Monday, January 9, 2012

2 Years Old

Miles with gold eyes and Otto with the ball

Miles and Otto celebrated their 2nd birthday on January 6th. Hard to believe that they are no longer considered puppies. Even thought they look like adults they still have quite a bit of puppy in them. They are a lot calmer than they were but they still are active for greyhounds. Their attention span can be long if they are doing something exciting like hunting a bird in the yard. Like teenagers, they have a hard time concentrating when their friends are around, especially girls.  There are still occasionally some naughty things done like holes dug in the yard, a toy unstuffed or a guest jumped on and french kissed. They know the rules but still "forget" occasionally. We really haven't had the damage that people talk about from greyhound puppies and Miles hasn't need to be crated when we leave ... until recently. 

Miles has started going in the bedroom by himself and has the zoomies before bedtime - usually when we are in the other room watching TV. He grabs a toy, spins on the bed and jumps on and off sliding on the covers until they fall off. The fitted sheet doesn't slide off so ends up like this. This is the 3rd one torn up in a few weeks.
Torn sheets
 So Miles has gone back to total supervision at home. He is crated again while we are gone. We still do a lot of exercise to prevent things like this and it makes all the difference with a puppy most of the time. This happened after a 5 mile hike though.

The blue puppy eyes have been gone for a long time now. Miles is the only one of the litter that ended up with the gold wolf eyes. Sometimes they make him look a little freaky or evil in photos but he couldn't be any sweeter. He is such a snugly guy and sleeps with some part of his body flopped over me or Roy.  He doesn't growl or try to bite, we can take food and toys out of is mouth and do anything to him.





Miles is still very goofy but has changed some. At our greyhound playgroup he would run, yelp or roll submissively on his back if one of the adult dogs disciplined him. That would send the pack into prey drive mode and they would all jump on him. We would try it every few months hoping he would eventually outgrow that behavior that so he could play safely. He has always been fine playing with fosters in the yard and dogs we are dog sitting at our house.  In a large group of high prey drive dogs that behavior is very dangerous though. He has finally started standing up for himself and doesn't run or scream anymore. I got some pictures of the boys playing on their birthday.

Miles Goofing Off



Otto
Miles
Miles and Otto (with ball)
Otto (with ball) and Miles

3 comments:

Hiking Hounds said...

Happy Birthday Miles and Otto! What a goofy boy he is on the bed. I can totally imagine spinning and throwing the blankets off.

Joanne said...

I have tried to get a video of it but haven't been able to. He hits the bed at a run and slides in addition to the spinning. I think that is why there are always torn spots under the pillows. Those are the backstops that keep him from sliding into the wall. His nails were very sharp so I dremmelled them smooth and very short. Hopefully that will help if I forget to lock him out of the bedroom when I am not supervising.

Unknown said...

Happy Birthday to Miles and Otto. It would be fun watching them on video.
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