glitter

Thank you so much everyone for the advice! It's been really helpful and made me understand our little grey a bit more! I think you're all right and he was just trying to play with me/asking for attention since I wasn't giving him any and no one else was home. He's growled at my sister a few times since when they've been playing together and it doesn't phase her so it seems to just be a happy/playful thing he does. Thanks again for the comprehensive responses! <3

Hi guys, I'm having a little bit of an issue with my sister's greyhound - 5-yr old ex-racing male - that I'm going to be looking after for a few weeks soon while she's on holiday. My family originally had him as a foster dog, but we all fell head over heels in love with him and only last week he was officially adopted! He's had two minor issues with growling at my mum (when she tried to move him off my sister's bed, where he wasn't meant to be), and snapping at my sister when she tried to stop him licking his paws, but other than that he's been a sweetheart! That is, until he scared me today. The thing about our little guy is he shadows my sister EVERYWHERE - even into the toilet. He is extremely attached to her as she was the one who adopted him, took him away from the adoption centre, feeds him, lets him sleep in her room, etc. So when she's gone he flips out a little. So today I was alone in the house with him for around 4 hours. He was fine for the first three, reasonably independent - sometimes taking himself off to her room to have a lie down, drinking some water, or just lying on the ground while I watched TV from the couch. But on around hour three, he went and picked up one of our doorstops and started chewing on it - I then had to take it away from him as my parents had instructed me to make sure he doesn't take those. Everything goes back to normal, I'm lying down on the couch and he's far away from me lying on the floor. Then he suddenly starts breathing heavily and makes a strange, sort of howl-y vocalisation. When I got up to check on him because the noise concerned me (it was almost the same as when our old dog - not a greyhound - used to whine when she felt lonely) as I approached him, his neck swung back to look at me and he snapped his jaws a few times while wagging his tail. I hesitated, and he made this sort of growly noise which frightened me, so I ended up going into my bedroom and shutting the door. I feel like that was probably the wrong move, but to be honest I've seen Cujo and it flashed through my mind at that moment! Does anyone know what those particular behaviours might mean? My mum suggested he might have just been lonely and was trying to get me to pay attention to him, but it was scary! Cheers in advance, Glitter