Witching hour for around two hours every night in 5 year old rescue - please help!

[Cinnabonbon]

We rescued two greyhounds just over three months ago. One eight yrs who is calm and placid, and the other five. The five year old is the one with the issue. I’ll call her Max. Let me preface by saying that Max is such a sweet girl but for around 90 mins-2 hours in the evening (always then, maybe a small kick off in the morning but always evening) when we sit down to dinner she is uncontrollable. A licking mat will give us time to eat our dinner but then it continues. She barks at me. Barks at her greyhound friend (who doesn’t react at all). Barks at DH. Leaps about, barks. It’s like she desperately needs something and we don’t know what it is. Her pupils get huge and there is no stopping her. We’ve tried enrichment with licki mats, kongs and chews, zoomies in the garden, more mental stimulation through training, segregation (of me and her!) and nothing seems to work.

We have spoken to a vet who put her on a pain relief trial. We are also speaking to a behaviourist who is just as baffled as we are and is giving us variations of the above to try. Max may need to go on anxiety meds or anti depressants apparently. Has anyone else experienced the same? I am really hoping there is light at the end of the tunnel without putting her on meds.

My partner is almost at the end of his tether, he has a trapped nerve just now so it’s making things so much worse. Any advice or help would be so appreciated!

I'd take her for a half hour walk just before she usually kicks off. Let her have a blast and a charge around before she even starts and hopefully reset her for the evening. Don't wait for her to start and then take her or she'll get excited anticipating the outing and probably stay mental. The other time I've seen this is with dogs who have been in houses with DV, particularly when alcohol was involved. They don't like people sitting down to eat and drink in the evening, can smell the alcohol if present and anticipate very heated emotions. So if that's a possibility in her history talk to your behaviourist about desensitizing her to her triggers.

That doesn't sound like anxiety, depression or pain to me if it is only then- I would suggest a different trainer

How much exercise is she getting?
When is she getting fed in relation to this?
Is it the act of sitting down or is it time related?

Thank you so much, this is really valuable advice! We don't have alcohol in the evening but us sitting with the expectation of alcohol may be the cause. Will chat to our behaviourist about this. Thank you!

Thank you so much for replying. Max gets a walk or run free park at 5, fed at 5.30 then she’ll relax for a short time. We’ll go out in the garden for play and training. Then about 6.15/30 when we sit down to dinner she will kick off. We have gone out about the same time and watched from the camera, if we are not there, she doesn’t kick off so I believe we are the trigger. A licki mat will keep her occupied while we have dinner and she’ll return to her behaviour after that.

We are trying to improve recall so she can get off the lead more but it’s a very slow process due to her prey drive.

You’re feeding her much too close to her walk - there needs to be a bigger gap than that to reduce the risk of bloat.

I would personally swap a free run for something more mentally enriching so that she doesn’t come
home all hyped up (which you then top up with even more energy in the form of food).

Thank you so much, we can experiment with feeding time and make it earlier this evening. We can also do some enrichment games in the garden. Thanks again!

I wouldn’t do enrichment games personally - I would make her walk enriching - let her sniff as much as she wants, hide treats in long grass for her to find, do some training etc.

It’s not a popular view these days but I think too much emphasis is put on “mental stimulation” and not enough on actual physical exercise and training. There is no point mentally stimulating a dog for hours if it’s not getting enough exercise or training.

Ok, great, thank you. We do let her sniff as much as she wants so will add in training and scattering treats too. Thank you so much!

Sounds good! How long are her walks? You may want to look at increasing them a little and making sure she goes to a variety of places so she has lots of new smells and places to explore too.

My mums dog barks when we’re eating and she’s basically nagging for food! she’ll refuse dog food sometimes in the hope of getting snacks.
Maybe she was fed titbits from the table at her previous owners before -like my mum does!

They are currently around 30 mins but we can look to increase them. Thank you!

