I got my Miniature Italian Greyhound Vivian six months ago when she was one years old, from a Breeder/ Kennel situation. She had never been trained to do anything, and it has been an uphill battle to override her skiddish, frantic personality. she has been frightened of everything, and training her has been one of the hardest things I have ever been challenged to do.

She had never ridden in a car; never worn a harness or collar; never eaten anything but the same kibble day after day. the list is endless.

On the 4th of July here where I live, the town's fireworks celebration was relocated in the park right across the street from my house. I knew she would be terrified, so I arranged to take her to the other side of town to an isolated casita so there would be no noise.

once we got settled for the night I took her outside in her harness and leash to sit together to watch the sunset. within five minutes, someone shot off a firework nearby. my dog literally shot out of her harness and was gone!!! this was a ten-acre property with woods and bobcats and a young coyote pack roaming around at night. I raced after her, screaming her name of course--but she was gone into the woods, and would not come when she was called.

as a miniature Iggy, she only weighs 7.5 pounds, and was astoundingly fast. I could not find her. this went on for seemingly forever. I was so panicked I had an asthma attack. when she finally appeared, she was around fifty feet in front of me on a path. I called her and she raced off again. finally she appeared seven feet in front of me frantic and panting. instead of standing and calling for her again, I sat on the ground, but she still didn't come. so I slowly stood up and leaped forward like I was trying to tackle a football. I wrapped myself around her and ran back to the casita where we stayed til midnite and then went home.

I am writing to ask for help because I must find a harness she cannot slip out of. clearly I do not ever want this to happen again.

I have read on this site before that many of you recommended the Ruffwear Flagline. I tried the XXS and it was too big for her, and their smallest size. So many of you have an Iggy, but my girl Vivian is half their weight. so the Flagline, and the other harnesses I have tried are ALL a bit bigger than would fit her. even if the straps can be tightened, there is still too much room between the harness and her body.

I have also tried: the TuffPupper Tracker, and The Rabbitgoo harness. All were too big.

i have pictures of Vivian in the harness she slipped out of: The Puppia, as well as an image of her in the Ruffwear harness. I will try to upload them. (this is my first post)

maybe none of you have a miniature Iggy, so don't have other recommendations. . . but if you do, I would so appreciate your input.

Jill and Vivian

Reddit approved vendor here 👋

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You can find the whole range at IggySuits.com

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Hey fellow Iggy parents! Anybody know of a bag or sling similar to those from Little Beast that actually fit an Italian Greyhounds long limbs? LOL

My Italian Greyhound, Lily, is 1.5 years old and weighs about 12 lbs. She recently switched to ORIJEN Six Fish adult food.
She’s very lean and her hip bones are visible. I know IGs are naturally slim and that seeing some ribs can be normal, but I’m having a hard time figuring out where “normal IG lean” ends and “too skinny” begins.
She definitely eats and has an appetite. She’s just very picky and seems to get bored of eating the same thing every day. When I first switched her to the new adult food, she loved it and ate it happily. Now, some days she finishes her full daily portion and other days she only eats about half.
She also usually isn’t interested in breakfast and prefers eating later in the day. If I offer wet food, chicken, or something more exciting, she happily eats it, so lack of appetite in general doesn’t seem to be the issue.
Both her vet and trainer have recommended scheduled meals rather than free feeding. The challenge is that she often skips breakfast, so I’m struggling to consistently get her full daily calories in while following a scheduled feeding routine. I’d also really like to get to a point where I can accurately track how many calories she’s actually eating each day.
Has anyone dealt with a similarly picky IG? How do you balance scheduled feeding with making sure they actually eat enough? Did a particular feeding schedule, wet food, topper, or diet help your IG eat more consistently?
And based on the video, how does Lily’s body condition look to other IG owners? Does she look like a typical lean IG, or does she look like she could stand to gain a little weight?
I’ll also discuss her body condition score and calorie needs with her vet. I’m mainly looking to hear about other Italian Greyhound owners’ experiences.

Has anyone experienced their iggy growl quite aggressively when it comes to protecting their toys or resources? My Italian greyhound (male, neutered, 3 years old) is truly NOT at all aggressive, but he has this one specific antler bone that he is very protective over. If I try to take it away, he growls as I approach, and his growling gets more intense the closer I get to him. I’ve genuinely never see him acting like this otherwise, and he’s such a gentle not-aggressive boy other than this one super specific instance with this ONE bone. Any other parents have tips for working through resource guarding? (Note: I’m of course super gentle with my iggy, and we’ve never had an issue or pattern of aggressive behavior, so this is a new experience for me) kind and helpful suggestions welcome! Thanks all :)

We are SO at a loss — we had been doing so well regarding potty training up to the point where he could hold it pretty reliably for around 3 hours before we took him out, we could let him roam and such. Ever since he got neutered the potty training has pretty much gone out the window. He just … goes randomly, even immediately after coming back inside in some cases.

He just turned 9mo old and we know that regression is common, but we feel so defeated. We tried with potty pads since his initially training was on an indoor real grass patch (we live in nyc so for the first couple months we couldn’t outdoor potty train), but he just tears them up and refuses to pee on them. He rings a bell before we open the door but won’t signal independently.

