Or how we found out the magic of the pointy-faced hound
Sally with her favourite toy, Bluey
This is Sally. When we adopted her back in 1999, we didn’t know much greyhounds, apart from they were racing dogs who had retired and wanted a life after the track. Sally taught us a lot, about how affectionate, clever, and funny they were, how easily they fitted into a home, and in Sal’s case, how much we’d get to know the local vet! Greyhound rescue was still in its early years, and people would ask us loads of questions about how much exercise they needed, whether they were good with cats, why did they wear muzzles (are they vicious?). We were able to reassure people and show them how wrong their old ideas were.
The cover of A Hound in the House – this was our Sally to a tee!
It was partly for this reason that I was prompted to write “A Hound in the House”, which told about life with our own hounds, and our fosters, and spread the word about greyhound rescue. We also began to give talks to local groups about life with a greyhound, and people could actually meet a real ex-racer – it was surprising how many people had never come face to pointy face with one!
The Largest Rabbit – my first Children’s book
How do you get children to learn about greyhounds, and how caring they are? This is what brought about “The Largest Rabbit”, a book about an abandoned greyhound who learns who he is, and how important it is to belong and have someone believe in you. I particularly enjoyed writing about the little hound who thinks his name is “Rubbish”, as that’s what the people called him. It’s always great when the underdog wins – literally in his case.
But don’t just take my word for it. The books are available via your local amazon store, or if you’d like a signed and dedicated copy, they are available from our web shop or PM me. Or maybe your local group would like to meet a real rescued greyhound and learn about how they’d make your life better? PM us and we can arrange one of our greyhound talks. Go on – you know you want to!
We all know how important it is to look after our teeth and that we need to brush them at least once a day and preferably more. Animals can’t brush their teeth so have to rely on us in two ways; providing the right type of food, and brushing their teeth for them as required. This week we saw what a gum infection can lead to as our Penny had to go in for a tooth descale and ended up having teeth out.
We brushed her teeth at least twice a week with doggie toothpaste, and would give her stick chews and dental chews to help the process. We did this with all our greyhounds and to some extent this worked. Sally did have to have a few teeth out, some of which we put down to her never chewing her food. Crunching hard food is supposed to help shift plaque and debris. However, this is not really logical; imagine you relied on eating a packet of biscuits instead of brushing your teeth – it just would not work. Eating carrots or hard fruit or vegetables can help but not all dogs like these. Sally would sit by the kitchen sink on a Sunday waiting for her carrot when we prepped dinner but if we gave Sammy a carrot she just looked at you as if you were nuts – “What – you want me to cook this myself?”.
In the end you have to use a toothbrush and doggy toothpaste. This is usually meat flavoured (apparently but they hide it well) and you can apply it with a toothbrush or a finger brush (which looks like the finger of a glove with nobbly bits on). You rub the paste onto the teeth and it is supposed to break down the tartar and debris. Sally hated the toothbrush, but would allow me to use a battery powered brush (she was a strange dog!). Sam would sit and almost enjoyed having her teeth cleaned. Just take it gently, and get the dog used to the brush for short periods and build it up to a rub around the teeth over time.
Sally still had most of her teeth into old age.
Some dog owners swear by feeding their dogs raw food as this is was what nature intended. It consists of raw meat (hearts, mince, chicken) and the accompanying bones too. Chewing bones helps keep the teeth clean, and raw bones do not shatter like cooked ones which is why they can be given raw chicken bones. The argument is that this is what they would eat in the wild and what they evolved to eat. We were seriously considering this but events overtook us.
Penny did not have an auspicious start as far teeth were concerned – greyhounds are renowned for having rubbish teeth and gums. Many dogs have a sloppy diet when they race and due to being fed in batches they are also used to bolting their food as the slow eater will end up hungry. Less scrupulous trainers or owners will also feed their dog poorly which just compounds the problem. When we picked Penny up from the rescue centre she had been spayed and her teeth scaled. In spite of this, she had bad breath which we put down to her digestive system.
So Penny began each day with cereal and a large couple of dollops of plain yoghurt, which she absolutely loves. Whereas Sally’s digestive system had been awful (I won’t go into the details but you can imagine the outcome or should I say output!) Penny’s has always been really good. The outside of her teeth was always pretty good, though they would occasionally go manky so we would start more intensive cleaning. We even tried changing her food to find one that gave her better breath which was occasionally successful. Weirdly, she was better with human food.
Her breath was still not very fragrant but looking inside her mouth it was not so obvious why. Last week she went in to have the musk glands in her bottom cleaned (never a nice thing) and in passing we mentioned the bad breath. The vet took a look and I mean a really good look. The outsides looked dirty but the insides which we could not see were worse. She warned us that they needed a clean and that some might have to come out. You could see where her gums had receded due to the gingivitis and plaque and in one spot the was a hole under her roots. We were shocked and I was mortified that I had let her get into this state. We consider ourselves to be good and knowledgeable dog owners but even we were caught out. The toothpaste does not get to all corners of the mouth, dried kibble is not a miracle cleaner and dental chews can’t replace a proper clean. Maybe I had also been in denial.
Penny went in on Tuesday. When I rang after lunch, she was on the operating table, and I was told she was worse than we thought – she would need many teeth taken out. In fact, most teeth. In fact nearly all her teeth. When I rang an hour later, she was still on the table – for nearly three hours it eventually turned out. Penny had all but her four canines and one molar removed.
Penny recovering at home.
She was really groggy and sore when we collected her, and she dribbled and bled all night. She is on two different painkillers, antibiotics and a mouth rinse, but is making a good recovery. Like all greyhounds, she can be a bit of a wuss, and she also knows how to play people and milk the sympathy. It has to be said though that having so many teeth out must be really painful so she is also in real discomfort. She has been very brave I guess.
