First 3 Weeks

I picked up D'Oro Cookie just over 3 weeks ago now (1/27) from the Philadelphia airport. The flight home was a bit challenging for us both! American Airlines wouldn't let us fly with them because she appeared too big for her carrier. I had the Mr. Peanuts carrier, but from the facebook groups it sounds like folks have had more luck with the cheaper sherpa carriers. D'Oro Cookie was only 10.5 pounds, but she's a lot of leg, and she wasn't excited to be in a carrier with someone she didn't know. When she's nervous she freezes with legs fully extended, and I honestly couldn't blame the AA attendents for not letting us fly. They said they require dogs to "stand up turn around and lay down in the carrier", and D'Oro Cookie was frozen with her head cratering one side of the carrier. Fortunately, I was able to get a flight that same day with Frontier, but the downside was an itinerary that required us to spend about 16.5 hours in airports (10 hours in Philly and 6.5 hours in Denver International). On both legs of my flight I slightly opened one of the carrier flaps (once to pet her, 2nd flight to give her a blanket as she was shivering), and she ninja-ed out onto my lap! Take-off was by far the most troubling for her, and she was able to calm down during the flights. But, she also rode on my lap for both flights, so that probably helped too. :-)

D'Oro Cookie's favorite things are cuddles, lap time and napping. Walks are not her favorite, but her paws have now built up some calluses, and she seems pretty happy with 1.5 mile walks. She's great at trying on new clothes and even snow boots don't seem to bother her (as long as they stay on ok). She now has a couple different jacket/snow suits and a performance fleece underlayer. The combination of a fleece and jacket seem to work pretty well, although she still shakes some times.

Other people (including my husband Ken) and dogs make her nervous. Ken's started a routine of feeding her chicken each day though, and that seems to be helping. On our walks, she typically freezes when people approach. It seemed like dogs did not bother her as much as people at first, but then a larger off-leash dog approached her and it was terrifying. And now all dogs are terrifying. We are walking daily, and overall she has improved quite a lot since the first couple of days.

Yesterday she had her first vet appointment, and while I'm sure the experience was terrifying, she was very happy and excited once we returned home. Her teeth have quite a bit of plaque buildup for her age, so we are scheduling a dental with her spay in May.

It has been a lovely first few weeks, and I'm looking forward to turning her into an adventure dog! It will take some time, but I also don't mind if she adventures from my arms or a backpack. :)

How to find an Italian Greyhound?

Italian Greyhound rescue is a great place to start (https://www.igrescue.com/). Adult dogs are easier to care for than puppies, but this breed is notorious for house-breaking issues, so it's likely you will still have some house-training work to do. The next best approach is to support reputable breeders. The IG breed has known health problems such as progressive retinal atrophy PRA (blindness), periodontal disease (tooth loss), bone breaks, epilepsy (seizures) and autoimmune disease. Good breeders perform DNA tests and other health checks prior to breeding their dogs. They also show the parents to get confirmation from the community that their dogs have high quality builds and dispositions.

I'm a bit embarassed to say, but I had a misconception that only people who want to show dogs look for top of the line breeders. Top breeders are not breeding for the purpose of creating show dogs but for the purpose of improving the dog breed. Going with a reputable breeder helps insure a healthier, happier pet, and supports the initiative to further the quality of the IG breed. While it may cost more money up front (possibly $500-$1500 more), it could save money in vet bills! Also, I'm not certain that it is even more expensive to use a reputable breeder, as many of the backyard breeders (ex. on pupfinder) were charging $2,500-3,000. I paid $2,000 for D'Oro in 2022.

How to find a reputable breeder? If you have local breeders, it's much easier to go through them than having to travel with your pup! I was fortunate to have two local breeders who are simply amazing! Holly of Silvani and Layle of Voici Italian Greyhounds were both great resources for me. I met them and their pups, which helped me verify that I wanted to pursue my own pup. Also, Layle was one of the pioneers of the genetic testing for IGs, and she told me about a newer autoimmune haplotype test that she helped develop (DLA I and II haplotype diversity analysis). Unfortunately, they both had waitlists for their pups, which is common for good breeders!

Since I wanted to get a pup soon, the best resource I found was the AKC website. The nice thing about the AKC website is that they tell you who currently has puppies availble for sale, and the puppies posted for sale on AKC also typically include the AKC names of the parents, so you can look them up on the IG breed archive (https://italiangreyhound.breedarchive.com/). You might also cross-check the AKC breeder with the Italian Greyhound Club of America Breeder Referrals . You can also use the "testmating" feature to see what the coefficient of inbreeding (COI) is for their puppies, by putting in the AKC parent names and clicking "pedigree analysis". For example, D'Oro's parents are Piccino Whispering Jack and Maplewood's to the Moon. If I testmate them and click pedigree analysis, I get a COI of 5.23% for 10 generations which met my criteria of a COI of <10% (I found that rule of thumb somewhere online). You can also see if the parents or their relatives have been successful show dogs (prefixes such as US GR CH, US CH, etc) along with photos. While you may not be interested in showing your dog, being a successful show dog is a quality check for both health and temperament. If the breeder won't share the AKC names of the parents, that's a red flag to me!

After finding candidates on AKC, step 2 was to find out if genetic testing had been done on the parents. I asked the breeders if the parents were genetic tested, and what their results were. If you have the AKC names/IDs of the parents, you may be able to find the genetic test results yourself using the Orthopedic Foundation For Animals website. The conventional genetic tests for this breed are: enamel hypoplasia, glaucoma, and PRA. Enamel hypoplasia and glaucoma are single locus recessive diseases, so as long as one parent is homozygous normal, the pups have no chance of inheriting these conditions. PRA is a bit more complicated because there are multiple loci involved, but it is also a recessive condition. For an interpretation of PRA results see: https://vgl.ucdavis.edu/test/pra-susceptibility-ig. Extra credit to breeders with DLA results!

D'Oro Cookie came from Celtic Sighthounds, but was bred by someone who was no longer in the breeding business. From the AKC site I saw that she had champions in both parental lineages, and a good COI. Her DNA is not perfect, as she is at a slight increase in risk for PRA (5x), but that was acceptable to me.

A big shout out to both Holly and Layle, who were super helpful to me in vetting possible breeders!! Holly also recommended obtaining a "show stack" for both parents to help examine structural soundness.