Behaviour

Spring is in the air. I can tell because we have some naughty behaviour developing and this May the hounds will have been with us for 2 yrs, so their paws are well and truly under the table.

This morning, before Breakfast I found my copy of Wind in the Willows that I have had since a child (and that was long ago!) shredded to bits on one bed, and a notepad shredded on the other.
Not knowing which hound did it though means discipline is difficult, and once the event has been done, too late for any telling off! Yesterday they had a leather diary (this year's!)

I tried a 'Who did this?' low voice and Dizzy looked guilty but Lily just flew around the room at top speed spinningn and barking and snapping at the air like a maniac. This means "I am happy, and in the mood for a game, and I am going to be very naughty and see if I get away with it"

I got them together by breakfast, and the atmosphere was calm. Eerily quiet it was even for an after breakfast mood so I had a look to see what was going on, and there was Dizzy on the sofa in the best sun patch in the house. He knows he is only allowed up on 'Daddy's' sofa if he is being very good and he has to be invited. We don't have hounds on furniture without the pack leader's invitation, if they go up there by choice we found it leads to them snapping or getting a bit above themselves if we want to sit down too. So, invitation only and he had NOT been invited.

I asked him off, which he did, then turned my back and he was up. This happened three times.
We decided the dogs are being spoilt with extra sofa and food, and instead of making them happy and loyal it is making them naughty and challenging.

You should see Lily on a Saturday night she barks at the door and the window and us, before we have ordered our Chinese or Indian takeaway...she decides when it should be here and is most disgruntled if we have not picked up the phone. Once ordered, and she knows whenn we have (more to do with the leaflet we are holding which must smell of food) she parks herself at the front door and gets positively over confident and pushy once those takeaway bags get deposited on the table. Then she whines the whole evening for a prawn cracker and pretends she needs a wee, just to see if she gets rewarded by a cracker. We have to tie up the leftovers and treble wrap them and put in the bin outside, but the smell wafting through the window often triggers a hound to do rising and falling siren type whines.

So, we have to stop all these little extras for a while, feed them just twice a day and not give them leftovers and too many treats and be a bit strict about beds and furniture. Shame, cos we do love it when they are happy but there seems to be a limit and going over that means a dog doesn't know where she stands.

New Cards on Sale

I have one card for each of my two beautiful greyhounds, one is called Is My Nose ABig and the other is called Camouflage Boy. All card profits/royalties are going to Essex Greyhound Rescue, I will be making more cards as I go along but it is very distracting!

your donation goes to the hounds for food and vets bills.

Thank you to those who have donated by buying knitting patterns for snoods for their dogs. Dizzy Lily A Snood For a Hound has sold 55 times, and I have just written another cheque to Essex Greyhound Rescue for £57.

I have given out free patterns to around 200 rescued dogs so far (possibly more)
It all helps to raise awareness and we have cute photos of hounds in their snoods in the Hound Snood Gallery

Here are a few favourites. As you can see, some Italian greyhounds (minuature) and a Daschund have crept into the gallery.



I love this one above, who is little Froggy in his Italian greyhound adaptation (they are tiny)
If you have knitted an item for your hound, including the snood do send your picture to me
erssiemajor@yahoo.co.uk
The galleries not only provide amusement but they help raise awareness for adopted dogs.
What else could show how soft and adaptable these lovely dogs are when adopted than them modelling a piece of clothing? What other dog would put up with it?

Yipee, we got the all clear!

Lily has had surgery, 4 lumps were removed and all diagnosed as cysts or benign skin/blood tumours called Hamartomas which rarely cause problems like cancers. Her vulva biopsy though showed a chronic thickening and inflammation within the folds so we have to wash and dry her and put nappy rash cream on. Talk about a child substitute!

We are so relieved, and she was so brave despite being bruised, scarred, stitched and poorly. We are proud of her. She seems to be getting over her 'man phobia' as well and is following any man that has a biccie in his hand!

