Silken Windhounds

So I just got to meet my first silken. I'm totally smitten after coming home from getting some silken love (and toller puppy play and aussie and acd to boot!). She's so sweet and friendly and polite.

I was wondering what people knew about them? I knew we had a thread a while back so I'll have to look that up.

This dog is very calm and quiet and dignified. She's GORGEOUS. Absolutely stunning. She learnt really fast but was very methodical. The thing I loved was how cuddly and friendly she was but in a very polite way. She just melted into each persons' lap with ease and just seemed like an all around fantastic dog to have around.

Is that typical?

Want! Sounds exactly what I want in a dog! I need a houseful of sight hounds.

There are 3-4 that compete in agility up here and they really are just sweet dogs . They love everyone. They do pretty well in agility, but they are still sight hounds lol, sometimes they just decide that it's more fun to make their own course up.

It's a breed I am VERY interested, especially if I decide that a zoi is too large(which I don't think will happen ), but I haven't met any and don't know a whole lot about them.

I need to meet more sight hounds. I am in love with everything about their descriptions except the independent nature... I need to meet some to see just how "independent" they are.

I've wanted a sighthound since I was around 13 (beezers mostly) but never have really looked too into it because of the independence plus papillons. Might have to consider one way down the line. Seems like a great dog.

Come meet my whippet boys independent my ass.

I think there is a group of them that meet up in Central Park on Sat. mornings....maybe.

Independent =\= unaffectionate.

More like independent = not needy.

Summit is the biggest schmooze at meet and greets. He just spends the whole time walking around and quietly standing in front of people waiting to be petted. But if they don't he just moves on, he doesn't stick his head under their hand and try to self pet.

I went out for an hour just now. Came home and Kili pretty much threw herself into my arms.

Hey I just saw this! I definitely definitely want a Silken and/or long haired Whippet at some time!

You, Grace (with Trent), and I should get litter mates or baby sight hounds at the same time!

I am trying to convince Grace she needs one now. I am definitely considering one but it won't be for a couple dogs. Nextdog will be a crazy herder for agility.

This silken though is so cute and adorable. They're definitely starting to worm their way up my 'one day' list. She picks up tricks fast and has the cutest little mannerisms while shaping. I just adore it.

I would definitely not call her unaffectionate at all! She is incredibly affectionate and sweet with everyone. Very gentle about it and polite but she has no reserves about crawling into everyone's laps and getting pets.

We totally have to coordinate this!! I want litter mates! I don't think it'll be a next dog for me too, probably 1-2 dogs down.

YES. Can you imagine how cool that would be?? And we're all pretty picture crazy, so I think this would be the best thing to happen, ever. This would also be 1 dog down the road from now (and "Nextdog", to use Laurelin's term, would likely be 2016? So, sometime around or after 2018).

That said, if I get a dog like a Silken or a LH Whippet or a Cav, it'd be as a sweet, laid back dog, which would be a lot easier to add compared to a GSD (which I'd really, really like to get into IPO with). So... I dunno. I mentioned to Lauren that I'd likely be going to a specialty in August hosted by the very nearby Silken club, and if I fall in love that might change up Nextdog plans.

Yeah, this is pretty much all your fault. Completely and entirely. Ideally my next dog will be for IPO or, if that doesn't pan out, at least some sort of performance sport for fun. But with me thinking about grad school and likely moving around I don't know how realistic it'd be to commit to IPO. So it might actually be a better idea to fill my "noncrazy" dog slot first

WHO KNOWS, GUYS. I still think it'd be so amazing to have littermates. But it'd also be cool if somehow I ended up getting a Silken or something sooner than I'd planned.

So I've met about 30 different Silkens now and feel like I can talk a little bit about them.

With affection, I think it's unusual for a Silken to be *affectionate* to everyone. All of the ones I've met are very sweet to people, but it's more of a "Yes, you may pet me and adore me. I AM wonderful, after all." Lugia is kinda "meh" when it comes to strangers (unless they have a tennis ball or disc, then she just springs alive and desperately tries to interact with them). If you do not have anything to offer her, she does not particularly care about you. I think it doesn't help that I usually bring Lugia AND Circus with me everywhere, Circus is this wiggly social butterfly spaz who LOVEEEES EVERYONE and it just makes Lugia seem antisocial in comparison (I've had people ask me, "What's wrong with her... is she shy?" No, she's not shy, Circus' exuberance just kind of overshadows her.)

Lugia is like my shadow, she follows me everywhere and wants to be involved, but she does have a personal space of about 3 ft. She does have her moments like in the morning, she wakes me up by draping her body over me, and she sleeps next to me with her head on my pillow like a boyfriend. My boyfriend taught her a "be cute" command so now whenever she wants something, she rests her beak on my lap and stares up at me pleadingly.

I wouldn't get a Silken if your goal is to do agility or sports. I had to work very very hard at building Lugia's drive (I'm talking months... and months... before she would happily chase after a tennis ball), I started playing around in agility and she will run through tunnels and jump over hurdles for a thrown tennis ball But that is not the norm in the breed. She really loves disc, too (again, this is something I worked on daily for MONTHSSSS), it's like... my dream to break a distance record with her, you should see her, she FLIES after a disc, really her only limitation is me

I love training her, it's so fun and she tries so hard, it's very cute, but very different from Circus. Circus picks up on things lightning fast, whereas it takes Lugia a little while (like... it took us a month to teach Lugia to target something with her back feet, whereas it only took Circus 2 sessions).

I freaking love Lugia. Her personality so much mirrors mine it's kind of scary. She is my favorite thing in the world (maybe it's because I see a reflection of myself when I look at her haha)

Pintage, the Facebook links in your signature don't seem to work anymore. Can you please post more pictures of Lugia? I haven't seen you guys around in a while!!

Does she have any food drive? This dog seems to work nicely for food. The lady did say they took a few agility classes but they didn't continue because they didn't take to them. Don't know if she meant the dog or the person or both.

I've done a lot with just food drive with Summer. She won't play at all except for a little bit with a tug and all of that was clicked via shaping with cookies.

At this point all my dogs will be agility dogs for the next few dogs and I anticipate my whole life. That said, I don't care if we are superfast or supercompetitive. I'd also like to train something a bit different.

This dog is 'affectionate' in a very polite way. She's definitely nothing like Summer who is all 'OH I LOVE YOU! Hold me and pet me and love me' Summer's brain kinda falls out with people. They are her everything. This dog is more subdued but still very friendly and mushy.

I had a stalker harassing me on both of my dog's FB pages So I had to delete them both...

She does have somewhat of a food drive (if you Google "Derby agility Silken", I think they trained him to do agility and flyball using only food as a reward) but she's just super picky... like, she'll work for her favourite food for a few days but then not be interested in it for weeks. She was ravenous as a puppy but I'd say nowadays she turns her nose up at food about half of the time I offer it to her (this is my one big frustration with her, she's perfect otherwise).

Wow? A stalker? That's insane.

Well you should post pictures anyways here.

He followed me to Chaz too Which is why I've been staying on the down-low for the past few months. I did recently take a bunch of photos at a Silken get-together so I'll try to make a new picture thread this weekend.

Wow, that's terrible!! Sorry about that, I had no idea. Just remember checking the FB pages periodically because of how much I loved your photos and your dogs. I've definitely missed seeing you around!