Coltrane continues to learn important things: How to eat a Greenie

Coltrane's serious face


Coltrane's silly face

It took a couple of days, but Coltrane is settling in comfortably now. He braved the stairs by himself this morning, gobbled up his breakfast, and even let out a puny little whine from his crate. Given his one-liner description from the kennel, I get the feeling that he was far from the kennel favorite and may have even blended into the background. Perhaps for that reason, Coltrane isn't bothered whether he is left all alone on a separate level of the house or whether there are people, dogs, and cats milling about. He quietly watches the activity around him or simply snoozes.

Coltrane walks very well on lead for a "know-nuthin' bumpkin hound," although there is a bit of slow zig-zagging. He doesn't pull and is not afraid of passing cars. He finds passing people and dogs utterly fascinating, but could hardly care less about squirrels. Coltrane is also a typical boy in that he must pee on every bush, tree trunk, flowerbed, blade of grass...

Another relief for us is that Coltrane is going potty on a regular basis. He did not poop at all on the first day, no matter how many times we walked in circles. He just kept passing gas and turning us green. He is not interested in toys yet, but really enjoyed his Greenie last night. Coltrane didn't know that he could chew on it and spent a good twenty minutes licking it instead.

In fact, he really surprised us when he growl/barked at Iris for sticking her nose in his crate. Fortunately, Coltrane's food aggression did not apply to us in the same way. We cautiously swung some stuffies near his face and the Greenie from outside of the crate. Coltrane stopped licking the Greenie but did not attempt to guard it whatsoever. And then we slowly waved our hands from outside of the crate and made small motions to grab the Greenie, and he was okay with that - if not a little sad and worried that he may lose his treat. We didn't want to try taking away the Greenie since Coltrane was inside his crate, and we wanted to assure him that the crate remains his sanctuary.

Aside from this one faux pas, we are quite proud of our staghound, Iris. She was such a shy spook when we first adopted her. She has since become a friendly hostess to our greyhound fosters. She welcomes them with a wagging tail and unimposing sniffs. /end parental brag :)