Adoption Handbook - Grooming and Vet Care

GROOMING YOUR GREYHOUND

One of the nicest features of your pet Greyhound is that he is virtually permanently pressed! Grooming needs are minimal and take just a few minutes a day:

Your Greyhound should only be bathed when soiled. Greyhounds have little oil in their skin so they have little "doggy odour" and rarely need a bath.

If you need to shampoo, select a conditioning shampoo designed for animals from a good pet supply store or your veterinarian. Never use human shampoo. Even products as gentle as baby shampoo will seem harsh to your pet. Aloe Vera & Oatmeal Aussie Brand Shampoo is recommended.

Be sure to rinse, rinse, & rinse again after bathing. Any soapy residue left can be an irritant to your dog's sensitive skin.

Most of the year, a quick brushing with a soft bristle brush in the morning will keep him looking great. During the spring and fall shedding weeks, you may need to repeat this routine in the evening as well.

A short nibbed rubber brush or mitt will aid in removing more stubborn elements such as dead hair and dried mud.

Once a week, you should inspect your pet's ears and clean them gently with a cotton ball or swab dipped in Professional ear cleaner (available from your vet), or in 1 part hydrogen peroxide and 10 parts water.

Your Greyhound will have its teeth professionally cleaned upon adoption. When you take your new pet for its first check up, have the veterinarian inspect his teeth. To maintain dental hygiene brush your pets teeth weekly, your veterinarian will be happy to show you how to brush your Greyhound's teeth.

Greyhounds are used to having their nails trimmed while they stand. Just lean over and bend each foot backwards, so that you can see the underside of the nail. If you're nervous about trimming the nails, ask your vet or local groomer to show you how much to trim.
To create an effective bug spray for your greyhound, mix 1/2 cup olive oil and 25 drops each of lemon grass oil and peppermint oil. This should work against both black flies and mosquitoes. Another option is to use OFF for Kids or diluted Tea Tree oil.

Flea and tick control is the one area that requires special effort on your part. Greyhounds are extremely sensitive to chemicals and pesticides. The use of a flea collar or medallion, or even a grocery store flea spray will KILL your dog.

Greyhounds should be treated only with products containing PYRETHRIN AND PYMRETHERIN as the active ingredients. Brands such as Duocide products are appropriate. Check with your veterinarian if you are not sure; don't gamble with your dog's life!

Safe Flea Products for Greyhounds

Mycodex Shampoo with Pyrethrins
Duocide Long Acting Flea Spray
Advantage
Sentinel (heartworm, roundworms, hookworms, whipworms, fleas)
Program
Revolution

Safe Dewormers for Greyhounds

Vercom Paste (roundworms, hookworms, whipworms, tapeworms)
Nemex-2 (roundworms, hookworms)
Droncit tablets (tapeworms)
Lopatol (roundworms, hookworms, tapeworms)
Panacur is best for hookworms
Interceptor (heartworm, roundworms, hookworms, whipworms)
Sentinel (heartworm, roundworms, hookworms, whipworms, fleas)

Safe Heartworm Preventatives for Greyhounds

Filaribits (regular kind only)
Caricide
Styrid-Caricide (also prevents rounds and hooks)
Intercepter (Canada)
Heartgard
Heartgard 30 Plus (hookworm preventative also)
Sentinel
Revolution

Best Veterinary consultants to Use

Note: Most vets in the immediate area consult University of PEI or Harbour Cities Vets for advice on unusual cases. While local vets are generally an excellent choice, they have not had enough actual experience with Greyhounds to be the best ones to recommend treatments or drugs for these dogs. Between the two of them, University of PEI and Harbour Cities in Dartmouth, NS do about 80% of the top Greyhound work Atlantic Canada. You will have been provided with a full Booklet of information on medications and anesthetics. Please ensure you photocopy them and give them to your vet.

University of PEI Small Animal Teaching Hospital (902) 566-0950.
Harbour Cities Vet Clinic - Dartmouth, NS (902) 463-7610
Metro Animal Emergency Clinic – (902) 468-0674
All of these institutions are also happy to advise pet owners directly on any Greyhound question they may have.

UNSAFE PRODUCTS AND DRUGS - DO NOT USE THESE ON OR AROUND A GREYHOUND!

All flea collars and flea-killing medallions, all long-lasting flea dips, Dursban (cholrpyrifos) insecticides, Dichlorvos(DDVP) insecticides, Methoxychlor (DDE), Malathion, or any other insecticides that end in Athiom.
Proban flea control tablets and oral liquid, Pro Spot 40 and Spotton (fenithion) topical systemic insecticides.
Filaribits Plus heartworm and hookworm preventive.
DNP, Task, Telmin/Telmintic, Veriplex/Anaplex deworming drugs.
When in doubt, ASK one of the recommended consultants or your GPAC representative whether something is safe. There are many things available that are harmful to Greyhounds, but carry no warnings because Greyhounds are so rare away from the track.
NEVER use Hartz Blockade and NEVER offer foods containing red dyes or Beef-Basted rawhide.

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VETERINARY CARE

Greyhounds are a very healthy breed with none of the inherited health problems commonly found in other large breeds.

Prior to your adoption, your dog was spayed or neutered, checked for heartworm and parasites, and had its distemper/parvo vaccination updated. The health sheet form GPAC will give you the exact dates of this care. Please take this to your veterinarian so that your Greyhound's file can be established.

