Pics of the hounds in their new collars, coats and PJs.
Very cute, need I say more?

Dizzy Lily
A Snood for a Hound

Pezdiva with her snood for Maggie is the first pic I have seen of my pattern for rescue hounds. I won't tell you where Maggie is, it could be anywhere in the world, as I don't want to advertise the whereabouts of dogs for security reasons.

If you would like a free pattern for your own rescue dog, then email me telling about your hound. If you don't have a rescue hound, tha pattern is for sale at $3/£1.50. Even if you have a rescue dog, donations are most welcome as Julie from Essex greyhound rescue says she is going to make sure that all the dogs in the rescue kennels and the ones fostered at her home will get a special Christmas dinner made from some fresh meat. The remainder of donations is needed for food, collars and leads and the most biggest expense the vets bills as some dogs arrive with broken limbs and all sorts of conditions that need treatment before they can be put up for rehoming.

Doesn't she look cute and snuggly and warm? I will be keeping pics of all the rescue hounds who get one of these, that is if their owners send me a pic. Then I am going to stick up a gallery of them on Flickr.

Knitting Patterns for Charity

Dizzy Lily
A Snood For a Hound

I used to think that clothes for dogs was a silly idea. Until we got greys and I realised just how much they feel the cold (just feel their icy ears and nose on a cold day!). I noticed that the indoor kennel coats just didn't keep Lily warm and she kept burrowing her head under pillows or behind Dizzy. Poor Lily though has a bald neck, so it was time to cover it. I came up with this shaped snood knitting pattern. I didn't adopt greys just so I could knit for them, I promise! I think Dizzy will only need his snood when it is really icy outside as he is a warm boy.
I am selling it for £2.00 GBP and donating 100% to the Essex Greyhound Rescue service (or Lurcher Link if you are a lurcher owner). The Dizzy Lily/Snood Pattern can be downloaded from the sidebar via PayPal which will convert to any currency.

Can anyone give a temporary foster home to Macy?

Talking of Essex Greyhound Rescue, they have just had a dog come into their kennels called Macy who hates kennel life and is not eating due to anxiety. Julie feels that if this hound was given a chance in a foster home, she would be able to put weight on and become more rehomeable because at the moment she is a bit thin. I would so love to give a temporary home myself, but last time we thought of doing that we had decided on one dog and would foster another, and what happened? We ended up adopting both dogs anyway. Now our plans for fostering are over as 2 is the max amount of dogs who will fit into this home.

If you think you can give little Macy a foster home, I think she gets on OK with other dogs, then do contact me and i will put you in touch with Julie. Obviously you would need to be in the UK and being in the Essex area is going to help greatly.

Lily is going Bald

Alopecia is quite common in rescued greyhounds. Sometimes it is because they have been lying on hard surfaces in kennels, sometimes it is due to diet, and other times due to thyroid, stress or hormones.

Lily had a tiny patch of fur missing and bald legs when we got her. The legs have a much better covering of hair now but the patch on her neck has got worse.

The vet's opinion is that she has a mineral deficiency and that she has seasonal hormonal inbalance. The cure, is to try taking PetTabs as a vitamin and mineral deficiency so that is what we are doing.

Dizzy's paw update

Last night was Dizzy's last chance, to see if the ulcer on his pad had healed (it has been there for 4 mths now!) whilst taking the extraordinarily expensive antibiotic Marbocyl. The verdict was to let him have another course of these antibiotics, this is his 5th course (or more) and 3rd or 4th of Marbocyl, I can't bear to look at all the bills in total, it costs £116 for each packet for 2-3weeks.
Our bill last night was £230.

Dizzy relaxing in my knitting boudoir..ahem some rules have been relaxed

Someone somewhere made a silly mistake allowing that to develop in the way that it did and now we are paying the awful cost. However, I decided to make a decision with regards to treatment without taking finance into the equation, just to see what is the best way forward. So, we could have opted for 4 days on 4 days off to see if that would be just enough to control any infection but having skin ulcers myself, that take years to heal, I just wanted to give him the best chance of healing, he deserves it.

The paw has cost us at least £500, if not more and he may eventually have to have another operation to debride it. Apparently, when he was returned from his first owner, who said she 'it's not him, its me, I just can't share my space with him', he had a wound and we were told that it was because she had walked him so much, didn;t have a car and so it was a blister from pads on the hard surfaces. The vet was not sure about this, he thought it was unlikely to have been a blister from walking and more likely to be a wound where a foreign object penetrated, he did find a stone lodged in there during surgery.

Well, we just have to press on, and it doesn;t look anywhere as bad as it was, but it is quite deep and makes him limp.

Poor Dizzy Rascal!

Holiday Privileges

The hounds were so cute on hols. Here they are outisde our little blacksmith's cottage in a private valley with a stream running by and fields with a footpath to the beach.
We thought poor Lily was going to get a burst bladder as she wouldn't wee away from her garden at home and we thought she would be a total nervebox for most of the 2 weeks. What a cutie, she managed to wee in public, in a field next to the main route to Tintagel castle with people within hearing distance as well.

How we loved bonding with our dogs. Physically as well. no words can describe how cuddly greyhounds are, and yes, we weakened and we let the hounds come and cuddle us on our bed after breakfast. Needless to say that all stopped when we got home here.