The moral of this tale (tail?) is that you need to keep an eye on your dog’s teeth, brush them at least once a week and watch their diet. Avoid sugary food and treats (as we would do ourselves). Apparently there is a powder which can be added to food that helps keep plaque down as well – ask your vet about it. Learn from our mistakes and Penny’s example. Good luck, and to paraphrase Frasier Crane – Good Dental Health!
We have had many requests to make the Christmas Story available to download – consider it a Christmas present from Crafty Dog Books! It can be downloaded as a pdf file for you to read, already set out in book format.
Its free for you to download and share but not for publishing generally without our permission. Click on the text below.
Greyt Expectations – Chris Dignam’s Rescued Greyhound page – Penny the Crafty Dog
Here’s the latest Blog from the South Wales Evening Post. This week’s is about how Penny arrived with us.
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve mentioned our first rescued greyhounds, Sally and Sam. We have also fostered a few over the years in between dogs of our own. Our latest hound in the house is our Penny. Her story began like many other dogs but fortunately for her our paths crossed and so she came to us.
Penny is not her racing name; for reasons that will become apparent, it’s best not to share her name here. She was born in Ireland and after initial races was sold and brought over to the UK. Like all Irish dogs she has a tattoo in each ear, which shows the year of her birth and her litter, all the details of which are recorded on the Irish Greyhound Stud Book in Clonmel. Her trainer lived in the Home Counties and she raced on the Swindon dog track. She won a good number of races, had some seconds and some thirds, was a good runner and she raced until her last outing on the day before her fourth birthday.
A month or so after this race, a black dog was found in a field in mid Wales. A dog wandering in a farmer’s field where there is livestock can be shot as a potential sheep worrier – the dog disappears, no-one is any the wiser – but luckily this dog was taken in by the farmer. He contacted Greyhound Rescue and the dog found herself in the kennels at Swiss Valley. We had spoken to the kennels about taking on a new foster dog so Armelle and I came over to see the prospective fosters. There were as usual a large number of black dogs, difficult to rehome as people do not think they are as pretty as the other colours. One of these, the dumped hound who had been named Suzi by the kennels, came out and took to us almost immediately. She walked easily on the lead with me, and even reacted well to the kennel’s Jack Russell terrier. We decided that we would give her a go, but we had a couple of craft fairs that weekend. We were asked whether we minded if she went to another family in the meantime but I said no, hang on to her as she was going to be ours.
On the way home we decided on a name; Suzi did not suit her, but how about Penny – like the Penny Black Stamp? A week later we collected her and Penny never looked back.
She was named Suzi when she was handed in by the farmer.
Greyhounds have their ears tattooed – Irish dogs both ears and British dogs one ear, an important means of identifying a dog to prevent racing fraud but it also means that any dumped dogs can be traced. Some have their ears cut off when abandoned to prevent them being identified. This does not always work however, as one owner found to his cost. A number of years back a battered greyhound was found alive but dying on the hillside above Fochriw near Merthyr. His owner had dumped the body before the animal was dead and his cries had attracted another dog and owner who contacted a vet. The greyhound was so severely injured they had to be put to sleep. The owner had cut off the dog’s ears but in spite of that due to the public outcry he was identified and prosecuted. This dog, nicknamed Last Hope by greyhound charities, is the reason for an annual sponsored walk at Brynbach Park to raise funds to protect dogs like them.
Penny was far luckier. She has really landed on her paws; a famous and well-travelled hound, she helps out at Craft Fairs where we sell our Crafty Dog Jams and Chutneys, or our Crafty Dog Designs hand-painted glassware or even at book readings of our books. She is such a gentle and well-behaved dog, she has been to book readings at schools and libraries across South Wales where I read excerpts from our children’s book “The Largest Rabbit” or our greyhound rescue book, “A Hound in the House”. She loves people and children, and is more than happy to have kids hanging round her neck making a fuss of her.
Penny has been a wonderful ambassador for her breed, and a number of people have said that they had never considered homing a greyhound until meeting her. In fact, after we did a book reading at Sketty Library last year one dog was rehomed by a family that met her that day, and the interest raised by her visit meant another four dogs were also given homes.
At a recent school visit we left as the children were being collected by their parents and we could hear the guys
saying to their parents, “That’s Penny that is. She’s a greyhound and she’s really lovely.” A seed planted in a young child’s mind will help change society’s attitude towards these fabulous dogs so in a few years’ time when they want a companion for their own family, they will think of adopting a greyhound after looking back on the day they had a school visit from Penny the Crafty Dog.
For more information about Penny, keep an eye out on the Crafty-Dog-Cymru.co.uk website, for information on her latest meet and greets or news on the new book.
Chris and Penny have a nice big photo in the South Wales Evening Post today – the very same newspaper that Dylan Thomas cut his teeth writing for. There is a lovely article by Kate Clarke about how they got involved with greyhound rescue, about their own greyhounds and their foster dogs. As well as talking about rescuing hounds, it also mentions the jam and glass making. The main point behind the piece is to launch the new weekly column Chris has been given in the on-line South Wales Evening Post, nominally titled “Greyt Expectations”, in which Chris will keep everyone updated on Penny’s adventures, as well as the world of the Crafty Dog industry, making glassware, jams and chutneys, writing and promoting the books, and generally letting everyone know how great rescued greyhounds are. There may also be some hints about the new books planned – Penny’s story “In for a Penny, In for a Hound” and the further adventures of Rubbish, The Largest Rabbit.
Chris told us ,”To be in the paper is a wonderful opportunity for us to promote the world of greyhound rescue and make people see what wonderful companions they make. It will also allow people to keep people informed on our latest range of jams and chutneys which are proving so very popular across South Wales!”
You must be logged in to post a comment.