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Nigel

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A big thank you to Jan Fiers (Lokeren) for offering to start an Italian Greyhound Forum. I'm sure Jan will introduce herself to everyone soon.

Any new forum will always take a while to take off so can I ask all existing members to help promote the forum to possible interested parties and try & help with any relevant posts.

I'm sure everyone will join me in wishing Jan success with her new forum.
 
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Good luck with your new forum Jan - lets hope it's as successful as the rest of this site! :D

Nigel will you stop adding all these new bits i'm reeeaallly supposed to be doing housework!!
 
Hi Jan

So you're going to enlighten everyone to the joys of those gutsy little dogs?

good luck
 
:D :D :D :D Hi, everyone I'm Jan Fiers and I hope we can build up this forum so that it's fun as well as interesting.

I'll tell you a little about myself then you will all know what a nutcase I am.

I'm a grandma to two adorable grandsons, Adam nearly four and Clayton 8 weeks (AAhh). Married to Pedro for nearly 10 years (poor man). I work for myself (probably because nobody else will have me) as a Health, Safety and HR consultant. You can catch my website at persplus.co.uk. My dog site is lokeren.co.uk. I've been involved with dogs all my life and had a number of different breeds as well as lurchers and other cross breeds. My constants now are Whippets and of course Italian Greyhounds or Iggies as they are commonly known. I've had moderate success with both as I don't have a large stock of dogs at any one time and only breed the occasional litter.

Iggies are a wonderful breed, totally nutty (which is why they fit with me well), full of love and affection and great with kids. At the moment I have two, Jack (Wilmaleen Desert Prince) who is 6½ with a few teeth missing which has done nothing to diminish his appetite and Charlie (Taraday Charles at Lokeren) who is 11 months and might just make 12 months. Charlie can't stand still for two seconds. He went to do his Good Citizen Dog Scheme at SKC in August and sailed through the whole thing except the stay which he was required to do for one minute. After 6 attempts the examiner gave up! Charlie loves lure coursing and it is his forte I think.

A lot of you will have heard that Iggies suffer a lot of broken legs. Unfortunately, that is so BUT, and this is where I might be controversial here, I am of the opinion that if you exercise your Iggies and build the muscle tone to support the skeletal structure you significantly reduce the risk of such injuries. My friend who has had them for over 40 years, has never had such an injury. Perhaps it's because both of us bring them up with our Whippets.

As you have realised I can rabbit (both love rabbiting too) on for England and can only apologise in advance in case I get this moderating lark wrong as it's all very new to me.

Hope you enjoy the forum and if you want to contact me directly my email address is jan.fiersatlokeren@ntlworld.com.

By the way Vicky I know what you mean about K9 being addictive. :D :D :D :D :D
 
:) Yup Mark I most certainly am. Following on from our great day with your Whacky Racers, if anyone else is interested in giving their Iggies a go at coursing, can you let me know and I will try to get it set up. ???
 
Have you got any pictures of your whippets and I.G's - would love to see them :D
 
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Yes lets have some pictures - I'm besotted with them too. The only reason I haven't got one, is that we like to race the dogs, and I too have always worried that they were a bit delicate. Interested to hear you've been lure coursing - might come and watch sometime. Good luck with the forum. :D
 
Jan there is an Iggy that has a run down at West Somerset racing club. The owners have the whippet brother to Dessies Derohan Hawkwing and they race him there. The only problem that they have with Angel (Iggy) is that they can't catch her and we all end up trying to catch her. She's truly wonderful. One day I'm going to have an Iggy.
 
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??? If I can find out how to do this, I most certainly will. My IT skills are not that good and I generally find out how to do things through trial and lots of errors.

All the pictures are on my pc, so if anyone out there can give me an absolute step by step guide how to do it, then watch this space.
 
Hi Jan, I don't think Bj will be getting an Iggie soon, she also wants another whippet, a chinese crested and,although she hasn't mentioned it yet, I'm sure she'd like a Manchester Terrier :D .

Some years ago, our ex-racing greys met a lovely Iggy on our local common, they both fell in love and it was hilarious, watching them trying to catch her.

