Welcome Home Kallie

On January 27, we adopted our fifth greyhound - a beautiful black girl named Kallie (her racing name was Kells Lancia).  She was two at the time and we just celebrated her 3rd birthday on March 31.  She is gorgeous, but I must say this time around was like no other greyhound experience we have ever had and we definitely got off to a rough start!  Here are a few pictures from her first day -

Five minutes into introductions and this already happened, more than once! lol

Before all that though, this happened:

From the very moment we arrived home, she was scared and refused to get out of the van....she's a big girl, weighing 69.8 pounds, and can be very stubborn and strong!  No amount of coaxing could convince her and eventually I had to pick her up to get her out.  I just assumed it was first day jitters, but it turned out that she is by far the most timid greyhound we've ever had.

She is soft as velvet and has always got along great with both Vinny and Woody!  To my surprise, she actually seems to enjoy playing with our boisterous little pup!  However, she was very cautious of people :(  She was friendly and wagged her tail a lot...I felt like she wanted to be brave, but just couldn't.  She would follow me around...until I stopped to pet her and as soon as I reached out she would back away!  For a while we even thought that maybe her tail wag was actually more of a nervous thing than a happy one. 

We do know she wasn’t at the best racing kennel and she had pneumonia when they got her into the rescue kennel. The report from the track vet stated that she wasn't feeling well, but they raced her anyway.  Immediately following the race, they said she was listless and had a temperature of 106.  The report also stated that another dog in the same kennel had pneumonia and had died a few days earlier.  Thankfully, they got our Kallie out of there in time.  She also came to us positive for hookworms and since been on two worming meds, Strongid and Panacur.

Maybe it’s coincidence, maybe it’s not, but she was (is) really afraid of anything that resembles a “stick”.  She would run away with her tail tucked when we tried to give her a bully stick, when we were measuring the kitchen light (to replace it) with a tape measure...we weren’t even close to her and she literally bolted to the other room again with her tail tucked, when the kids were playing with a horse toy that’s on a walking stick...she was afraid to even come in the house until they put it away.  Those are just a few examples, but she seemed to be afraid of everything.  Even outside, she was jumpy every time she heard a leaf rustle or car pass on the road in the distance.

Unfortunately, it only got worse from there...

Just nine days after we got her she was out running in the yard (it was dark and wet on a Sunday night - Super Bowl Sunday) and I heard that greyhound scream no one wants to hear.  I found her standing in the back part of the yard frozen in fear and holding up her front leg.  I worked with her and got her to hobble her way back inside.  By the next morning, she was only worse so I took her to the vet and found that she had torn the muscle in her shoulder.  Ouch!  Long story short, she had lots of rest and we ended up leash walking her for 8 weeks and only let her off lead again for the first time a couple weeks ago!  She is healed and doing great, but now I'm terrified every time she runs!  Tracy has since also installed a motion sensor light in the backyard as a precaution.

And it still gets worse (in other ways)...

She started peeing in the house...but, not just anywhere oh no, ONLY right smack in the MIDDLE of a dog BED!  I have never known (or heard) of a dog that pees on their bed and it was so frustrating!  She peed (multiple times) on 3 of the four dog beds we have downstairs.  Dog bed covers are easy to wash, dog beds not so much!  Tracy finally had a great idea to put a big contractor size trash bed around the beds to protect them so we only had to worry about the covers and we limited them to two beds instead of four.

And, it still gets worse....

She's clearly a chewer and I am one unhappy camper!  She has literally chewed holes in the walls, chewed on our kitchen table, on the end table, on the couch, and on the tv stand :(  We now have to muzzle her every time we leave the house.  Even when we are home we have to be really careful because she will take stuff off the couch, the table, or the counter if she wants it.  She recently chewed up the remote in the 4 minutes (literally) that we were upstairs.  So, I went to the cable company and got a new one and she chewed that one up three days later!  Ugh!

She has also shredded lots of paper and stealing laundry is a favorite pastime too!

About a month into this, I called my friend and VAGA president, Debbie.  We were at our wits end and Tracy wanted to re-home Kallie because he said it clearly wasn't working out.  I wasn't ready to give up yet, but I cried many times and the transition of adding Kallie to our family was definitely stressful.  I spent 2.5 hours on the phone that morning with Debbie and I felt better and more confident that we could tackle this after our conversation.

