickly, but I wouldn't be happy to use an existing cat in the house to try. Our lurcher would kill a cat without a second's notice.

Thanks magrat ever so much for your experience. I'm wondering how ghs are normally tested to see if they are cat friendly? I'm sure that I could keep the cat safe until we found out if they were compatible, I'm thinking muzzle, safety gates and never leave them alone but I think that might be the advice even if they have tested cat friendly? Rescue is RGT so I was hoping they would know their stuff, maybe not? Any other advice very gratefully received x

Hi houndgirl2be! I am about to do the same tomorrow with our new greyhound. I've done it before, with my dog who we've recently lost and it was fine. She was retired as she apparently 'lost her keeness' so they recommended her to be likely to get on with cats. I got her and this one from a RGT kennel and this time they have given us a leaflet on introducing them which was actually quite interesting. They told us they couldn't tells us how any of the dogs would be with cats as none had been exposed to them. T

he one we are getting, Billy, is good with small dogs so may be ok. We walked him and my kids played with him and he didn't jump or lick and was very gentle with them which was my main priority as I'm a childminder. We will be sensible with keeping his muzzle on and we have a gate at the bottom of the stairs so if they can't get out of the catflap they can get upstairs. My dss and ds1 have high beds which the cats often sleep on too so they have somewhere to go.

Nelly loved our cats and she would get up and go and sniff them all over when they came in through the cat flap. Having said that she would chase every other cat she saw and squirrels and deer and rabbits so I'm not so sure about her lack of desire to chase! She knew they were her family and that it was not ok to chase them. Hoping to teach Billy the same and give him a home for as long as I did Nelly :)

Sorry, no experience here, as dh is allergic to cats.

Lurcherboy would definitely chase if a cat sprinted away from him. He used to be ok with them until our neighbour got two that would sit on an overhanging branch above our garden and taunt him every day. He started barking at them then and despite the fact they moved out months ago, still darts up the garden to bark at the empty branch. He's fine with my MIL's elderly cat though - probably because he's never seen it move from it's favourite spot in the conservatory!

Fortunately all the cats round here give our garden a wide berth - they do however like to sun themselves on the fence just outside our bay window.

When we had a large fear-aggressive dog and wanted to introduce a pup we put pup's crate in a big indoor run and let him see her first before they were introduced. Oddly, he didn't show even a smidge of aggression and was just interested in her. We gradually introduced them with him on lead, muzzled and her in my arms and within the hour they were chasing each other around the living room creating chaos and were inseparable from then on. Not the same thing with cats though I suppose.

RGT Nottingham offer this advice for introducing greyhounds to cats when first rehomed.

Thank everyone for all your advice. The link from Nottingham RGT was really useful. Cinnamon please let us know how the introductions go. I'll be really interested to know. I am just waiting to hear back from the RGT about a vet check (we are too far away to do a home visit) and hopefully we should be able to pick our girl up next weekend if everything goes well. Very excited to be dog owners again after we lost out boy just before Christmas. Have become very obsessed with greyhounds!

I have always been told with cats not to hold them as it can heighten interest but I don't know if it would make a big difference. We have three RGT kennels within 40 miles as there are three tracks locally. You can tell I live in a rural area when I describe 40 miles as locally . Ended up going to furthest one!

Hi I'm back - sorry been very busy with our new arrival! He is fabulous - couldn't really ask for a better start. He's been with us nearly a week now and settled in so well we can barely remember life without him. He walks beautifully and is very little trouble in the house. We've had no accidents at all. He can be a monster around food though if he hasn't been fed and he has decided he doesn't want to sleep in the dining room/kitchen (barked for 2 hours one night) but settles really well in the living room!! I haven't decided what (if anything) to do about that as we get a new suite in a week and I am hoping to keep him off it! Any ideas?

Hi y'all.

Gemini here too.

Roxy took a prang yesterday. Racing Billy round PIL's football pitch back garden and decided to try and jump the pond. TBF, she nearly made it but had to scrabble up the rocky bank and tore her poor leggies up. Seems dry and clean tho, so no vet for her.

She's way stinkier than Billy. Is that because she's not been spayed yet? We have to bath her every week...

Hmm, Ana, can you keep a bit of the old suite for him? Or a sofa saver from PAH?