Lyd
 
OOOhhh...Italian Greyhounds are adorable. My ex- neighbour Liz has a few (she successfully shows them) and they are the sweetest dogs. I'm sure she does agility with one of them as well (Liz will have to confirm this). I seem to remember her saying that certain lines can have fragile leg problems. I know hers are fine, 'cos they're so active and live with a whippet and a lurcher. Jan, a few doors down also shows IG's and she also owns whippets and greyhounds. Maybe they'll both see this soon and post a message or two.
 
Certainly sounds that if Iggies are brought up with other hounds, then they don't appear to have the problems and yes you are quite right, certain lines are known for their fragility and tendency to break legs. I just wish those breeders would introduce some more bone to their stock and then probably change the habits of a lifetime and let them run free.

I mentioned earlier Charlie's enjoyment of lure coursing. We did this with Mark Roberts and his Whacky Racers up at Chorley. We also took Jack as well. Jack is an excellent rabbiter (courtesy of hubby Pedro) and was all for following the lure when he sped past the hedgebottom and suddenly put the brakes on as if to say, "hang on, why am I chasing a plastic sack when there's bound to be some rabbits in the hedgebottom. Goodbye I'm off." Didn't matter which way round the course was, as soon as he reached the hedgebottom he was off! Mind you nowadays he is very soft mouthed courtesy of having lost all his front teeth, which is a problem lots of Italians share, whatever their lines! So I don't think the rabbits had too much to worry about.
 
When Mark mentioned that there were going to be some iggies at the Northern doing lure coursing, I was so annoyed that i couldnt make it as they are by far my 2nd favourite breed ( well I had to say that didnt I?) I do hope you will be bringing them again soon

and how weird i too have a "thing" for chinese cresteds too! and of course lots more whippets..tho dont tell Scott or he just might go out and get lots more:)
 
This is getting very sad but I like Chinese Cresteds too! I remember when I judged a match meeting, too many years ago to admit to, I judged one of the powder puff variety. He was rather naughty and his owner, who I've known for longer than I've been showing (He's my hairdresser) said he wasn't going to continue with him. I told him not to be so daft as Rupert as he was called was gorgeous. Nice to be right about something for once, he was the breed's first ever powder puff champion! :D

I promise to take them up to Chorley again in the new year as I don't think my schedule will allow me up before then. I'll post in plenty of time when I'm going so you can come too!
 
Hi all,

Liz here, with the mad Italians!

Like you, Jan, I firmly believe that a lot of leg breaks are caused by not allowing vigorous exercise while they are puppies- even though they are terrifying to watch when they are doing the wall of death around the furniture!! :w

If you think about it, people who are bedridden for a long time get brittle bones, and weight bearing exercise improves bone density. A lot of IGs spend their lives in cages, which I think is tragic for such an active breed.

I do think though, that there is a serious bone density problem in some lines- you often hear of an IG which has broken its leg simply jumping off the sofa! In my opinion, that dog should never be bred from, but some breeders seem to expect it to happen, and carry on breeding regardless!

My bitch Dolly does agility, and Norman has been to the Afghan racing at Hinckley- where he ran 350 yds in 24 seconds- faster than most of the Afghans!

Their daughter Alice has 2 CCs, so I will wait to race her until ( if- oh please...) she gets her 3rd. She is tiny, but VERY fast and agile!

If you ever manage to set up some lure coursing for IGs a bit further south, I would definitely like to come, as would several others.

I expect your Charlie is related to mine- is he by Artmeis Blue Ludo? Or Just James?

Anyway, will shut up now, and try and work out how to post pics of my lot on here...

Liz
 
Hi Liz, welcome to the forum. You have echoed my thoughts entirely. When you have found out how to post pictures, please let me know, then I can do the same. I go through all the stuff and am sure I have followed the instructions but they never appear!

I've figured out that the picture is too big as its 471kb, but how the divil do I reduce it to 75k PLEEEEEASE someone?

Nigel's got a right one here as moderator.
 
Almost any image editing software can be used to reduce the file size. You need to reduce the physical size to around 500 pixels wide and then adjust the quality (you can usually set it to about 40-60%). It's best to save pictures in .jpg format. As you say you do need to reduce the file to less than 75kb which is more than enough and will load fairly quickly.

There is some free software called Photo Resizer which can do what you want - http://www.showyourphotos.com/products.html
 
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:D :D :D :D :D :D

Don't little things please little minds? The first photo is of Charlie. This next one should be Jack. I'm so pleased with myself it's unbelievable, mind you I do usually do my best work at night!

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