I haven't updated in a long time! Happy Stutz has been a great addition to our home. He and Miles get along together very well. We have had another addition too now! Another Italian Greyhound named Logo's Holy Ghost. We got him in January almost exactly a year after Pinky died.

He was born in November of 2013 and came from the same breeder as Pinky. This is the first photo I saw of him. When she saw that all white puppy, she took it as a sign that he might be the one for my family. He did have one small black spot on the side of his face. Pinky was deaf because of being all white so we hoped that this little boy wouldn't be. We would definitely have taken him either way though.

We ended up calling him Peanut. Here he is at 9 weeks when we picked him up at the Clemson Dog Show. He can hear!

Peanut is a VERY active and hyper, even for an Italian Greyhound. Miles and Stutz love him and play gently with him. Miles is more active and plays more than Stutz. Having someone to play with helps wear out Miles too. Miles is pretty hyper for a greyhound. Miles does most of the playing and Stutz does most of the snuggling and keeping Peanut warm. Stutz likes to snuggle with other dogs and Miles really doesn't like another dog to touch him when he is sleeping. At night Peanut sleeps under the covers with us but during the day he naps with Stutz.

Peanut as he grew. He was a stocky big puppy for an Italian Greyhound. 

It doesn't really show well in the pictures taken outside but as he grew he got a lot of dark freckles under his fur that show through. I have already been asked if he is a "dalmation puppy". Pinky didn't have the freckling and was much whiter.

Peanut is very hard to potty train, which is an Italian Greyhound trait. He seems to have only a few minutes of warning from the time he first realizes that he needs to go potty and the time he goes. Like Pinky before him, it is very hard for him to hold it. 

He has such a short attention span that I have to watch him to be sure he remembers to go potty when he is outside. He will go outside with Miles and Stutz, watch them go, sniff and play around, then follow them back into the house completely forgetting to do his business. He is getting better but we still have a lot of accidents even though he is approaching a year old. Italian greyhounds are very cute and sweet, but anyone that wants to buy or adopt one should understand that you WILL have accidents and be OK with cleaning up after them. Some owners teach their Iggys to go in cat litter boxes or on puppy pads since they can't always wait to get outside. 

Peanut is very outgoing for an Italian Greyhound, no shivering or timid behavior at all. He throws himself at people and tends to be overly excited to see everyone. He gives hugs and kisses. We haven't found anything he is afraid of, not even the dremel tool, we use to do his nails. He is very confident with all of our foster greyhounds. 

Peanut went to the GA Renaissance Festival in the spring as part of the Hounds of East Fairhaven when he was pretty small and did great. Since, he has done the Greenville Renaissance Festival and is now entertaining the crowd at the Carolina Renaissance Festival. 

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

Ottobahn

Ottobahn (Miles Per Hour's littermate)

 I got some photos of Otto all grown up. I think he still has a bit of a puppy face though. These were taken at 22 months. Otto is such a good boy! He is getting calmer and seems like he is calmer than Miles. I still watch him a couple of times a week for the day so he and Miles can play. He is always very well behaved and the pups never get into any trouble. They still sound and look like they play too rough but have never hurt each other. They do run a lot but spend as much time playing mouth wars on the bed now and do take a couple of naps during the day. No more running for hours. Now they play more like typical higher energy, young greyhounds. They run for a few minutes then rest and repeat.

Otto can sit!

Otto and his dad Joe

Academy Award

Miles enjoys playing rough with his dad and in this case his friend Wayne. There was a bit of acting going on during the "battle". No humans were actually harmed in the making of these photos. Miles is really gentle for a nearly 80lb dog.

GreyhoundpupwatchingTV.3gp

Miles loves to watch TV. The other night he watched an entire show on grizzlies, wolves and elk. He never took his eyes off the screen as you can see from the video.

Miles got to make a return trip to Sandy Paws the first weekend in March. He was only 8 weeks old when he was there the first time last year. He was the smallest one last year and this year he was one of the taller guys. He got his photo taken quite a few times by people that had pictures holding him last year. Amazing how much they grow. He thought every person and dog was there just to see him. He would happily go up to everyone and most of the adult dogs spotted that he was a pup right away and surprised their owners by growling at him. He didn't look like a puppy to the owners since he was so tall. We heard "Sorry, my dog never does that." so many times. Had to tell people he was a pup and their dogs got a "puppy pass". The adult dogs just growl at pups to let them know they aren't interested in playing or socializing. There was another puppy there, a silken windhound saluki cross, named Floyd that he enjoyed playing with.

More Snow Photos

More snow shots from yesterday.




If you look closely you can barely see the face of the wolf hiding in the bushes about to attack his helpless prey (braided fleece) in the center.


The wolf


Attack! The prey is frozen in fear or just frozen.


Pounce!


Bite!


Shake!


Toss!

Silly wolf lays in the snow to finish off his prey.

One Year Old!

The boys turned one year old on January 6th. We had a little party for them with doggy cake - a white cake mix with plain peanut butter between the middle layers frosted with plain unsweetened cream cheese. I also baked peanut butter and liver treats for the dogs. We had a human cake, ice cream and finger foods - the party really was an excuse for the humans to get together after all. We had a house full of dogs that got along very well together, most that have been featured in the blog at some point. Duchess the german shepherd, Roo the lab mix, Pinky the Italian Greyhound (Miles housemate), Shug the greyhound (Otto's housemate), Champ the greyhound, and of course Miles, Otto and Kohle the birthday boys. Would have liked to include Piper but she lives too far away. Took some photos of the party with a cell but they were all too blurry.

We have more snow and this time we got around 10 to 12 inches. More than I remember in the 21 years I have lived here. Yesterday it was soft powder and the dogs really enjoyed it. During the night we got a little freezing rain and it froze so there is a hard layer on top now that the dogs slip on and break through. They are hating life now. I had to clear a little trail off the porch last night for them so they could get out to go potty. Here are some photos of Miles playing with his lure pole yesterday in the snow. He is pretty serious about it and I think is going to make a good lure coursing dog when he is old enough.