Jan 27 2009
Scout Is In Training
Scout is our three year old greyhound. She is a sweet girl, but she is not the brightest thing. I guess I shouldn’t say that about my girl, but it’s true. She has trouble figuring out how to position her body so that when she lies down to be petted she ends up where she wants to be. She is getting better at this, but her head doesn’t always end up where it should and I just have to move to her instead of the other way around.
Greyhounds are different from other dogs in that they are not raised in a home. They are raised on a farm or a kennel. They are in crates except when they are “turned out” to do their business or when they go to racing school. They do not have the normal experiences of other dogs. When they come to a home, they have to learn how to live in a home. They adjust very quickly, but they do not understand that a glass door cannot be walked through. You have to mark glass so that they do not hurt themselves. Some greyhounds are scared of vinyl floors and find it hard to walk on them. The biggest problem that I have had with my greyhounds are steps. Neither dog knew how to do steps when they came to us. Jack learned very quickly, but he is not graceful. He basically jumps up the steps in two strides instead of walking up them.
Scout is still learning to do steps. We tried to teach her when she first came to us, but we have not been consistent. She has learned to walk down the steps from out motor home, but she still cannot walk up them. She has done it twice, so it’s not like she can’t do it. I think she prefers to be helped into the camper, but she is a big girl and my back just can’t take it. My goal is for her to be able to walk up those steps this spring. We started working with her again this weekend. We had been trying to teach her to go down the steps to our basement, but I think that is scary for her. We have switched to teaching her to come up. It’s more work for us because we have to take her outside and around the house to do this. She did okay with it, but never really did it on her own. We just move her feet one step at a time. Jack has tried to help her, but he’s just such a goof ball with his way of doing steps that he scares her. Jack did celebrate when she reached the top of the steps yesterday by doing jumping up and down and giving her kisses. I would like to say that it was because he was happy for her, but I think it was because he knew treats awaited them.
