Greyhound playdate

What a fun day for Shelby!  She got to meet Cody, a recently adopted greyhound, and had the time of her life.  We've never really seen her want to interact with other dogs, but as soon as she saw this big guy she really came out of her shell.


They played together...

They drank together...

They made funny faces at us...

And Shelby even shared her bed...

Shelby the greyhound goes for a ride

Where are we going?  I'm ready!

And then came the snow.

What a cold, snowy morning!  Shelby the greyhound didn't seem to get the message that greyhounds don't sit.

Warm Day in January

Shelby the greyhound got to spend a little bit of fun time outside before the cold set in.  She's jacked yo'.  And tatted up.  She looks pretty bad-ass.

A Very Shelby Christmas

We had a very relaxing Christmas and Shelby the greyhound got to spend the holidays lounging and visiting with family.  Christmas Eve was at Grandma Gurney's house, while Christmas Day was with Pat's side of the family.  Her Christmas sweater and jingle bell collar were worn most of the time!

She makes my day

Those of you on Facebook have probably already seen this, but I just had to share incase anyone missed out. Seriously. So much happiness comes from having Shelby around.



Is there really anything else to say?

Shelby goes to the vet

Besides not winning Mega Millions, Pat and I haven't been up to too much.  I've been meaning to bring Shelbs to the vet for a while now, mostly just to get a relationship going with someone, but also to get her tested for heartworm.  When we got her, she had been tested and was negative, but the lady at Greyhound Friends told us she hadn't been started on a preventative.  So, when I got a day off this week, we packed up and made our way to a vet that had been highly recommended by a friend of my aunt who used to have a greyhound.

Shelby was a little wigged out by the traffic (we had to street park and then walk on the sidewalk to the office), but it was her first time in the big city.  Since she was freaking out less than she does around basketballs, it couldn't have been too traumatizing for her.  Once we got in the office, she was great!  I took out her medical records for the receptionist to copy and realized that she had gotten one dose of Heartgard (well, the generic) back in January and that we could have just kept her on it after that.  Doh!  Oh well, it may have saved the $45 test fee, but the same blood gave us the answer to her being Lyme negative, which meant that she could safely get the Lyme vaccine.  I was skeptical about the Lyme vaccine - it's not supposed to be very effective in horses - but Dr. B told me it was about 80% effective in dogs and that was good enough for me.  She had to get the Lepto vaccine anyway (strangely, she didn't have it?) and it was available as a combo with Lyme.  Sold!

So, now we go back in 4 weeks for her Lepto/Lyme booster, and also to get her Rabies 3 year.  My little dog is becoming a true pet!

Now she just needs a brother or sister I think ;-)

Sleeping through the night

Miss Shelby has given us a real hard time about sleeping downstairs on her own.  We don't want this to go on forever - we'd love to have her sleep in our room - but we feel that she really needs to get comfortable in her crate because she's there during the work day, at least for the foreseeable future.  I'm super pro-crate training, but Shelby presents an interesting case.  She KNOWS how to live in a kennel.  She was a race dog, for crying out loud.  She knows that she's really not supposed to relieve herself in her crate, and we're happy to say that anytime she has, it's been our fault (like last night).  She either holds it, or cries and lets us know that she definitely has to go.  It's just hard...

...to distinguish the pee cries from the howling and screaming that goes on every night.  I don't have a sound clip of Shelby (I'll try to remember to take one), but she sounds exactly like this (mostly the black dog mixed in with some of the fawn dog).



It's a special little noise that apparently all greyhounds do, and it's much harder to sleep through than a simple bark might be.

We know that part most of her issue is that she misses us.  It's why she was so good the first few nights before she got used to us.  I think that she genuinely is lonely and scared that we might not come back to see her.  Any puppy goes through this, and even though she's 2, she's never had people before, so this is a whole new experience for her.  Another issue, though, is that I don't think she's incredibly comfortable - greyhounds are very bony even when they put weight on after racing - but we haven't found anything that she won't destroy.  Towels, blankets, crate mats, anything that goes into her crate gets shredded during her panic over being in there at all.  We're going to try a Primo Pad and hope that does the trick, but in the mean time we're running out of things to put in there for her.  She's ruined 3 fleece blankets, too many towels to count, a crate mat, and a down comforter.  (She won't, however, shred up the old sweatshirt I put in there for JUST THAT PURPOSE).  The less comfortable she is, the less likely she is to lay down and cuddle until morning.  It's a vicious cycle.  As soon as she gets comfortable enough in there to stop ripping things up during the day when we're gone, she can sleep with us at night.  Until then, we're all looking like this:

Bah Wilderness, MGM Productions, 1943

The kicker is that Shelbs gets to sleep it off during the day - Pat and I are stuck dragging through work, just dreading the next night.  Something's gotta give.