GeorgeDB

Thank you all for your advice, we really appreciate it! We'll definitely try throwing a treat when waking him from now on, as food does seem to be his biggest motivator. We spoke to the Vet again yesterday, and she has recommended we put him on a course of anxiety medication (fluoxetine), which should also hopefully help with his training plan. For now we'll give him plenty of space and keep and eye on him, especially as we're unsure of his history/past experiences.

Hi We adopted our 2 year old retired racer Gus, just over 3 months ago. We knew there would be challenges, and with most things we seem to be seeing improvements (No longer freezing on walks as often, and he's now happy to spend time on his own in a room) For most of his behaviours we've been able to find explanations, and we're very careful with how we interact with him, due to his sleep startle. We know its still early but, there have recently been a couple of incidents that we're struggling to understand, so we were wondering if anyone has any advice. 1) My partner leant down to unplug a laptop charger, Gus was on his bed around 2 foot away, so she verbally woke him up before reaching for the plug. Once he was awake, she went to remove the plug from the wall, at which point he leapt up and bit her forearm leaving heavy bruising (Luckily she was wearing a long sleeved top) He's never shown any resource guarding issues with his bed, and is normally happy to share the space with her. Gus did not growl before this. 2) We visited my partners father for an hour, Gus was awake and wandering around. When her father leant down to grab something from under his chair, Gus lunged and bit him on the shoulder. Again there was no growl and Gus was not near to him at the time. After both incidents Gus came straight over for reassurance (leaning on us). We understand that this is most likely fear based, and we have no record of Gus's history, but we're not sure what the trigger was here, as these were both actions that we perform daily with no issue. We took him to the vet, to rule out a pain response, and were given he 'all clear'. Our biggest concern is that we struggle to read Gus sometimes, We've never seen him growl, and his body language can seem quite neutral (although we are new to Greyhounds, so maybe the signs are just very subtle) He is a nervous lad, but his temperament is usually calm and affectionate, we love him to bits. My partner is now nervous of him but has committed to hand feeding him his meals to try and build some trust. Any advice or thoughts would be welcome, Thank you! George