Adopted Rescue Greyhound

Soubrette

I am very excited as our rescue dog will be with us on the weekend. Any ideas on how I can put him at his ease?

He's an old boy aged 8 and is not cat tested.

I intend to use a crate (with an open door) as his little haven and various duvets on places where he's allowed to sleep so his boney bits have a bit of comfort.

Any other ideas on settling him with minimum stress?

Sou

Kimberley

Leave him be for a couple of days and let him come to you. Best not to crowd him first of all because this could worry him. He should be ok within 3 days. Don't worry if he loses his appetite, this will be normal. The rescue centre will give you advice anyway when you take the dog and will always help you after the adoption.

JennyW_2

Soubrette wrote: »

I am very excited as our rescue dog will be with us on the weekend. Any ideas on how I can put him at his ease?

He's an old boy aged 8 and is not cat tested.

I intend to use a crate (with an open door) as his little haven and various duvets on places where he's allowed to sleep so his boney bits have a bit of comfort.

Any other ideas on settling him with minimum stress?

Sou

well done for rescuing a greyhound :T . 8's not old :eek: he's got loads of life yet

I have a greyhound and from personal experience I expect your grey will appreciate some peace and quiet and left to settle for a few days. Has your grey been in a home before? If not then it will take some time for him to get used to lots of things he's never seen before. Many greys come straight off the track into the rescue centre or home so even stairs and hoovers are a novelty.

It wont take long for him to find his feet.

One thing you'll need to be aware of is his interaction with other dogs. Many greys dont get to meet any other types of breeds than their own so again, introductions will need to be supervised and with a muzzle (to be on the safe side). I still have to be careful if small furry dogs come running up to us :cool:

If I can help anymore, just pm me

foreign_correspondent

When you get hime home, take him into the garden BEFORE the house and let him have a sniff round for 5 minutes - if he needs the loo he can go straight away without getting stressed cos he is indoors.

Then take him indoors and show him where his bed and water bowl are. Let him wander around or go and have a doze, whatever he fancies. I wouldnt feed him straight away, give him chance to relax first, and keep to his normal feeding times and type of food at first so its a familiar routine.

Just take him for a little walk that evening, but be aware that he has had a big day!

Try not to crowd him too much in the first day or two, dont invite 3 million visitors round to come and admire him, it will all be a bit much. When visitors do come around, let them greet you first, and give the dog a moment or two before they make a fuss of him. This lets the pressure off him and lets him know it is your house and not his job to assess/greet visitors (who may also not all enjoy being harassed by the dog when they arrive!)

Best of luck, I hope you have lots of fun together!!

MRSMCAWBER

Hi there

I had a rescue greyhound.. he was injured in a race but as he had earn't so much money..he was lucky and was sent to the vet :j ..then i had him as my brother knew the owner.. he was an absolute sweetheart -eventually....

I think leaving him to come and go as he pleases from room to room is a great idea..Rupert (honest i didn't name him that )..would leave a room if i entered it for a couple of weeks, but i just ignored him and left him to it.. and you may find that he won't take food from you to start with..they are sometimes trained not to ..in case they get nobbled :rolleyes: ...so he loved to "find" food and would steal anything - whole tubs of marge, 2 kilo bags of oats :eek: all around the living room....and he mastered opening the oven door too..so i had to get a baby gate:p
Loud noise always set him off too..he hated it! house training was a nightmare -but if yours is from a rescue centre they will probably have started his training for that... you won't believe how much a greyhound can wee :eek:

All in all he became an adorable creature.. loved his walks but loved his comfortable spot on the sofa(well the whole sofa) much more .. i have never known such a great natured dog... although to start with other dogs terrified him ...even the tiny ones :rotfl: , but i guess he had only ever seen other greyhounds..

When i got married and found out we were going to Germany -we had to re-house him as we were told to expect an upstairs flat..and he couldn't do stairs... so we traveled him down from Notts to cambridge to visit someone who was interested, then took him home again as she was going on holiday...and then took him back when she got home again...but it was worth it to make sure he went to a good home..and BOY did he..i wanted to stay too :rotfl:..we were gutted to leave him -especially when we were shown to our accomodation and it was ground floor :mad:
we have always said that once hubby has finished in the army and we move home for good we will be getting a couple more...

hope you have a great time with him...by the way whats he called???

autismmum

do please keep us updated, i have rescued four dogs so far and im sure your insticts will kick in. do let us know how it goes. if you need help just shout.
its such a rewarding experiance, but they never seem to loose all their learnt behaviors so it could be a bumpy ride for a while. X

Soubrette

Thanks

One of my daughters is worried he may keel over at any time I said he's got a few years left in him :rotfl:

I've previously had an alsation cross rescue who was an absolute nutter so researched into what breed would be more laid back but having a rescue was a priority and someone on here gave me the idea of giving an older dog a home.

How do you think greyhounds are with whippets? I'm planning to keep Bandit muzzled whilst out walking at all times as we live in a squirrelly area but I really want to walk him with a couple a friends (once he's settled) to try and help socialise him (although he was really confident in his kennel - coming up and licking our fingers) but they have a whippet and a small furry dog (border terrier but he is fat and won't be running anywhere much )

Kimberley - you are right, we've been assured by the rescue centre that they are only on the end of the phone no matter when we have any problems.

I am going to buy a bag of food from the rescue place foreign correspondent, and then mix it gradually with our own food. It's a dry mix so I thought I'd do a quarter of the bag with no mix, the next quarter with a quarter of the new stuff, the next with half the new stuff and the last quarter with 3/4 new stuff.

Cripes Mrs McCawber - our GSD X was a thief when it came to food - licks out the margarine, a whole bag of dried pasta, hot mince pies, he even ate through the wall once a la Shawshanke Redemption!! The greyhound's name is Bandit although the girls have asked that they change it to Benji but I don't know - I'll ask the rescue people's advice on that one, I don't want him to face too many changes all at once.

Sou

Kimberley

Goodluck with him and don't forget to include a photo for us to see

Soubrette

Kimberley wrote: »

Goodluck with him and don't forget to include a photo for us to see

You can see Bandit on the rescue pages here

He looks a bit grizzled but we wanted an older dog and didn't like the idea that he might be left unchosen for months because he was older and black (apparently black greyhounds are really hard to home!). I was really keen not to be swayed by looks and to go with temperament but every single dog was lovely - I wish I had the space for them all

I'm still waiting for the confirmation that we can pick him up on the weekend but we were verbally told anytime

Sou

HelzBelz

Aaaaah, he's soooooo cute:T:T

Kimberley

They are all gorgeous