Learning New Words and Getting A Sight Hounds Eye Contact

I have introduced some useful things in the hounds vocabulary and have found that Lily (the nervous one) is quicker to pick this up than Dizzy Rascal. These are their new words. I thoroughly recommend reading Retired Racing Greyhounds for Dummies it seems to have a fairly balanced view and does help you to have higher expectations of a rescue dog than perhaps you would have had as you don't expect adult dogs to be so open to learning, but they are!

I have been working on trying to establish eye contact with them. They seem more interested in looking away than Border Collies, and I think it will be important to try and establish getting their attention as they are never going to listen to commands if they aren't interested in me. They get loads of praise when they are looking at me and I keep repeating the Watch Me command.

In the garden or Outside ( both means they must go outside on the lawn)
Toilet (they do a number one, normally straight away)
Do a Big One (they do a number two if they need one)
On your bed (they must go to their bed and have all 4 paws on it, I lure them then praise them)
Watch Me (means they must have eye contact and be ready for the next command, I am also luring them to do that)
Wait (they must freeze and literally wait, usually before having their
food, me opening the door, not the same as a formal stay for obedience)

The Clicker

I am not overloading them with new commands, just popping them in where they seem appropriate. I am also practising using a clicker. These are good because although praise is a good enough reward for a dog, sometimes you may say wait and a fraction of a second later they move whilst you are saying good boy/girl and they think the moving is what you wanted them to do.

So, the clicker is a reward marker, it means 'Yes that is right, I am going to reward you later for doing that'. So I started with calling their names, with a treat in my hand and when they came forward the moment I had their full attention I clicked and gave them the treat. Then I introduced a Watch me command so that when I called their name and they looked at me, they got a click followed by a reward. The eye contact to begin with can be so fleeting, that a click on that behaviour is the fastest and most accurate way of teaching them which of their many body, eye movements or other behaviours is good. Lily got this straight away, Dizzy is struggling to keep up, but he is struggling with his sight hound tendencies and male hormones bless him and he is older than Lily. Lily is still a pup at 20 months.

Rewarding them for being Quiet

I am also introducing a Quiet command. I recommend using this with caution. how may times do you hear a person shrieking Be Quiet, Stop it to a hound who is constantly barking. Of course, what is happening there is that the Quiet command is interpreted to mean Please Bark because that is exactly the behavior that is going on when you ask your dog to do this, he doesn't know you mean the opposite of what he is doing.

Teaching them not to jump up

The same goes for the Get down or just Down friends will repeatedly say this as your hound is jumping up at them so that is exactly what he thinks it means, please jump up!.

We use the command off, mainly because later on we will want the dog to learn a down command but that will mean lying down, not confused with this. We have said off to Dizzy as he is bouncy. so what we do is remove his paws from us, place them on the floor and then say Off, Good Boy and make loads of fuss while he has all 4 feet on the floor, he doesn't jump up at me any more but like most dogs, they can learn that behaviour with their owners, but test out each new person as it is different rules. So, they are really not that different from toddlers trying to assert their personalities and find the get out clauses.

I don't have hounds who bark a lot but Dizzy does a bit of whining when I am up the stairs, so I have been hiding around the corner and rushing down and clicking when they are quiet and making a fuss. If I hear whining, I go into the bedroom and shut the door. They don't want that so they are being quiet to try to make me come back to them and reward them.

Lily and her nerves

Lily has had a bit of training regarding her nerves and we have introduced her to new things but she has met her limit when I tried to walk onto the main road around our corner, she could hear big buses and a lot of traffic and could see men standing around so she became uncontrollably jumpy so I had to back up to the place she was comfortable, and get her to take it all in at a distance. We will get there in the end, i would like a companion I can take everywhere who will enjoy being with me so I think she will be capable of that one day. I must not betray her trust in me though, I must have patience and show her that nothing bad will happen but if I go too fast, she will lose that confidence. She is starting to calm down a bit with Steve as well,and we don't have bolting around the house. She does sometimes get a bit jealous of Dizzy or a bit stressed and she responds by going and marking his bed, just a little squirt (never her own bed though).

Dizzy being totally dizzy

Dizzy is asserting the power of his full strength though, when he decides he doesn't want to go outside for a wee, he pushes his bottom down and legs back into the floor and if I give even the lightest tug on his collar he starts yelping as if I have really hurt him. At first I thought I had, then one time I went near him to put a lead on and he didn't want to go because it was raining and he yelped before I had touched him. He is learning that if he does this, I can't budge him and I am worried that he will get his own way and I will have a habit which makes him uncontrollable on his walks. I must avoid him knowing he has the power over me at all costs. He does have a little whine as well if either of us goes out of sight. he is a big baby.