Lily's confidence just grew and grew on holiday. I was swelling with pride for her progress. They loved getting in and out of the car and going for drives, short walks (because Dizzy has an ulcer on his paw) and lots of lounging around in the garden too.

It was a bit nippy at night so the hounds wore their towelling sun coats to keep warm, and naughty Lily was caught climbing up into the living room chair.

We turned a blind eye, well; holiday privileges again!



She also got up and cuddled her Dad, and considering how terrified of men she normally is, that was an amazing thing to see. She is such a little Daddy's girl that I feel a pang of jealousy at their closeness.

Dizzy is still the big baby he ever was. His walking on the lead has improved loads and we didn;t really have any trouble walking around with the dogs, or taking them to pubs, eating fish and chips at Tintagel or any other activity.

Now we are back in London things are a bit different. Lily went back in her shell to begin with but is coming out again and has done a few toilet activities in the local park. We can take her off the lead as well for very short bouts and she will walk near us. A couple of times at the cottage she escaped and always came back.

Embarrassingly, after a welcome cuddle with Steve and I and my Dad and his parrtner Jeannie, Lily and Dizzy bolted off and Dizzy did his usual trick of running into the nearest open door and finding a person to love.


We love these dogs too too much! It feels so special to have rescued these hounds, and given them what they need and a little bit more.

Hope is Looking for a New Home

Poppy and Todd as well as Valdi previously mentioned on this blog have found good homes, they were all special dogs and have found happiness with the right owners. This is greyhound who is looking for a home in the North East after being rescued from severe cruelty.

'My name is Hope and I am an ex-racing greyhound. After a very bad start to my life, I am now looking for a special home. My doggie companions are great as they have helped me on the road to recovery. I am looking for a new home in the North East'

PLEASE READ HOPE'S STORY.

On Friday 6th April 2007, a motorist was driving in Dalton Piercy and thought she saw a dead fox lying at the side of the road. She stopped to investigate and found that it was not a fox but a brindle female Greyhound who was still alive, but had collapsed in a heap. The lady took the dog straight to a local vets. Our rescue received a call the following day to ask if we could take her in as she was due to go to the local dog pound that day. What a shock we got! This dog was skin and bone and she could hardly lift her head up. We took her straight to Steven Duncan (head of our Rescue), who told us that she had 95% wastage to her body, covered in fleas and she could have possible liver and kidney damage. Steven then took the dog to his vet where they administered a drip to try and re-hydrate her. At the time of writing this article, she is still at the vets getting treatment. She has been tested for kidney and liver damage and we are waiting for the results. She has also put on a little weight but still needs to be hooked up on a drip for a few more days. The Greyhound who was given the name of HOPE weighed only 15 kilo�s and her perfect weight is 30+ as she is a big female, so she has a long way to go before she is 100%. This is the worst case of cruelty that we have ever seen at our rescue. If she had not have been found that day�well who knows what might have happened. There is a ongoing investigation with the R.S.P.C.A and hopefully the owner will be prosecuted, and banned from keeping dogs. Even though Hope was in a bad condition that night when we picked her up from the vets, she lifted her head and even managed to give a slight wag of her tail, this giving us as a rescuer, HOPE that she will survive.

If you think you can give Hope or another greyhound a home contact info@greyhoundrescue.net

Can you offer a home to a very nervous dog? Essex Greyhound rescue have a dog called Magic who is shy and timid and would like a home, possibly with other greyhounds, where he can come out of his shell. As you can see my Lily was an extremely nervous dog but we managed to bond in days and despite hating men, has become a real Daddy's girl and very cuddly. Patience is required but setting a routine the dog can trust and being careful about introducing new situations can bring the gretest rewards. Contact me if you are interested in meeting Magic with a view to rehoming him.

Dehydration, Copraphagia, Agoraphobia

Dizzy was ill with diarrhoea, then he ate it to clean it up, and started vomiting. Anyway, we found two useful tips to help us out. Diarolyte given in a dogs water bowl, mixed up as for a child, quickly helps to stabilise any electrolyte inbalance. And, eating their own poo, copraphagia as it is medically known, is quite a common greyhound trait. We think thay Dizzy did this either because he was losing weight due to diarrhoea following penicillin treatment and was lacking in nutrients OR it was a guilty attempt to clean up because he kept having little accidents indoors Well, giving a dog either fresh pineapple or pineapple juice breaks down to a foul tasting element in their poo which quickly discourages them from continuing that habit.

Lily is doing well with her desensitising programme but seems to have a real block in the pet shop where she quivers and shakes like a jelly whilst digging her claws in to the ground. Strangely, she does not have this reaction at the vets where we would expect it. Also, it is sad but Lily does not really enjoy going on walks outside the house at all. She has become so happy and comfortable here that she either pulls to drag us back to the house or turns into a statue before she leaves the house and lies down on her bed. We take her regardless and try to make it as enjoyable an experience as possible but she would really rather not go. One of the things that makes her unwilling to continue a walk, is that due to her nervousness she won't pee anywhere except our own garden. Taking her on holiday will be interesting, she will have to go then.