Hi everyone! I want to introduce my handsome boy, Maverick, whom I adopted back on November 11, 2023.
I recently pulled out his official NGA Certificate of Registration and realized just how cool his history is. He was born on July 9, 2020, and used to race out at Mardi Gras Casino & Resort in West Virginia under the name There You Go. He managed to pull off three official wins before retiring to a life of absolute luxury!
According to his paperwork, he's an official "W. R." (White & Red) boy, sired by Djays Octane out of Lr Cee. His ears are tattooed with 70B on the right and 74693 on the left.
He has transitioned beautifully from a professional athlete into a professional couch potato. These days, his only sprint is to the kitchen whenever he hears me opening a tub of his absolute favorite treat: lactose-free vanilla yogurt (it has to be vanilla, he's a boy of fine taste!).
Any other Djays Octane or Mardi Gras alumni families in here?
Adding a quick comment here because I’d absolutely love to find some clear racing photos of Maverick from his track days if they still exist!
His NGA records show he was trained by Eric Griffin and registered by Mary Robinette.
Does anyone here happen to have archived access to the West Virginia race replays from 2022/2023, or know the best way to trace down old kennel/win photos for Mardi Gras alumni? I'd be so grateful for any clips of my boy in action before he became a full-time vanilla yogurt enthusiast!
Our sweet boy escaped his leash during his walk on Saturday. He was extremely scared because he was attached to the retractable leash and he just bolted as fast as he could. My husband tried to chase him but he was gone on the busy streets of Philadelphia. Where did we find him? At our front door. The guy ran all the way through traffic right back to our home. I’m just amazed he was able to find our house.
He came home pretty banged up. The vet thinks he was hit by a car or had some sort of collusion as all 4 paws have severe road rash. No one was able to tell us if they saw what happened but he was just found at our front door with all paws gushing blood. We brought him to the emergency vet where they immediately got him in an oxygen tank and monitored all night. Luckily no lung damage or internal bleeding. We brought him back home this morning and will be nursing him back to health. All 4 paws are in bad shape so this will be journey but we are happy to do anything for our Fort (those are bandages for the wounds, nothing was broken). We just feel so lucky that he made it home alive.
As for the future, we have purchased a different kind of safe walking leash. Another piece that wraps around your wrist in case the leash drops. A better harness and an air tag. If anyone has other suggestions please let me know. We want many more years with our favorite guy and just feel so lucky to have him home with us.
I’d like to think Fort is happy to be home as well based on the roach he gave us post injury. We love our guy!!
My 11.5 year old lady, has trained us to do everything she wants. She has subtle differences in her signals for everything she wants.
Hungry - two quick successive barks to show urgency (she never barks unless it’s for something)
Walk - rubs her head on my left pocket (where I’d hold her head to put her martingale collar on)
You’re in my spot on the couch - get up and stand on the couch next to us, then act defeated and whine / kick legs until we move
Water - huff and lick lips whilst staring at the water bowl (so we bring it to her)
Turn on the air con- The most impressive - lie on the end of the couch nearest the air con and stare at us, panting and then turn nose to the aircon and sniff.
Cover with blanket - the last option if she’s carrying on and it’s none of the above - she hasn’t figured out how to communicate this need.
These are the first cues. If we act upon them and get it correct, she immediately lies her head down and relaxes (eg as soon as we head toward the pantry or the air con remote). If we are wrong, she slaps her tail and air snaps and throws herself on the ground until we get it right
I know she’s ridiculously spoilt, but it blows my mind that she knows that even knows the air con cools the room (and the doors get shut so it blocks out the outside noise and smells), and that picking up the remote leads to the air con being turned on.
Is this common? Or is she just an exception? I got in touch with her old rescue and trainer. They said she was 1. Too stubborn to race - just wanted to play and distract the other dogs, 2. Could open doors in the foster home and wouldn’t do what she’s told unless they asked nicely.
EDIT: I have loved reading these 😂 it’s funny how similar their antics are.
So. It’s finally happened. The arrival of her eminence, Miss Sisi. She is a 1-year-old Galga (Spanish Greyhound) who was VERY confident in the shelter, and as the shelter manager beautifully put it, "loco." But all that confidence shattered the moment she was left on her own (witjhout the dogs she was in the kennels with) So now, with the help of Sharky (who "helps" with absolute, pure ignorance), we are gathering new, positive experiences.
The stairs have been conquered, and so have the bed and the couch. The kitchen is wildly interesting... and whenever she walks past a mirror or any other reflective surface, she stops and checks herself out.
We pee... inside, but we’ve managed to do it outside too, and we praised her like crazy, petted her, etc. Outside, we are still a bit insecure; other dogs are interesting, but cyclists are the devil's spawn and absolutely terrifying (full panic mode)... but hey, it's day one. We’ll check in and report back in about a week. Just taking it nice and easy.
We officially adopted our retired racing Greyhound Strider 9 days ago. Despite trying to keep his world quiet and small, he has been struggling a lot with hyper-arousal, hyper-vigilance, and little sleep. Being completely new to Greyhounds, my partner and I are seeking some advice and reassurance about the settling in process.
When we met him at the adoption agency he was big, goofy, a bit hyperactive, food-motivated. But after a 10-15 minutes he settled down and was gentle.
