Hi,
Firstly, thanks in advance for any feedback and taking the time to read this post. My girlfriend and I recently adopted a retired 4 year old male greyhound named Geoffrey.
We've had him about a month and am struggling to get him toilet trained. He's not terrible, but has gone inside about 3 or 4 times and refuses to be put outside to the point where I have to pretty much haul him out to go to the toilet. He doesn't seem particularly motivated by food or anything and will just lay there. I wouldn't mind if when he needed to go out, he would willingly go out the door. it's not a case of bad weather as we live in a very mild climate.
The other morning for example, I got up to go to work. He was laying on the couch the whole time and gave no indication of needing to go to the toilet. I would have put him outside anyway but my girlfriend was getting up as I left for work, so I let him lay. On the way to work I got a message that he'd peed on the rug.
My girlfriend and I both grew up with dogs, but of very different kinds. Her family have a lap dog that is inside all the time, where as I grew up with working dogs that were mostly outside dogs.
I realise now that greyhounds are a very unique breed. i was definitely not prepared for how emotionally sensitive he is, and i do worry that perhaps i have been a bit too firm with him at times. I get the impression that he sees me as the "bad guy".
i am aware that greyhounds thrive on routine but my girlfriend and i are shift workers so unfortunately that is not possible, but we try our best. i suspect that the issue is that when he gets put out he is unsure if he is going to be allowed back in, as he is put out if both of us are away from the house. We've set him up a bed in the separate laundry area downstairs that he can lay on when he's outside and tried to make it as comfortable as possible.
Has anyone had success in fixing this kind of behaviour?
