ish

Jassie has battled with ear infections her whole life and swimming is not recommended for her - although she loves it almost as much as she loves food, so occasionally she comes out to my place for a splash in the dam!

Thanks Pix- these are the sort of ideas I am after. The problem I seem to be having here when asking for advice is that because the layout of my house, yard and pens it is hard if you haven't seen it to envision my problem. If Vespa is inside, crated or not, when its dinner time there is no sooking. He sits just outside the kitchen (my dogs all know 'Get out of my kitchen!') wagging his tail. Doesn't matter how long I take to prepare tea, if its a long time he will go lay down somewhere, no sooking. The dinner stink kick up only happens when he is penned. Vessies biggest reward is attention, and that is what he is seeking when he sooks. The pens are away from my house, and instantaneous negative/positive rewards or punishment doesn't work because me approaching him is a reward, I can't surprise him. As soon as I approach his pen with his dinner, he has his reward, and he sits and waits happily for the food. I am trying to eliminate the sooking in between my getting the bowls and actually bringing his food over and/or opening the door between him and the other dogs (he sooks because he can't see me, stops when the door is open). Obviously I want to feed him, and he has learn to behave when being fed in the pens. Same as in the morning- I want to eliminate the sooking between my alarm and me coming out. When I arrive home- eliminate the sooking between pulling up in my car and coming back out the front door to see the dogs. I can't yell from the house- when I do his ears go back and the tail starts- he has attention! Already doing TOT with him.

Vespa is my own dog greying-fast - not a foster. He is penned because we are on acreage and not all my dogs get along - so for their own safety. If your dogs want the steak that you're cooking for dinner, do you give it to them just because they want it? Its the same as Vespa wanting attention the minute I get home. Its my time, if I want to come inside to check my phone messages, turn on the computer, have a drink etc before I go to him, I will do so. He isn't the boss of me. He is being 'trained' to be MY domestic pet and I expect him to behave in a manner that suits me. ETA - if Vespa was a foster being trained to live in a backyard, he would still be expected to be either alone or with another dog for periods of time without driving the neighbourhood crazy with his sooking. It would be a very lucky occurance for a dog to find a home where they had attention on tap 24/7

Please note I've never suggested what works for GSDs has to work for greyhounds. I consider myself reasonably experienced with training GSDs to be good companions and a few in serious obedience, but Vespa is my first greyhound and whilst some things are the same, lots is different too! Vessie IS a low maintainance dog, typical greyhound. If he's inside with me, he's asleep on the couch, happy as can be - same as for most of the day when he's outside (excluding meal times or when something fun is happening inside or outside with another dog). He gets an informal training/play session every few days for about 10 minutes where we practise sits, drops, short stays, I check his teeth/nails etc - I don't expect him to do things my trial dogs do. I had to laugh at this Vespa has half an hour of free running on my 6.5 acres each day, usually with a GSD or three to chase around. He is also penned with my 3 year old GSD who thinks she's a puppy, and the 2 of them play, chase and wrestle all day long. When I said the puppy yard was away from the other dogs, I didn't think to mention that he was penned with a friend. He gets along well with all my GSDs and spends time with them all. On occasion I willl leave him on his own, just so he's not dependant on having another dog with him but more of the time he has a buddy. I can't provide that for him which is why I don't have a strict routine with any of my dogs. I don't think its fair if I can't consistantly do things the same each day to start building his hopes that he knows how it is going to work. I know my parents dog is a 6pm dinner dog - she carries on like an idiot from 5:55 onwards, barking, jumping around, stressing out until she gets fed because she knows the routine - my neighbours would have a fit if the 6 dogs who live here did that! With the different shifts I work, going away to Melbourne for dog events occasionally, unexpected things like cows or kangaroos in the paddock, extreme hot/cold weather interfering with exercise times its just not possible and more so I think Vespa would find it more stressful to have his routine broken. The only thing my dogs know for certain each day is when I get up, doesn't matter what time, I will let them out to toilet and if I am going to work they will then be locked up for breakfast and stay locked in until I get home. They also know they will be locked up an hour before tea and once they've had tea, doesn't matter what time, its bed time. What do you suggest for negative reinforcement? The 2 main situations I want help with is when he is inside in his crate and is sooking to get out in the morning (his crate is at the end of a short passage way, about 5 meters from my bedroom) and when I get home from work and he is barking and sooking at me for attention (his pen is 20 meters away from the house). He doesn't sook if I am with him, so I cannot go over to the puppy yard and wait for him to sook to tell him off, if I'm there, he's happy. The problem I have with him whinging at meal time is the minute I go to him/he sees me after I've fed the other dogs, he stops whinging - he's won, I'm there with his food. I could tell him off, but he doesn't care, his tail is going because his whinging brought me to him with his food - he succeeded. This is why he very occasionally misses out on meals - feeding him is reinforcing that sooking brings him food. This morning when he heard my alarm go off he started sooking and howling - he knew I was at the most 5 minutes away from letting him out, because I have an alarm set every morning and he gets let out the minute I get out of bed - I just don't understand his behaviour.

