New Poster and Her Dogs: Introduction

My goodness! I must take the time to edit the rubbish I write. (Shamefaced emoticon here)

Alexa Hello are you new to Gransnet if so welcome its good to meet you,when we have "tried" training with any of our dogs the only method we have used is the biscuits in the hand as a reward and always found this worked,there are many differant ways though and I am sure you will find someone with more experience than me and mine.
We have also over the years adopted from rescue centres and have gone down the fostering route as we had a lot of land at the rear of our big family home but now we live in an apartment and have Barney the JR who came to us 4 yrs ago after being kept in isolation at the back of a house with his previous owner he is so loyal and loving and follows mr.glamma everywhere and all the residents of our complex love him to death.After having bigger dogs being in the family for years (we had bassetts and my son now has them)it was strange having such a small dog come into our lives but he is a joy to have.

Sorry, no tips, my dogs were never the best behaved, and now I have 3 cats only.
Welcome alexa hope you will enjoy Gransnet, I look forward to reading your future contributions.

Welcome Alexa from one dog lover to another. As a basset hound owner, I have no sight hound tips, sorry - mine responds to the smell of cheese, sausages....well, just about everything! At the moment, she's guarding the kitchen, where I have a cheeseboard and plates of antipasti waiting for family to arrive for a buffet lunch. She'll be lucky!

when has your's been doing the ceremonial march up and down the kitchen again like my chap he must have worn out his paws by now or a hole in the floor,he has found out how to suck the chocolate out of the tree decs and leave the foil on the tree,my fault for placing them on too low down they have all been removed now as bad for him and they are safely in young Luke's pocket for after his football match.

Alexa, welcome - pleased to meet you. I don't have dogs, only a cat, which as you know, isn't possible to train . One lady who posts on here does have a retired greyhound, though, so hopefully, she'll see your post and have something to say about how she has dealt with things in the past!
Keep posting - it's lovely to see a new face.

Welcome Alexa - I have a greyhound so I am sure my advice will be useless invaluable.
Sighthounds
Training
Hello?

Oxymoron?

Glamma my Nell is beside herself with expectation. She has cottoned on that children must be visiting, there are sausages cooking in the oven now, cheese and pesto pastries on top of the oven keeping warm, and she is padding up and down from kitchen to front door, not wanting to miss me slicing the salami up. The poor dog will be carried off on a stretcher if she gets any more excited!

lurcher-minder/owner here - training a sighthound is a matter of hope and expectation over fact.
my lurcher is a collie cross greyhound who (bless him) does not bark who came to me as a rescue dog aged 4. The first year was a battle as to who was pack leader and while he acknowledges I now hold the superior position, he has his lunatic/mad moments when training flies out the window and he goes profoundly deaf. and as for the sight or smell of a CAt - it is a case of grab hold and do not let go.
agree with gracesmum re success - but good luck as maybe the whippets are the sane side of sighthounds.
but they are wonderfull funny laid back dogs and well worth the effort.

Oh dear, Alexa; what have you let yourelf in for? [I don't mean with the dog; I mean with me...I can bore for England when it comes to sighthounds and there are a few of us on here that are owned by them]. What sort of cross is yours? I've always wanted a Bedlington/Whippet cross but, thus far have only had whippets. First of all can I recommed thewhippetforum; a lot of knowledgeable people who know everything there is to know about whippets, greyhounds and lurchers. They are the dearest dogs; my whippet loves people and other dogs. Not sure about cats; my old one grew up with cats and there was never a problem but this one has been an 'only dog'. I have separated my garden into a 'my bit' and a 'Hattie bit' because if I hadn't I would have no grass and no plants. Why they are so destructive in the garden but so good in the house is beyond me. As for recall. The problem is the speed at which they run. They can get into such trouble because they run faster than they can think [if indeed they do think ]. Barbed wire, cars, brick walls etc are a constant danger. With Hattie I only fed her boring dried food at home but used tasty meat as a recall aid. When I first had her I'd wait till she was outside in her garden, blow a very loud football whistle and then give her the meat. I did this over and over again until she associated the sound with the food. Even though she has a more interesting diet it still works outside. Secondly when letting her off the lead try to tire her out in an enclosed area first if possible, as tend to run in short bursts. I assume she's identichipped in case she does get lost? I can recommend some lovely books about lurchers to you; if you lived near me you could borrow them [they're, sadly out of print and very precious to me]. If, as you say, you live in the Midlands I can aslo recommend a very good sighthound vets [I think they're near Shepshed]. Good luck with her. I'm very envious. When I retire I'm tempted to get a lurcher as well!

mollie; aplologies..it had slipped my mind that you are owned by one as well. All we need now is Sook .

crimson you said what I would have said - but much better
recommend the book 'walking Ollie' by stephen foster a very funny book about coping with a difficult lurcher - most libraries will have a copy.

