Thanks Dave for getting back to me, I am just in a real muddle with this, I am not going to make a rash decision. I was hoping not to be put in this situation, I had it all sorted out in my head to wait till we came back - GAL are the only organisation we had come to, with regards to this other grey the lady fostering this wee girl found out about us with regards to me having lurcher experience over many years.

I will have to wait and see I will obviously keep you up to date with what we are doing. You must think I am terrrible.

Siouxsie

I agree, it's a toughie for you. I personally think that you might be better to wait - just my opinion. It takes a dog a wee while to settle, and so your new girl might just be feeling comfy with you by the time you go away on holiday; it might be confusing for her to be in her foster home, then go home with you, then go back to her foster home, then go back with you. Will her current foster mum look after Saska as well? That may well have an effect on their relationship - if they're together, then apart, then together again. Of course, every dog is different and your new lass might just take everything in her stride and be perfectly hunky-dory with everything!

We had a similar situation with Pearly in that we got her at the beginning of May last year. We had holiday planned for June but decided to cancel because we didn't want to leave her. It was easy for us, though, because we hadn't booked to go away anywhere, so that was fine.

Course, the other side of the coin is to just run with things! We got Harry a bit sooner than we'd planned because his foster family were going away for a few days, and it turned out that we weren't able to take any time off work to settle him into the household and to acclimatise he and Pearly to being together. We just cracked on with things over the weekend that we got him and it all worked out fine in the end, which is grand!

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Fiona

hello there siouxsie. 

my input is this..........definitely wait until you return from your holiday.  this is exactly what we did last year - i could not have left my babies so soon after adopting them.  not only for my sake but for them - i didn't think it fair to adopt them, then return them, then have them back.

if she is the right dog for you, it will happen, no matter when and it's clear that you have her best interests at heart.

also......these GAL people are wonderful - we didn't get our greys from GAL but they have been so helpful and supportive that i joined as well - even tho i'm way down here on the south coast !!

best of luck, whatever you decide and enjoy your holiday cos you'll have something to look forward to when you get home.

 

I reckon it's all about the dog. If you reckon the dog you like is going to fit in well then go for it. Finding a second dog that works well can be tricky.

Hi Siouxsie, simple answer is no, the prey drive is completely different in all the dogs, some will have a very high prey drive and would never be able to be homed with cats or small dogs, additionally they would never be able to run off lead and in the worst cases never be able to walk ON lead without a muzzle. On the flip side some ex-racers will have little or no prey drive and will happily share their home with cats and small dogs and be able to be excersized off lead around other dogs. It really depends on the dog.

We try to assess all our dogs as best we can in those circumstances so we can get an idea of how high or low the prey drive will be in our homeless dogs and (as you know) through our adoption process we try to assess the home and see what type of dog would fit in (i.e. would the home be willing and able to handle a dog with a very high prey drive) that sort of thing...

Blue is great with all sizes of dogs but would happily eat a cat or a squirrel if given half the chance. This isn't a problem for us There are very few cats around here as we live near the coast and it seems to be a dog walkers haven and the squirrels are FAR too clever for Blue darting up the trees at the last minuet so he will crash in to the tree (hee hee)

We did have a rather scarey incident with a pair or miniture toy poodle puppies. Blue picked 1 up in his mouth - not in an aggressive way and it wasn't hurt Blue just seemed to think it was a fluffy toy!!! (the owner was non too impressed which is understandale) Now we take care around anything smaller than a toy poodle. (can understand Blues point kind of any way - some of them I'm not sure whether they are dogs or hamsters!)

I thank my lucky stars that Blue is as laid back as he is. We received no information on him or about the breed. That is why Gal is such a wonderful organisation. They do the ground work - cat/small dog test the dogs and place them with the most suitable owner and their follow up and support is outstanding.


There has been a few pics posted on the forum of Greys asleep cuddleing up to their feline friends. Take a look at "when cat testing goes right" in the about your dogs section.

-- Edited by bluesmumanddad at 15:23, 2005-07-08

dave and daisy are not in any way safe with anything small and furry - cats or dogs.  they are ok with big dogs, mainly cos they don't recognise them as dogs unless they are greyhounds.

dave has already attacked a cat that was in our garden and i wouldn't want anyone to experience that, from either the dog or cat's viewpoint !!

unless your adopted baby is cat-tested you need to be extremely careful around anything small and remotely fluffy as it's likely to end up as lunch !!

good luck anyway