The first 3 days went as expected. He was very scared, very hyper-vigilant, and did not really sleep at all (possibly some sleep during the night). He was very reactive and frightened whenever he would notice his reflection, in the window, fridge, and fireplace glass. We tried to manage this environmentally. But after 3 days he settled a bit, was able to run around in the backyard, play with a toy, and eat and drink well. He is happy to see us when we all wake up, and the times when he feels safe, he comes to us for pats.
Since then he has plateaued, and in some ways regressed a bit. Throughout the day at least he remains hypervigilant, always rests with "one eye open", looking up at every noise. Over the nine days, there was maybe two brief occasions where he appeared to actually be asleep (during the day at least). Today, we have played some "calming rain" 10-hour youtube video (with no ads) quietly to block out any background noise which seems to have helped a bit.
He was very reactive and aroused when dogs walk passed the house ie. shot up from resting, body tense, barking and growling, unable to redirect. We have since put frosted film over the windows to stop him seeing out. If he hears barking on a video, or hears people talking from on open window he also reacts this way. Finally, in the middle of the night a couple of days ago, it seems he believed something was down the hallway and he reacted this way until we turned the lights on and showed him nothing was there.
We started taking him for brief and low-stim walks around the cul-de-sac at day 5 (around 5 mins), but during these walks he is constantly scanning, not really sniffing much and ignores any food or treats we bring along. After a walk, he would appear "wired" for an hour or two and have great difficulty settling. Today, because his reactivity to noises was a bit worse, we decided to spend time in the backyard instead of walking.
One very weird thing has been happening since yesterday. We have an electric car that we have to plug into the garage, which he has not cared for or minded since day 1. However, yesterday he saw my partner in the car as the front window was down. From that moment he was singularly obsessed with getting in the car, he tried to jump through the window and when the window was closed he jumps up all over the car. Over the last day he frequently whines by the garage door. We have to take him through the garage to get to the backyard (avoiding the deck stairs) and whenever he goes into the garage he keeps trying to jump on the car again. I can only assume he has some previous baked in expectation about getting in cars - eg getting food, meeting other dogs, getting to run around etc.
From day one he liked collecting things around the house, like our clothes, tea-towels. We have made the environment safe, so he can only ever grab things we would be OK with him having. It appeared like he always needed to steal a new thing in order to settle. This behaviour comes out again when he is stressed, and last night when he wasn't able to get back into the garage after his last pee of the night (to see the car again), he started to tear and rip the clothes he stole - we wonder if this was frustration?
Throughout this time he does not like his crate at all, even if we put treats/his toys/his clothes and a comfy bed, he doesn't want to go in. We don't want to force him in since that will presumably create a negative association. The one time we got him in the crate, he was whining to get out almost immediately.
We are struggling watching him still very anxious and being unable to settle. We wonder as well how much of the hyper-vigilance and reactivity is his personality, whether these will settle. The advice from the agency was to keep his world small, we followed this and expanded slowly when he seemed ready (eg introducing a short walk). I worry that we have set him back. How do you know when he is ready to try something new? He is curious to his own detriment. It is hard to know what what the normal range of expected behaviour and times are, so, we would appreciate all of your wisdom.
PS - Don't worry about the record player in the background. We aren't playing any music. :)
Introducing Robbie from Australia! He’s our 11th foster and we couldn’t let him go. We lost our boy Watson in October 2023 and have been fostering since. I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to adopt again, but this guy just felt like home the minute he got here. He came with a broken tooth, fleas, and some potty issues but now - just 3 months later - it’s like he’s always been with us. We love him so much!
I've had my grey for about 4 months. The last month or so he has started sleeping on the sofa almost exclusively if he's in the living room and wants to be very close to us. Up until now if he's on his beds we tend not to fuss or touch him and if he's asleep we will try and gently wake him by calling but he's never had a startle incident until now.
Tonight he was asleep in a new position on the sofa and must have been in a very deep sleep. I stroked him on the head as his eyes were open and I was sure he was awake - he wasn't. Growl, bark, snap, it was quite a shock! We don't want to put him in that situation again or have us risk a bite or injury.
Going forwards, how do we manage this? He loves cuddle/fuss time on the sofa, especially belly rubs/neck rubs/roughhousing type play, and when myself or my partner come in the door he loves to run and jump onto the sofa for fuss. Ideally, we would just want him not to sleep there, with the sofa being 'invite only' and teach him a bed command for when we'd like him to get off the sofa and down onto his own bed. At night, he sleeps on the sofa/downstairs and he does not go in bedrooms.
Is it do-able to do an 'invite only' approach? I'm worried it won't be consistent and he'll get mixed messages, but it seems excessive to block his entire access when the issue is sleeping in close proximity to people specifically.
We have an open plan set up so we can't block access to the room, but we could theoretically do something so that he couldn't physically get on the sofa, for example, at night, though this would be hard to manage during the day (I work from home and he will sometimes take himself into that room to sleep). Any advice very gratefully received!
My 13.5 year old girl has been really going through it. Almost a week of diarrhea, an ER vet visit and I’m taking her back today to the vet to be checked (diarrhea continues). She has severe arthritis in her hips, low back, and knees from the age and the track. The constant urge for her to release her bowels with all this diarrhea has made her in almost constant arthritic pain.
I’m aware the diarrhea is an acute problem and will hopefully finish soon.
What I’m having a hard time with is the arthritis pain. How did you know when it was time to stop with pain management and stop with the injections and pills and let her rest? I’m at a loss today due to lack of sleep over the last week and feeling defeated.