I'm not sure that I agree with you - maybe I didn't explain myself properly. Vespa is penned on the opposite side of a shed to my other dogs. When I come home, normally he barks and jumps around. The other dogs can do this too, so I go inside until everyone settles a bit and then go out to see them. I don't mind a little bit of a carry on when I first get home, as long as it stops quickly. If when I go outside, Vespa is still barking or whinging, I go to the other dogs and not him. If he stops at any stage, I go to him and give him attention. The dogs often spark up when they hear me get the food bowls out, but because I soak their food they know there is a delay in it arriving so they wait quietly - except Vespa. They all know TOT so they're sitting quietly when I get into the dog shed. If Vespa continues to sook the whole time the food is soaking, and is still sooking when I walk out the door to feed everyone, I wait until last to feed him, incase he shuts up - but if he doesn't he misses out. Normally if he's going to sleep inside I will bring him in directly after the other dogs have been fed, so if he's quiet I'll then let him out to come inside. If he's at the gate whinging, he stays there. How can that be clearer for him, if you're quiet you get food, if you're noisy, you miss out. If you're quiet you get attention, if you're noisy, you don't. The other one I forgot to mention last night is sooking in his crate when he does sleep inside. This is only a recent thing - maybe the last month or so. He knows the routine (tea, toilet, crate) and he's mostly really good in his crate. I work varying shifts at work so wake up time can be either 5:30am or up to 10am - however I make sure I only ever sleep a max of 8 hours to be fair on the dogs who are locked up. None of my dogs have ever had a strict morning routine because of my varying shifts, so its not a change in wake up time that is upsetting him. Vespa is always let out to go for a wee before he is put in the crate. He's started waking up an hour or 2 earlier than wake up time, whinging and sooking. He gets really worked up about it. The problem is, its more of a "I'd like to get out now" thing than a "I'm busting to go to the toilet" thing - he will go when I let him out, but if I ignore his whinging until its been 8 hours, he's never had an accident. I know he's not busting too, because he always does a few laps around the house before stopping to toilet. Plus, he's been inside the house during the day for longer than 8 hours without a toilet break. I hope that explains better whats going on.

I would like some advice on how to deal with my 8 month old entire male greyhound Vespa. He was a rescue dog and has been here since he was about 10-12 weeks old. Having raised and trained a few GSDs, I'm pretty firm with him (ie NILIF and basic training) as I would be with any of my dogs. I'm still trying to work out if its fair to expect as much from him as I would with the GSDs, but thats probably unrelated. Anyway, Vespa sooks/whinges. Alot. Its driving me crazy and I don't know how to make it any clearer to him that sooking does not get him what he wants. I never give in to him, if he sooks when I get home, I don't go out to him if/until he's quiet. If he starts whiging when I making his tea, and he's not quiet by the time I take it out to him, he misses out. If he whinges while I'm feeding the other dogs, he sleeps outside etc. I discovered that if I yelled out to him 'No', he would wag his tail and be happy, so now I have to pretend he doesn't exist when he's sooking. Its been going on for weeks, getting worse and worse. What is he pay out for doing this if I'm not providing it? I have a bark collar, which I use on him - it stops the bigger WOO WOO WOO howls and the barking, but he can still do a fair level of sooking with it on. Generally, he's a good dog. He sits and waits for everything, doors being opened, pats, to get in the car, for his food - I'd just love to stop the whinging.

Rest in peace beautiful Jemmie

Will the Weiners be doing serious agility Clover or just fun stuff? I was looking into going to Melbourne once a month next year to do some agility but I want to do it with the goal of trialing in it - if the Weiners are doing it serioiusly I'll be keen to join.

