Saturday, February 11, 2006

Shiner Joins the Household

No, not the beer. Though there might be a few bottles in the fridge.

Shiner is a two-year-old brindle greyhound that just came to live with us this morning. We are fostering him to figure him out and hopefully find him a great home in the process. This is one of the first dogs I've ever worked with that is straight from the kennel to a home. Adjusting them to pet life from the racing world can be difficult. I'll let you know if anything particularly amusing occurs during the first few weeks. Otherwise it will likely be the accidents and the chewing and the general acclamation to living as a pet and not in a crate.

He seems to mostly be in pretty good shape. He's got some dry skin, and he's really skinny. Now, greyhounds look skinny anyway to people that are familiar with other big dogs like labs and retrievers. You are supposed to be able to see two ribs -- any less than that, and they are fat and bearing too much weight on their little legs. I can see 7 of Shiner's ribs. So, some fattening is in his future.

He was neutered 2 weeks ago, so at some point, I'm supposed to check and see if his stitches have already been removed, and take them out if not. Hmmmm...Welcome to the family...now spread 'em...and I need my scissors. We'll see how that goes.

3 comments:

James Brush said...

Congratulations! Is this the same Shiner on the GPA-CT web site? He's a beautiful dog. Have fun with those stitches.

Heather said...

Yes indeedy -- one and the same! Turns out the stitches are already gone, so I get to skip that adventure. They just weren't sure when they brought us the dog. At the 27-hour point, he seems to be doing well. Now for staying home alone this week...

Stinkydog said...

I was going to mention if you need to in the future--Banfield at the Petsmart on Brodie usually does stitch removal gratis for me (I foster cocker spaniels).

I have 4 at my house at the moment that came straight from puppy mill--I've found they really have to have time to adjust and that *too much* free, open space all at once freaks them out a little. I usually go ahead and either keep them confined while I'm at work (babygate them in the bathroom) and save the free time/space for when I can watch them. At least for the first week. Good luck!