Hi everyone,
My husband and I adopted a retired greyhound just over 2 weeks ago. He's our first greyhound and first dog! Therefore we are new to the community. I've read through lots of the forum already and it's been extremely helpful, if only to make us feel incredibly lucky with our boy! He's doing remarkably well considering. But we do need help/advice with 1-2 things. Apologies in advance but this will likely be a long post as I want to give proper context for the issue(s) we're having. Thanks in advance!!
Lupin (Lu) is a very tall boy with 81lb racing weight. He turns 2 in a couple weeks. He retired very early due to a hock injury. It's pretty much healed now but he does limp at the ends of longer walks. We haven't seen/let him run or sprint yet.
We do not have a fenced in yard yet so we walk him every time to go potty. We haven't set a full routine yet as one of the issues we're having is that he pees in his crate, which I've come to understand is kind of odd. I thankfully have the luxury of working from home when needed, so we've either been here with him all day or left him crated for only a few hours. I think the max so far (besides overnight) has been 5 hours during the day. He has a routine in the sense that we let him out every time someone comes downstairs in the morning, every time he's about to go into the crate, every time he's let out of the crate, and right before we go upstairs for bed. The mornings and evenings are fairly routine.
As for the peeing in the crate, it started the subsequent morning after bringing him home. We stuck to his exact routine as per the shelter where we adopted him, which meant last potty was 9:30pm and first potty is just before 7am followed by breakfast. We were on our way downstairs to let him out at 6:45am when we heard him peeing in his crate. We did not scold him or anything since we figured this was just him getting used to the new place and to us and was maybe thinking he wouldn't be let out. After that though, he had 2 seemingly random accidents inside the house but outside the crate during the first week (none since) and then he seems to pee in his crate if we leave him in there during the day for longer than 3 hours, despite ensuring he empties his bladder beforehand by taking him out 3 separate times before crating.
Now for why he needs to be crated at all, because honestly we would LOVE if he could just have free reign (at least of downstairs). We have 2 cats who are still pretty afraid of him (they stay upstairs where Lu has not yet been), and 2 ferrets who have their own room downstairs (so they wouldn't really be at risk but may add to his behavior potentially). The cat introduction went remarkably well the first few days. Our bravest cat, the male, came to investigate the new creature the second day. Lu was leashed and muzzled. He was VERY excited to see the cat, and we believe he only wants to play. He was wagging his tail the whole time with ears pricked and he did some playful bounds towards the cat. He was certified cat-safe as well of course. After maybe 24-36 hours Lu calmed down a bit at the sight of the cat, so I let him get gradually closer (still muzzled), letting my cat tell me his boundaries. As soon as my cat growled, I pulled Lu back a couple feet. This seemed to be great progress because an hour later, they were both sleeping in the same room! But then a day or so later, the same cat came downstairs without us realizing and Lu chased him around the living room until he dashed upstairs, tail apoofed. Since then, Lu still has been rather calm when he sees a cat, but then a few days ago (at least a week after the first cat chase) both cats came downstairs and we were not quick enough to grab him before he chased both until they ran back upstairs. Now I do believe the chases were playful, and the second probably only occurred because it was the first time the second cat (female) came downstairs while he was outside the crate. New friend! The cats seem fine and untraumatized but they are still keeping their distance. I know these chases were completely our fault but we can't change the past.
As for the ferrets, he has had extremely limited interaction with them since they are very small and always running (chaseable). We did let him sniff them over the gate into their room twice, the second time got him way more excited than the first though. He now seems to realize that they are in that room, even when the door is shut. But doesn't show any kind of concerning behavior, just sniffs the door more than he used to.
A little more context before I get into the real reason for this post (again sorry for the length)! Lu was very shy at first but I would not say he was spooky. We haven't seen his tail go between his legs or his hair stand up yet. He warmed up to me after only 2 days and was afraid of my husband until only a couple days ago (which seems to be pretty common). If my husband was home during the day, he'd be fine with him. It was mainly every time he came home from work that Lu would act like he never met him before and run away/lean away when he came near. This still would only last for maybe an hour before he warmed back up to him. Lately, it's only lasted a few minutes! So we're very proud of him for that. We also took him to his first dog park yesterday, but we kept him muzzled and leashed the whole time for everyone's safety since we don't know him well enough yet. He did AWESOME! He met around 10 other dogs, all of whom he was taller than, and was pretty submissive to all. He wagged his tail at most and just let all of them smell him. He definitely wanted to run and play, especially with the few that seemed more his age and speed lol. He even went right up to some of the people, wagging his tail! All in all he was a very good, brave, amazing boy. He got lots of treats when the muzzle came off outside the off-leash area.
OK so here's what's happening now that we need some advice about. He went 4 days accident free and then only peed in his crate when he had to be left for 5 hours while we were both at work. He's been accident free since then (3 days ago). Over the past several days, we've been noticing spilled water in his crate though when we come back from wherever during the day. Last night while we were in the ferret room with them, and he was crated, he started whining and barking (this is normal and we just ignore him) but he started making these weird gnawing/growling noises and we got concerned, so I went to see what he was doing. He was gnawing on his crate water bowl (the metal kind that screws onto the bars). Aha now we have an explanation for the spilled water. I didn't say anything to him and just went back into the ferret room. He settled down after another few minutes (also normal).
HOWEVER when we went to bed, he was in rare form. Backtracking a little, his very first night, he cried and howled for 2 hours before giving up and going to sleep for the rest of the night. Since then he cries/howls/barks when we shut off all the lights upstairs but the time he does this has declined a lot. I think the night before last he only did so for 5 minutes. Every now and then he'll hear the cats or something in the middle of the night and cry for a few minutes but nothing concerning. Again showing how lucky we've been so far! But last night, he started his normal crying/barking routine but then started making the gnawing the water bowl noises again. He was making other weird banging noises on the crate but we didn't want to reward him by going downstairs. After 25-30 minutes he gave up and went to sleep for the rest of the night.
My husband has work today so he was on first potty duty. He told me later that the extra noises were Lu completely turning the water bowl upside down, spilling it all (not sure how he did this), and then ripping up his self-warming crate mat. One time when we left him during the day he ripped a small portion of a blanket we put in there with him, but that's the only kind of destructive behavior he's shown so far. He has 2 toys in there with him, one nylabone which he does enjoy chewing and one crinkly, squeaky soft toy that he also enjoys chewing.
Now that you've read all that (thank for reading all that), here are our questions.
He has never really liked his crate like they said he would, probably from day 2. He's always put up some resistance when putting him in, but nothing too dramatic. Do you think this new behavior last night is separation anxiety now that he's bonded with us or general spite/rebellion for being in the crate? Or something we're not thinking of?
Does he just really hate the crate and he'll quit this behavior if we leave him out? I'm about to try blocking him off in the living room where his bed(s), toys, and water are, while I go into the ferret room for about an hour. I predict he will cry at first but am hoping he will settle like he normally does in the crate and not try to barrel through the blockades. He is the velcro type so he will not be happy he cannot follow me out of the room.
Those of you with cats, what do you do to ensure everyone's safety? Are your greys crated? The cats have never been confined to one room, so they would not like being kept behind a closed door upstairs.
Are there baby/dog gates that you use that you would recommend to confine him to one room if my experiment works? He will have to continue being crated at least while we have the ferrets out in the living room to play each night, until we trust him and them enough down the line.
Any other general tips for his behavior and/or getting him on safer grounds with the other pets so we can put the crate away for good?
Thank you so much!! We really appreciate any advice or help.