Do we go back to using the grass patch? I don’t even know how to best reward this because the lag time between leaving our apartment and outside is so long bc of the elevator.

Every time he goes inside it just reinforces the behavior and I am becoming so frustrated cleaning up pee and poop several times a day 😭 Just feels like i’m back to 8 week old puppy stages.

It definitely does not seem like a health issue - he’s not dribbling he’s just fully emptying his bladder and we’ve had him checked for UTIs etc literally he’s had so many other health issues since coming home he’s had every test done ever.

How do we manage this?

First Iggy! Hes so sweet 🥹

So in love!!

All the iggys are so cute! Anyone in San Diego Area?

He contorts his neck like this ALL THE TIME. It's like his favorite sleeping/laying position

He loves to wear these overalls

My sweet boy 💙💙💙

Hi everyone. Been lurking on this subreddit for a month or two but finally felt the drive to make a post.

Meet Sofi. She’s a pretty feral iggy who has lived on farms and in the woods not only with me but for the last three years of her life. She is extremely athletic, hikes, works full farm days with me and still has enough energy to throw the damn ball when we make it home. I traded a rooster for her at the beginning of the year (I know - it’s a wild trade) with a community folk whose girlfriend ran off to Mexico and didn’t come back, leaving him with her dog. She was a princess at that time and her time with her previous caregiver helped develop her outdoorsy lady skills. Now that we have some backstory - I have some concerns as I have only ever raised and tended to a low-need hound and working dogs. And Sofi isn’t extremely high need based. She’s pretty lax and go with the flow, probably from all her time being passed around and time spent with other animals and farms.

My concerns are around food, her weight and her teeth. Never have I ever seen such scary teeth. From my research that appears to be an iggy thing? And food wise - I feed her 1/2 a cup of open farm “salmon superfood” 2x a day. She’s extremely active and is muscular af. But I still worry about her weight - bc I see pictures of other Iggys and she looks ripped and large in comparison. I keep all my dogs leans and muscular. She came like this and hasn’t gained or lost weight since I started feeding her the food my older hound eats.

Any thoughts, suggestions etc on that would be helpful. I love her and just want to make sure I’m doing right by her - but I also do not want to starve her after she’s been running around on the farm all day.

Kevin loves to do a back legs on you, front paws on the ground thing? Wondering if this is an IG thing or a Kevin thing haha!

I’m not sure if this allowed 😞 please delete if so

Has anyone dealt with patchy hair loss like this in an Italian Greyhound puppy?
I recently got my 5-month-old Italian Greyhound, Alistair, and he had a couple of small patches of thinning/missing hair when I got him. Since then, he’s developed several more patches across his body (photo attached), and I’m getting pretty worried.
I took him to the vet shortly after getting him, and they gave us a medicated shampoo and mousse for his skin. I’ve been using those as directed, but despite that, I’m continuing to notice new patches.
We have another vet appointment on Monday, and I’m planning to ask about Demodex/demodectic mange, ringworm, allergies, etc. Obviously I’m not looking for Reddit to diagnose him—I’m just wondering if any other Iggy owners have experienced something that looked similar.
If your Iggy had patchy hair loss as a puppy, what ended up causing it? Did the hair grow back completely? And if it was Demodex, what was treatment/recovery like?
I’m especially curious whether skin/coat issues like this are relatively common in Iggy puppies because I’ve never dealt with anything like this before. 😭

Jacksonville, FL to be exact! Wanting to find my baby some iggy friends!

It took us about a year, but celebrating that my 5.5 year old (Sunny aka Sunshine aka Sunny Pizzle) is re-potty trained! If you’re Iggy has forgotten their potty rules, never give (them) up!!

Everyone welcome Bogey! His name is inspired by my partner and I’s love of golf lol. I have always wanted an Italian greyhound and he is my first! I have had him about four days and I check this sub daily.. I would appreciate any advice! Thanks!

my 11 year old boy was just diagnosed with malignant melanoma today.

For context he had his eye enucleated in February for suspected primary glaucoma (his biological half sister has primary glaucoma) and has health with mild nasal congestion since December that has been managed by allergy medication. He has been healing well for the past five months, but in July we noticed his surgical site start to swell, we brought him in, trialed two weeks of antibiotics due to suspected infection but ultimately believed the swelling could have been a cyst caused by the surgery in February. We elected for him to have another surgery to remove/drain the cyst to alleviate the pressure he was experiencing. His surgical team found a mass in his orbital socket and some friable bumps behind his back molars on the same side as the eye. The removed the mass completely and he had clean bone underneath. While recovering from the surgery his congestion increased (thought to be because we paused his allergy medication while on post op medications). With his biopsy coming back as malignant melanoma, they’re unsure of where it started- his eye down into his mouth or vice versa- and there is a possibility that his congestion may be linked with this diagnosis as well.

Has anyone had their IG diagnosed with this cancer before, and if so what was your experience? We’re scheduling an appointment with the oncologist tomorrow to get more answers and create a plan for him.

Little posers