Help us settle greyhound in

[PengAly]

We just brought home our lovely retired greyhound yesterday. He has been very anxious, panting heavily and quickly, frantically jumping at the window above the sofa as he is always seeing movment and lunges when a cat is outside. Im worried he will hurt himself doing this as he sometimes will climb on the back of the sofa and onto the window ledge with front two paws. As its only day 2, he does not cope at all with us leaving him. We left the room for 2 minutes and he was panting and jumping at the door waiting for us to come back. I know it's early days but any advice please? He isnt food motivated...doesn't seem interested in treats and only eats his dinner, wont have breakfast. Last night we slept on the sofas but we need to be able to leave the house and for him to settle down.

Here's my pack!

Aww love the pics!

I know they may not always go for the sofa but he isnt even using his own bed...just sleeps on the floor which cant be comfortable :( i even move positions of the bed to spots he seems to "favourite" but he then just avoids it...

Did he come with a house coat or fleece from the kennels, could you put that on his bed?

He’s trying very hard not to put a paw wrong bless him.

Try and go about your normal routine in a relaxed way while ignoring him and not making too much eye contact.
Dogs are different from people and are much happier learning to fit in alongside us without too much attention.

Every time you look at him, you’re basically asking something of him and, in a new place he hasn’t figured out the rules of yet, that’s quite stressful.

You’re his new bosses, but you’re aliens. On Mars. Every time you look at him or talk to him he thinks you want him to do something but he has no idea what that is or what to do in this alien environment.

Feed him, walk him, let him learn the routines and rhythms of your house in his own time. He’ll come to you very soon when he feels safe.

No every thing he has is new as he didnt really have his "own" things in Kennel

@Screamqueenz I dream of that 
@PengAly just let him be maybe? The moving of everything might be confusing/scaring him. He probably needs to find his feet & way in his new life.
I imagine he'll soon settle & all his wee quirks will start to show. Greys aren't like other dogs, they're a bit weird

He came back up to our room last night and settled so quickly on the floor. But once again he refused to go down the stairs this morning. We have tried EVERYTHING that has been reccomended and we even leave him at the top and sit downstairs as we know he is motivated by our company but the most he did was 2 steps down and then turned around and and we back up. He wimpered, paced, wined and then actually settled himself down at the top of the stairs. DH had to carry him down in the end as we knew he would need a wee and food soon :/

A lot of greyhounds cant do stairs, they are a bit too leggy. I'd personally leave him to sleep downstairs. Try not to worry too much, as others have said they take a while to find their feet settling in. Just live your life as normally as possible and he'll soon fit in.

Ours is very good orientated, which has helped a lot with her settling in. I’m thinking it would help if yours was interested in food!
Are you using high enough value treats?

Ours likes in particular
Cheese
Chicken
Home made sardine cakes and liver cake.

You can also get dried fish treats to buy which are a hit.

In terms of chewy treat things have you tried things like cow tails/pig ears? Just thinking a bit of a chew might calm him down.

Finally, I noticed once you mentioned him being unhappy being shut in, that may be because they don’t like closed doors, rather than you leaving. Ours pees if we shut her in, so we try and close off areas we don’t want her in, one bedroom and half the kitchen, rather than shutting her in. If that makes sense.

*food orientated!

We have been letting him come up as he now panics and whines when he is down and there is no reason not to let him up other than not able to go down.

He jas also starting "marking" inside as im he cocks his leg to pee on upright things. He normally pees squating outside so we think its not a toilet training issue and more of a territory thing. Anyone else have this problem?

If it helps our first grey didn't "do" stairs for months and months. One day we came home and he was upstairs! But then froze solid at the top because he couldn't work out how to go down so we ended up carrying him down.

Eventually of course he DID get the hang of it. Some greys are just very sensitive souls and find the transition to being a house pet very stressful. It does sound like a lot of his behaviour is stress-related and he will settle eventually.

Our second grey had lived in a house before so was toilet trained and used to stairs but it did take her several months to calm down and stop chewing things.

Someone I know with a male rescue grey mentioned the constant pee-ing in the house. It settled with time, routine and patience.

You'll get there with him - they are pretty easy dogs once they have got their little brains used to the new status quo.

Thw pee-ing is weird because he holds it in well and waits until we are home to let him out. Its only been on upright objects when we are around so just wondering if this is gonna be constant as so far its been a daily occurance!

Are you trying to train him at all with the peeing? So give him a treat as soon as he goes outdoors?

We also told ours ‘wee wee’ when she went, so after about ten days we could put her out and tell her ‘wee wee’ and she knew she was meant to go.

We still try and put her out every couple of hours as she has tended to go indoors in certain spots. The above is helping though.

@BiscuitDrama we give him loads of praise when he gies outside. He does know to go outside. This what is why we think its a territory/behaviour thing as he always wee's everytime we let him him. And he never cocks his leg outside (he squats) but if he does this marking thing he cocks his leg

Meant he always wees when we let him out*

The pee-ing is a thing with males, but it's not going to last.

A firm no when he does it and let him out. Make sure to clean any surfaces he's wee'd on with biological washing powder so that he can't still smell it afterwards.

He's learning the rules, it will take some time.

So he CAN go down the stairs...its just a matter of if he actually wants to. The only way we were able to test it was by pretending to leave the house. Made him a bit anxious and he came running down in order to whine at the door (kind of mean, we know but now at least we know he can do it!) The problem is he wont go down if we are there- he is so odd!

Hurrah! That's brilliant that he can do it, he just needs to build his confidence up now. He's done it once he can do it again.

This morning he was so scared of coming down the stairs for his morning toilet break that he wee'd upstairs! And he is house trained enough to know he has to go outside but he was that desperate to NOT come down the stairs :( But the minute he think we have left him alone up there he rushes down...lets hope the confidence comes