You could try leaving the brush and combs around where he can see them, but not making a fuss about them being there. Let him play around them and learn that they're not going to bite him until he doesn't pay any attention to them. Then you could start picking them up, just holding onto them, while you're having a game with him with his toys. Hopefully this will teach him that you're not going to grab him and hold him down every time you pick up a brush or comb - so the brush and combs aren't even scary when you've got them in your hand. If he's over being worried about them, you could try the schmackos trick near them so he starts to like them. Next I would start sitting next to him while he's having his breakfast and dinner and giving him a really gentle stroke, just once or twice while he's preoccupied with eating. If he shies away, just ignore him and when he gets stuck back into eating, try it again. Eventually he should get sick of leaving his food and just ignore you brushing, and over a few weeks you could build up how much you brush him until you can do all you need. By that stage he should be ok with you giving him a brush at any time, because he'll know its not a big deal anymore.

A lot of the dogs we get at the boarding kennels where I work do this - if they come in pairs. I think is Isaviz said, its marking the bowl as 'theirs' and trying to stop the other dog wanting it.

Its taken me a couple of days to recover from all the info from my private consult, Ballarat workshop and the Lysterfield seminar! Information overload - but now its settled into my brain and I have a zillion questions I'm sorry to everyone for Indi being such a pain in the neck - I should've realised that situation would be too much for her. Would you believe dog aggression wasn't what we had our private consult for!?!? Oh well. Hopefully with some new programs in place she'll be like a new dog next time. Indi was also the worst behaved dog at the Ballarat workshop, pity there wasn't a prize for that! Did anyone else think the Lysterfield workshop was a great addition to the information from the training in drive workshops? I found the info from Saturday build on the knowledge gained from the training in drive ones and gave an even better understanding of it all.

Feralpup, the other roads seemed fine to me tonight - no water. Hope I checked the right ones for you! See you all tomorrow!

I'll be heading back into town later tonight so I'll go the long way and PM you Feralpup - do you mean the road where you turn right and it has the Mitre 10 sign or the one where you turn right alongside the Scarsdale Store (think this one is Scarsdale-Browns Rd)? Or another one completely different?!?

PM me your email address fido and I'll forward it to you. I filled mine out and forgot to give it to Steve today, whoops!

Can anyone help me with directions from Ballarat? Anyone travelling from Ballarat who might like to car pool with me (I have cages in my car so dog welcome too)

Yep, 8:30/8:40 is way too early Hopenfox - I will have a really good nights sleep before hand (no point getting excited and not sleeping hey) and I will be sleeping in until at least 8:57. Please don't wake me. Thats fine, I'll be up and about long before then. Oh and I don't know if the instructions included the house before my driveway that had a For Sale sign? It doesn't have one any more actually but I will try to put a cardboard sign up or something.

I'll be there too, probably with Indi (or maybe Chili)

It just goes to show what can happen when you whinge long and hard enough about the workshops being too far away :thumbsup: Don't worry tollersowned, its really easy to find.

Thanks Imy - thats very helpful She's been on Advance Energy since she was about 12 months old which has 30% protein, before that she was on Supercoat Puppy. Does anyone know the % protein for Supercoat puppy?

What does high protein levels do? Whats considered high?

The dog in question is on Advance Energy at the moment and now having actually read the bag, I've discovered it does have joint support already in it - I feel very clever! We've started her on Sasha's Blend and I think I will look into the availability of Nutro in Ballarat.

huh?? :D

I'm interested in learning which brands of super premium dry food contain extras for joint support. I know alot of the large breed older dog ones (such as Advance Senior) do - I'm particually interested in any marketed more at active dogs or any personal experiences feeding a not so senior dog on the senior foods for the joint support. Anyone use the Hills prescription diet for joints? Alternatively, is it better to feed a good quality suitable dry plus suppliements (sashas blend, joint guard etc) or go for a super premium which contains joint support already?

I didn't have to research - the vet did the test anyway as I was not present at the consult and it came back negative. Besides, I didn't say everyone - the people who I respect and considered experienced enough to know was enough for me.

I wonder if you would be doing all this extra research about what other trained and knowledgeable people have to say if the ones who offered their opinions here had said your dogs were of correct weight. The offerings of the results of your research, funnily enough, only support your opinion of what condition a greyhound should be in. To me, your whole tone insults the experienced greyhound people on DOL who are trying to help you but its not my place to speak for them, thats just my opinion. The people who have posted here are 'ONLY' some of the most experienced people with retired greyhounds in this country! Books and trained people get it wrong on occasion too because they can be too far removed from the real life stuff - yesterday I saw a poster at the vets promoting ideal weights for dogs and for GSDs it said 32-40kg. I was there with 2 of my bitches, both healthy and lean, one at 24kgs and the bigger at 31kgs. I've even had a vet test the 31kg bitch for a condition where they cannot digest fat properly, as to the vet she was "Sooooo lean and streamlined" whereas anyone experienced in GSDs would support me saying shes a good weight.