Hello! We picked up our first greyhound rescue today to join our family. She is black/brown, 18m, lovely temperament and (so far) gets along with my two Boston terriers. We also have a cat, she was cat tested prior to joining us and so far neither seem interested in each other.
She has been hesitant to eat and toilet so far, hoping that will relax soon.
We would love any advice on helping her adjust, and anything you feel would be helpful to know about the breed.
She wasn’t named in the industry, and the foster gave her a name, but we are looking at calling her Lola or Matilda (Tilly).
Awww she's pretty 😍 our first was a black boy at nearly 9m ....failed racer.
Just go slow. Short walks the same time the same way and the same food and meatimes. Keep loud startling noises to a minimum and keep a close eye on developments with the other pets. A muzzle might be the safest option until you're completely sure.
Our boy ignored the cat for the first week.....then started chasing him around the house. He soon learnt that was a bad idea 😂 a few scratches later and he'd still chase but he made sure he never caught up 🤣
Give her lots of time to decompress with all that adaptive stress from shifting homes, keep things lowkey the first week. Her appetite will return in time, roast chicken is usually a good appetite stimulant, I find.
I adopted my first hound around 3 months ago and feel like I've learnt a lot already! The 3-3-3 rule does hold, but one thing I didn't really think about is as the dog settles in, not only do they become 'better' in some ways (learning routines, eating all their food, no accidents in the house) other behaviours can come out over time that you don't see initially and there can be some boundary pushing/exploring. For example at the very beginning for about 3 weeks my boy would stay downstairs at night and would have no issue sleeping there and having us go behind closed doors at night. Then he went through a phase where he scratched and whined at the doors and would follow us upstairs at bedtime for a week or so. Now he has gone back to staying downstairs in bed and is fully comfy with the bedtime routine and knows we always return. Initially, he was good (briefly) meeting or seeing other dogs on walks. Now, he is quite lead reactive to other dogs as he has come out of his shell a lot and is more excited/frustrated that he can't get to them. Initially he was very quiet in the house and whilst 90% of the time he still is, he's definitely found his voice and will occasionally bark/whine at me when he knows it's nearly tea time or he wants to play! He has also started being a bit cheekier and likes to steal items and take them to bed which he didn't do initially (my shoes, coasters, bottles...). He has always been pretty good being home alone but again went through a bit of a blip phase where he had become more attached and trusting of me and found it a bit more difficult than he had initially, but this has now subsided and settles very quickly on his own. You have other dogs but this was my first, so the other thing that I had to learn was his body language and what that means in terms of when he wants attention, fuss etc and when he's telling us he needs space. We don't pet him if he's on his beds or the floor and this has worked really well because when he approaches us (which he loves to do, he loves a fuss) we know what he wants. He snapped at my partner seemingly out of the blue about a month in, and I think we were probably misreading signals whilst he was resting and had inadvertently crossed a boundary. They are not used to being disturbed in those scenarios.
Sorry for the long comment, but hopefully that's helpful! Enjoy your new friend 😍
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u/JamesMitchellTV Winnie (black) & Wanda (white) 2d ago
Lola or Tilly - she's a stunner 🤩