Oh I've not heard of that one. I'll definately get a copy.What started me off was My Small Country Living by Jeanine McMullen [I can't get hold of that but you've given me an idea; a library might have one or can get one for me]. My whippet runs up behind people and tries to steal things out of their pockets [it's where we keep her treats and she thinks everyone else does the same ]. I used to have spaniels; bit daft but very biddable so sight hounds were a bit of a shock at first.

I too am new on gransnet but I do not have a dog so sorry. I saw this heading and thought it a good place to say my hello but I did write a message on knitting dogs.

Welcome Alexa and Pollyann. I have two dogs but no experience of sight hounds....what is a sight hound anyway? I too live in the Midlands and my garden is a quagmire but mainly due to the continuos rain.

I saw your post polly and best wishes for the arrival of your first grandchild in February . To make a smile you need to use the square brackets [] like this

A sight hound is a dog that hunts by sight rather than smell; ie greyhound, saluki, whippet. It includes luchers that are a cross between a sighthound and another dog; usually a collie cross [which gives them more intelligence so they are even better at not doing what they're told ] or two sighthounds which is a 'longdog'. They run before they think; can run very very fast and, when they've ran away and out of sight of their owner can't sniiff their way back in the way a labrador or spaniel can. They can go from 0-@33 mph in the blink of an eye. Once you're smitten by them you're lost forever. You can't keep them off the furniture [it's where they belong] and you can't stop them stealing [hence the term thieving hound]. In their defence they're unbelievably sweet natured, very healthy [never having been tampered with for breeding purposes] and [and this is very important given that they live on your sofa or, if they can get to one, your bed] very very clean. Dust them over every now and again and they come up clean as new.

The exception to the rule being the Afghan hound which is all of the above but has to be groomed all the time. Not sure why they became quite so popular durning the swinging sixties other than the fact they look good. imo the Afghan is to be avoided at all costs. I once 'dog sat' an Afghan in my house and it's a night I'll never forget [but wish I could ]...

I once had a dog that was a cross between a border collie and a lurcher, so would he have been a sight hound then? He was VERY intelligent, and protective of the family. But even after we had him neutered he would escape occasionally (he could jump like a stag) and be gone all night.

PS tell us, what happened with the Afghan? Was he the Taliban of the doggie world?

Welcome Alex and Poll. Enjoy your time here .

The main thing I remember is that, being a very tall dog, he could reach up onto all of the shelves. The children has a squeaky Smurf that he took a fancy to and, no matter which shelf I put it on he just reached up further and further. He was owned by a friend of my husbands who had bought him [I think] as a 'babe magnet' and hadn't trained him very well [if at all]. He also [the dog that is] eyeballed me at the start of our evening together with a 'don't you dare tell me what I can or can't do, you infidel' look. I was genuinely scared of this dog and was very relieved when they came back from the pub and rescued me. I never offered to look after him again. He certainly didn't have the sweet nature that all other sighthounds of my aquaintance have had .

crimson love the description 'runs faster than they can think' - my lurcher tried to do a loop the loop on hard ground in front of his two lady labrador friends and broke a toe on his front paw. cue expensive x-ray and weeks of lead walks and a brightly coloured bandage on his front offside. Did he learn the next time he saw said girls - of course not. He still tries to go at full stretch (a beautiful sight) and do his fast turns

Yes; they are terrible show off's arent they. They do seem to be aware of other sighthounds as well; much as they love other dogs they get very excited when they see another one of 'them'. Or maybe I just imagine it? Hattie seems to be a bit lame on a front leg these days; vet saw nothing amiss, but I've restricted her to walks on the lead for a while. I love seeing her run on the beach oop north so I do hope it's only a temporary problem. She crawled through a cat flap when we were out a couple of months ago [we got home to find her upstairs and she can't do stairs] so I wonder if she hurt her leg getting through the gap. It was absolutely tiny [it's one of those dog gates that's got a cat flap at the bottom]. It was my fault for not locking it, never dreaming she would try to get through it; lucky she didn't get stuck halfway. Of course, having got upstairs she then couldn't negotiate her way back down [her legs get in the way] so she was stuck in the bedroom where she had an accident. Our big treat is to curl up on the sofa together watching telly .

A greyhouhd at full stretch is a sight to behold for sure. My gorgeous greyhound girl died a couple of years ago, rescued and came to me age 4 - my first experience of "owning" a sight-hound! The trouble she managed to get herself into, the hefty vet bills (no cheap anaesthetics for these hounds, oh no!!) after running without engaging the brain. I had to be very careful where she was allowed to run free unless it was on the beach, in the countryside there was always the possibility of a hare popping up and she never, ever forgot where she'd seen one before so was constantly on high alert!

But, what a super friend she was. Quiet, affectionate, sofa-loving and sadly missed. Maybe one day I'll convince the OH to "acquire" another retired racer