Missbetsy - thanks will look at sofa saver. That would be a good plan to keep the old suite but I am pretty sure we haven't room unfortunately :(

We picked Billy up at lunchtime yesterday, he was very good in the car home but had half destroyed his teddy by the time we got home!!

He wants to be with us all the time and we had quite a bad night with lots of whimpering. He's so affectionate but has already tried to steal food from my boys :(

Had a fab walk in the country park and about to take him on a run to see how he gets on.

He's very interested in the cats but it seems to be reducing already, didn't lunge this morning just looked and squeaked!

The cat issue - I have a cat and that's why I held out for months until I found a rescue that cat tested their hounds. My cat is 8 and a house cat so bringing a dog into the house was a big change for her.

Shydog was bred for racing but has no prey drive whatsoever (cats, birds, little dogs - all completely uninteresting to her). She has a mark on her nose from sitting still while a cat came up to her and swiped her.

Hope Billy soon settles in cinnamon. I found my dog was gathering and hiding food at first, it took her about a week to realise food would arrive at regular intervals and she didn't need to food guard/snatch/ hide stuff. Once I had in mind that that was how he had had to be in kennels I felt more positive about things improving.

I had 2 lovely moments from shydog today.

First one there was a knock at the door and she trotted up to it happily, stuck her nose round to nosey when I opened it, AND stuck around to let ex stroke her!

Second one was me testing her recall (gulp) on our evening walk. I took her off her lead for 4 short spells altogether and every time she was so so good! I had no treats with me, it was a spontaneous decision as the field we walk on was so empty. I am so pleased with her for doing so well, I couldn't ask for a better dog.

Right, going to read latests posts and catch up.

Ouch, I hope Roxy is ok Betsey. I'm quite surprised she's not spayed yet though! Why is that, do you know?

YourHand you must've been so proud of her! She's really coming on isn't she?

Cinnamon I hope it's going ok with Billy and that he settles soon. I also hope it's not too difficult for you, having a new (well, on trial) Greyhound in the house so soon after losing Nelly.

I always feel really useless when people are asking advice about their newly retired Greyhound I haven't a clue about helping a dog adjust to life in a house :o Sprocket came to us straight from his old home so for us he was a ready-made pet.

Thanks TheCunnyFunt, I keep trying to explain to dh just how much is new for him! He's getting annoyed that he won't lay down anywhere, but he's pretty settled this evening actually. I cried most of the way to get him and most of the way home! It's lovely having a dog in the house again and he was excellent at running with me this morning. I think it helps that my boys are so in love with him.
My neighbour asked today how he was getting on with Nelly and I had to explain which was hard :(. I've been going through all my photos and finding ones of her to make a folder and I'm going to make some kind of photo book/scrap book of her over the years. Haven't heard about her ashes yet but did have a sympathy card from our vets. He's so different from her it feels like a fresh start, but I'm training dh as well as he's not used to a dog he needs to do anything with or tell anything to!

Sounds love YourHandInMyHand, my Nelly was so nervous of people I never dared let her off as her fear of others would make her run in the opposite direction. Dh left the back gate open once and she had him trotting around the forest after her just far enough away for 2hours. He was so worried when I got home what he was going to tell me! Hoping Billy will be a different story as he loves people, took him to the local carnival today and he was good as gold.

Ah, he's eating!!!!! First time he's eaten since he got here, yay!

Billy sounds lovely - and the change is good to make the difference in many ways. We lost mistledog very quickly to bone cancer last autumn - we had 16 days between dogs but that was only really because DS and I were away for a week at half term - we came back on the Sat and drove over to meet two dogs on Sun and brought one of them home as a foster initially. Mistlehound is of a similar colouring as mistledog was - although her eyeliner is not as wonderful, although she does have a rough coat that has the most wonderful highlights, so she's forgiven the lack of eyeliner. The similar colour was a problem mentally in someways, but she's such a different dog its not been too bad.

We've just had a week in Northumberland and mistlehound has been rabbiting at least twice a day all week. She's actually glad to be home as she's shattered and is enjoying actually catching rabbits in her dreams rather than running after them in RL - she's been wearing bells so we could tell where she was and didn't worry quite so much.