Following are a few things you'll want to do to help your Greyhound lead a long and healthy life:

Heartworm prevention will be one of the most important things you can do for your Greyhound. We recommend one of the chewable, monthly, preventative tablets. Your veterinarian will advise you regarding when to start this protection. Many families prefer to continue year round plans, while others find returning to the clinic each spring to have their dog rechecked and restarted on the medication is better for them.
Annual check-ups and re-vaccinations should be planned near the anniversary of your adoption. This will serve as a good reminder to renew your local dog license as well.
Before allowing your dog to be anaesthetized or tranquillized be sure your veterinarian is familiar with the procedures and dosages appropriate for a Greyhound. Because Greyhounds have so much muscle bulk and so little fat, these drugs react more powerfully on them. The normal dose of anaesthetic for another breed of dog of the same weight could be fatal to your Greyhound. Photocopy your information for your vet!

The following is an article by Rodger I. Barr, D.V.M.

A Safe Method Of Sighthound Anaesthesia

Whether it be man or beast, the greatest risk in elective or nonessential surgery is the anaesthetic. In Veterinary Medicine, this risk is a minimal one when in the hand or a graduate D.V.M. That is unless your pet happens to be a sighthound. The greatest medical injustices perpetrated against these breeds is the lack of instruction in veterinary medical colleges concerning the differences between these breeds and all the other dogs of the world.

The most commonly used anaesthetic regimen in veterinary medicine incorporates a short-acting thiobarbiturate such as Surital followed by gas anesthesia utilizing either Metophane or Halothane. For most breeds this type of regimen is more than satisfactory; for sighthounds it has the potential of being very dangerous, even fatal. Little research has been directed at the actual reasons for these breed differences, so although cold hard facts ae not available, educated guesses are.

Three factors are responsible for the short-term effects of the thiobarbiturates. They are highly lipid-soluble, meaning they are absorbed into fat almost immediately after intravenous injection. They are then metabolized by the liver over a variable period of time, and subsequently excreted in the urine. With most breeds, the routine injection of the thiobarbiturate with no other anaesthetic agent employed, will result in approximately 10-15 minutes of anaesthesia before recovery occurs. The sighthound will remain under for usually 30-35 minutes, in some cases longer; some never recover. The reasons for this are obvious when one considers the method of action of the above mentioned anaesthetic.

Redistribution into fat is the greatest reason for fast recovery form thiobarbiturate; if the patient in question happens to have very little fat, this anaesthetic agent which normally obliges the anaesthetist by retiring to insignificant tissue such as fat, remains in the bloodstream continuing to depress the central nervous system as well as the cardiovascular system. An unaware anaesthetist will then begin gas anaesthesia at the point at which the thiobarbiturate normally wears off, but in this case is merely doubling up the anaesthetic load, and thus depressing the patient even more. At the very least, the patient will recover in three hours or so and not be fully recovered for up to 24 hours. In addition to the absence of body fat in many of the sighthound breeds, it seems their livers are unable to deal as effectively as some breeds with many drugs which rely on this important organ for metabolism... supporting even more the need to find a alternate method for anaesthetic control of the sighthound surgical patient.

To criticize an existing method without offering a viable alternative would render this article unnecessary. To avoid this fate, I would like to present my candidate for the safest, most effective method of sighthound anaesthic induction. The following method has been used on over 200 sighthounds by the author as well as many other animals who for one reason or another required a SAFER method. I have, to date, never lost a sighthound from this method. Some day a problem is bound to occur, but at this point in time, I haven't even had any close calls or unexpected responses. The drug of which I speak is a human drug known generically as Oxmorphone. It is almost fully reversible. In other words, upon completion of the procedure, one can almost immediately raise the patient's level of consciousness dramatically, through the use of a narcotic reversing agent such as Nalline or Levallophan. All sighthounds receive atropine sulfate prior to the anaesthesia. All sighthounds receive intravenous fluids during general anaesthesia. At this time 0.05 mg/lb of oxymorphone is combined in a single syringe with 0.1 ml/10lbs. Of acepromazine (1.5 mg oxy. And 0.3 cc ace. For a 30 lb dog). This combination is injucted intravenously over a 15-20 second period; faster than this can result in a brief excitement phase. Apprehensive dags can receive as much as 0.075 mg/lb of oxymorhpone. Within five minutes, the dogs can be incubated with very little manual restraint. Many animals will respond excessively to sharp noises at this stage. Depending on the procedure as well as the level of depression the patient has achieved one may or may not incorporate the use of Metophane, a gas anaesthetic. Upon completion of the surgery, Malline is injected I.V. at a dosage equivalent to the induction dosage of Oxymorphone. This method has been used for several years at Colorado State University on thousands of dogs, many of which were track Greyhounds. During my post-graduate training at the above mentioned institution, three sighthounds were mistakenly anaesthetized using a thiobarbiturate. One died of malignant hyperthermia during surgery (high body temperature). A Scottish Deerhound suffered cardiac arrhythmia and had to be defibrillated. The third, a Greyhound, took a page out of Rip Van Winkle and slept for three days. These numbers are statistically far too few to draw any accurate conclusions, but who among you would want to volunteer your hounds to complete the study?

For all practitioners, the safest drugs are those agents in which we have confidence and are most familiar. So those who use the thiobarbiturates or some other anaesthetic regimen, there's obviously no reason to change. This article is directed at that person who has tried a method and is looking for something better.

Hopefully in the future, through improved education we can avoid some of the unnecessary problems and errors we've committed in the past. When that day comes, we all benefit.

Permission to print this article was granted by Dr. Rodger Barr and National Greyhound Association.

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