Separation Anxiety Training

Today, I must pop round the corner to go to the post office, so they must stay in and get used to that. I should be gone about 10 minutes or so. I can already go upstairs to my little office and work without much bother. The Godsend with these hounds is that they love to snooze and rest whereas a collie would get bored and destructive. I am going to see them every hour or so, and have a cuddle. They don't yet know how to play but we are trying with kongs and ropes, eventually they will become playful but it might take a few weeks before they are 100% relaxed.

Lily and Dizzy's first proper day

The greys have been with us less than 24 hours. Already they have sorted out that Lily gets the special furry bed and Dizzy gets the old duvet. They know where everything is that they need and had a quiet night.

We had problems with Lily bolting when off the lead but we took the decision to ignore this and whenever she is near we grab her cuddle her and give her the biccies so that she learns that being near us is no bad thing. When she is on the lead, she is the complete opposite and turns into a shy but tame little girl walking by my side on a loose lead.

We went out for a mid morning walk, they loved it. Lily showed signs of nerves every time we were near strangers but I made an effort not to avoid them and to just carry on walking normally.

After an enjoyable walk, I did notice that Lily has not been relaxed enough to do a proper wee and a number 2, far too nervous but stimulated as well. Neither one of them were interested in treats oudoors there was so much for them to think about.

Then, we went to the pub for lunch and the two were quite happy being tied to the table legs. Dizzy whined a bit, mainly because of the smell of our sausages. Lily was very well behaved and kept coming to je for a cuddle. I have developed a particular mannerism which is her hand signal for coming to me now. She prefers that at the moment to her name being called for some reason so I can just tap my thigh or hip twice and she is there in a few seconds.

I am just aout to take her on a little walk now past the school so she will hear children's voices and then we are going to walk into the vets, register her, weigh her then walk out again. Just as a little bit of training.

I think with her temperament, she responds well to be handling gently but consistently and looks to us for signals of whether or not she should be behaving fearfully, if we pretend we haven't noticed and behave as if everything is completely normal, then she tends to settle. I don't look at her or face her and try to pull the lead when she does the backing off and flipping her head from side to side like a horse. I just slowly but steadily walk forward and then she starts to trot by my side.

I love these dogs to bits. In 24 hours they have learnt where their food and water is or coming from, where to poo and wee, where to sleep, commands like NO and wait and come here, their names and all sorts of other things difficult to describe.

I can honestly say, greyhounds make wonderful pets, I can see no reason why these two won;t just get better and better. We have yet to leave them in the house on their own, that could cause a bit of challenge, they may get frustrated quickly and chew something or they could just climb on the sofas and snooze. I will be trying out some separation training on Wed, for the moment they are just having their acclimatisation days where we do a normal routine for those days and they join in. I work from home, so will only be going out for short breaks anyway.

They're Here!

Hardly got a moment to blog with these two around, even when they are sleeping I just want to sit and watch them. How daft is that???

The brindle boy is now called Dizzy Rascal and is very cuddly and the Blue and White girl is Lily, she is such a princess.






Now Lily doesn't like men normally, but somehow Stevie is getting all the cuddles! I've worked out that it depends on where you sit, she has her eye on all the escape routes and if you are blocking them, she won't come near you. so this chair is the magic chair as far as petting the dogs go.

Update: Valdi has now been homed and is very happy as the only dog with a lady who has horses and fields.

However, Julie has many other dogs who have retired form racing as well as dogs who have never raced at all. Contact her 01702 460631 and ask for Julie of Essex Greyhound Rescue or email me erssiemajor@yahoo.co.uk

A Gentle, Loving and Easy Going Hound Needs a Home

Home Urgently Required for Valdi

"My name is Valdi I'm a small black greyhound and my foster Mum says I am a very nice dog who is friendly with everyone. I need to be in a home on my own without any other dogs as I really want all the love and and attention for myself and I do deserve that after spending all my life in kennels. This isn't me, but this is a photo of a greyhound who is similar to me.

Is there any one who could offer a foster home to me? No offers as of yet have come forward for me and if I was in a foster home for a little while it would make me very happy as I currently live in kennels and don;t see much of the outside world or comfy sofas. I'm not too keen on other dogs so it will have to be a home where there are no other animals

You can see many more dogs like me that need good homes, some are dogs who have never raced and some are dogs who are no longer interested in chasing. Many dogs get on with other dogs well as they are used to sharing kennels with a friend. Go here to see them or email Erssie for more information about dogs in the Essex area.
http://www.galr.co.uk/dogs.asp"

I rescued our two dogs from Julie and I can afford to have the dogs spayed and neutered, vaccinated and microchipped as sadly she does not have the funds to do this for all her dogs but doing this will be a condition of you being able to offer a home. These services are already carried out by the Retired Greyhound Trust as they are a registered nationwide charity with a lot of support and if you take a dog from their kennels, they will advise you what their minimum fixed donation is to go part way to covering that cost although you are welcome to donate more. Julie who runs Essex Greyhound Rescue runs a one woman service and alone has rescued somewhere in the region of 300 dogs over the past 5 years and she does not ask for a fixed fee, just a loving home for her hounds and a donation.