At first I just felt so sorry for Kallie because she was so afraid of everything!  However, I admit that she is the first greyhound that I didn't feel an instant connection to...within days (if not hours, lol) I have had this intense bond with all of our other dogs.  Yet every time I tried to get close to Kallie she backed away.  I slept on the couch for weeks so Kallie wouldn't be alone at night and I felt like she didn't even notice or care.  I felt defeated and started to back away myself until I realized that was not what Kallie needed.  Then...I sat with her, I talked to her, I petted her...all the things I had done in the beginning and stopped...only this time I did them with determination to make this work!  Having to leash walk her for 8 weeks straight was not easy, but naturally I think that also helped her bond with us and gain more confidence.  I remember the first time I called Kallie's name and she actually came to me rather than just looking from a distance...I was sitting on the couch and even my then 7 year old said "awww....look mama, she came to you" in amazement.

Kallie has still never seen the upstairs of our house.  I tried a couple times in the beginning, but she was terrified of the stairs.  Since Tracy was still recovering from the car accident and could barely pick up the milk for his cereal in the mornings, there was no way he could help me and I was afraid I may get her up and not be able to get her down!  I am weak and she is a big girl lol!  I somehow found the strength to pick her up and put her in the van to go to the vet after she got hurt, but she is very stubborn and carrying her down stairs was not an option.  Then she got hurt and wasn't allowed to climb stairs.  I'm happy to say that each morning she rushes over to the gate, tail wagging, to greet us when we go downstairs doesn't seem to mind the routine though. 

I took her to a local vet (20 mins away) when she hurt her shoulder because at the time I didn't know what was wrong and our regular vet is an hour and 20 mins away.  After the peeing started, I dropped a sample off at the same vet to have it checked (at a cost of $80.25 vs $28 at our regular vet!).  They called and she had bacteria and prescribed medicine which I picked up at a cost of $81!  After I got in the car I thought oh I should get a copy of the urinalysis results for her records.  So I went back in...the vet was already gone for the day, but the receptionist went into the system and printed a copy for me.  I was shocked to read that all of the numbers were within range and most importantly under bacteria it said "none to rare"!  I also compared it to the urinalysis she had done in FL and it was identical...only they noted that everything was fine instead of saying she had an infection.  Anyway, I held off on the anti-biotic because I didn't trust that she actually had an infection and I figured worst case we would just wait and I could still give it to her later after she finished the worming meds.  Guess what?  Never gave her the meds, she peed maybe once or twice in the house after that and has been fine ever since!  Needless to say, her next appointment will be with our regular vet!

So where do we stand now?  Well, as I just mentioned the peeing has stopped - yay!  We now have to muzzle her every day when we leave which is unfortunate, but for the safety of her and our house, not to mention our sanity, it still seems to be necessary.  She is still afraid of bully sticks if we hand them her, but if we lay it down she will pick it up.  VAGA also sent us some antlers as a alternative for something to chew on (though I think Woody enjoys those more).  She's still a scaredy-cat with anything new (especially noises out of the ordinary) and is very timid around new people.  However, in her daily routine and with the four of us she has really come a long way!  She trusts us, she looks to us for guidance and protection when she's scared, she greets at the gate in the morning and at the door when we get home.  Her tail wag is now clearly out of joy, not nerves or fear as once seemed the case.  She is great with the kids and the dogs.    

One positive thing is that she has always, since day one, been wonderful with Woody!  It has been fun to watch their silly antics as their relationship grows.

I have also used Kallie in my daily photography assignments too.  The first picture of Kallie's martingale collar was for the prompt "pink".  My youngest was so excited because she got to pick out everything for Kallie and of course it's all pink :)  The second was for "vision" and the last one for "velvet" because she is just so incredibly soft.

While it took more time and work than I ever expected (and is still a work in progress in some areas), I can confidently say that Kallie is home and not going anywhere!  She is learning to trust more every day, she enjoys our pets and snuggles and reaches out for love, she is playful, and I look forward to many years of memories with this sweet girl! 💓