Lily Update

We picked her up Wed eve. Poor Lils has been in the wars, lots of bald patches and stitches as well as having had internal biopsies and scans. Now we have to wait until biopsies are back to find out whether the skin tumours are sarcoma, or benign. Her behaviour though was impeccable, she was confident and allowed other people to handle her and the vet introduced her to his daughter who now wants a greyhound of her own. She was s excited to be home and have all her home comforts and it reminded us of how good life is for her here even if she does sometimes act a bit princessy!

The other strange thing is that the vet started to explain that her urine test showed an inability to be able to concentrate the urine.....and I had deja vu.
I had been told the exact same thing, and in fact after some hideous tests I was diagnosed with Cranial Diabetes Inspidus which is a very rare problem with kidneys not concentrating urine and losing water, and being thirsty as well as peeing ALL the time and even incontinent (sorry to go into the pants region here).

Now DI, is so very rare, so what is the chances of Lily and I having the exact same thing? It is not a transferable condition.

This means that as well as me having to get up to pee throughout the night and getting thirsty and drinking, Lily is doing the same thing. She needs to pee about twice once at around 2-3am and another around 4am and then again at around 5.30 am. So I trudge down the stairs, totally shattered and let Lily out go myself have a couple of hours kip and then up to do it again....It is so tiring I am starting to feel ill....wait a minute, I am feeling ill already! I do hope that we can sort Lily out and perhaps give her some replacement hormone further down the line.

And I really hope that Lils doesn't have a nasty skin problem. She is so cute lying there with her A K Creations custom made pyjamas; red with little sheep on.

Lily

Lily is a white dog, in that she has a lot of white fur which is quite thin in paces over her skin. This has caused us a bit of worry and so we have used sunscreen to help stop the sun's rays doing harm to her skin. As you may know, white animals are particularly prone to skin cancers.



A while back, Lily had a mole/scab that kept bleeding on her flank and we pointed it out to the vet who said it looked like a mole which had been caught and we should keep an eye on it. We did and it never healed, you can see here it looks like it has a bruised ring around it.

Last week just as a routine we took her to have it checked out because it worried us. The vet said we were right to be concerned, and he wanted to take it off as soon as possible and have it biopsied. From its appearance and behaviour, he diagnosed it as either a hemangioma or a hemangioma sarcoma, the first word meaning a benign blood/skin tumour and the second word meaning a malignant one. Both look the same and it is 50%/50% as to which one of these Lily has. The nasty kind if left untreated can spread to liver, lungs and kidneys and can be very aggressive.

Of course we are hoping like mad that it turns out to be a plain hemangioma
Both look absolutely identical though, little blisters that can burst and bleed and have a reddish or purplish appearance.

If your own greyhound gets one of these, don't panic they seem to be fairly common but do get it checked out like we are.

Fingers crossed for tomorrow!!

Tilly

Poor Tilly had an injury, and needed a leg removed right up to the shoulder. Julie, her rescuer was really worried about her balance. However, I can report that Tilly has recovered from her amputation and is flying around so fast, she isn't allowed out in the garden with other dogs in case she knocks her wound. This is just proof that a 3 legged hound can be just as good as a 4 legged one and one less leg is not a reason to put them to sleep.

As far as I know Tilly is still up for adoption, so anyone in the UK who wants a three legged hound contact me as an enquiry.

My Hounds really are gorgeous!

Lily's confidence is growing and growing and she has even started to give male strangers a little investigative sniff, rather than backing off and trying to escape. However, she is still cautious, but that is what makes her such a well behaved girl and we can let her off the lead and she comes back when called. She doesn't wander far, especially not from her favourite person in the world....(not me! Her Daddy!!)

I noticed in these pics though, that she has grown into a proper woman and is not so much of a puppy to look at, although she is still pupp-like in her behaviour.



We took the hounds away twice to our favourite cottage in Devon. We also went to the beach at Kessingland in Suffolk (above) for my birthday, then went and had tea and sandwiches at Southwold and had a stroll along the seafront by the beach huts.

It was an unusually warm and sunny day, the first bit of 'summer', on 27th september but sadly it didn't last.



Now I have to get all sad about being a year older AND the winter coming on. It is always the same if your birthday is in September. I have moved as well from being in the early part of a decade agewise, to the middle, and can be called middle aged now.