When my rescue dog does this kind of behaviour (not every evening but often in the evening) it’s because he’s over excited usually. He gets the zoomies often if he’s been trying to contain himself and no longer can (he also does it if there’s a dog or person he wants to play with). He used to be super annoying at dinner time barking etc and it was because he was anticipating getting fed from the table or getting scraps afterwards. We made sure that never ever happens to extinguish that reward and we trained him a place command to go to his bed when we are eating and that has largely sorted it out. He will also agitate a bit when we sit down to watch TV and that’s because he hopes we will give him a chew. We’ve largely given in on that one and do give him a chew in the evenings because it really calms him down and he will usually sleep after that. He gets a chew for being brushed (which he hates) and now he will bring us his brush to get the chew.

Yours really does sound excited rather than anxious or miserable. You can train being calm on a place and I highly recommend that. You have to wait for them to relax their body and then give them the reward and/ or you treat them when they are already calm. Our trainer suggested having a bowl of treats that was taken out of the daily allowance on hand to ‘catch’ him doing good behaviour.

I’d also suggest upping the length of the walks. Ours have always had anything from 40 mins to well over an hour in the evening. Feed her a bit later? Maybe put her in a different room while you’re eating? One thing you’ve not mentioned is stroking her to try to calm her down.

How is her sleep? She is maybe just over stimulated and tired that can send them off, I would maybe change her dinner time routine if you can and perhaps put her in another room while you eat. Our dog can be like this occasionally he is 2 and a half and we have had him.from a pup, we just put him.in the hall he has a naughty step Mat he lies on just seems to calm him.he will sleep it off.

Yes agree with this. It really sounds like she is agitating for food. Sighthounds can be devils for this. Does your behaviourist have experience with rescued greyhounds? If not I’d try to get one who does.

Yes, I’d definitely increase. 30 minutes isn’t much for a young dog - I know greyhounds have a reputation for being couch potatoes but 30 minutes isn’t very much, really.

Great advice, thank you! Will begin the calm training asap.

Thank you. We have tried walking for an hour/90 mins in new places on a long lead but that didn’t change the behaviour but will up them as standard.

We do pat her to try and calm her, it sometimes works for a short time. Massaging her seems to halt her the longest. It doesn’t always work if she has huge pupils and is in the midst of it.

Naughty step 😂 Max sleeps well. Maybe a small grumble at night but generally sleeps through. Sleeps in morning and afternoon too. I was concerned about overstimulation, seems like a very fine balance of giving them too much or too little! Will definitely experiment with feeding time and the routine. Thank you so much!

Behaviourist experienced with sighthounds, maybe not greyhounds in particular so will explore that. Thank you!

Have a look at the "bucket full".theroy it was an eye opener for us, hopefully your behaviourist helps you and her, it is exhausting when you just want them to settle in the evening.

100% agree. People often see ‘lick matts/kongs’ as valuable and very often they have the opposite effect, particularly if not carefully utilised.

Training - little but often every day - and walks are key.

I personally use kongs sparingly it just gives them fuel imo, liki mats are better i think you don't have to put a lot on

Good points re the full bucket and the naughty step. We occasionally had the stary eyes and "assertiveness" from our first boy and I found standing up, turning my back on him and folding my arms calmed him down very quickly. Our current boy will have an occasional bark and go with the "assertive" body language at around 5/6pm. With him, he gets shooed out into the hall and the door is shut. He'll calm down in about a minute and is let back in. I've heard it said, though, that males are needier than females - don't know if that's true but it explains a lot!

We have two retired racers who sound quite similar in temperament to yours, although ours are the same age (10) 😎

To be clear, I know very little about training dogs - all I know is what helps ours.
Most evenings our girl hound will have a little complain ( not full on abdabs, just a weird whining sound that is like nails down a blackboard 😣), and does not stop unless one of us lies on her bed with her giving lots of fuss. Then she'll fall asleep and all is well with the world!

To be clear, I don't work and she's given fuss regularly throughout the day. Both of our hounds have always been given lots of love, they have changed so much from when we got them it's unbelievable. You are still very early on, and the adjustments these hounds have to adapt to are huge.

Routine is key, imo. Ours eat twice a day, plus snacks 😋

Breakfast, Scrambles with ham & ramekin of goats yoghurt
Snack, ( chicken thigh/stewing steak/tinned fish )
Tea, Platinum kibble with either lamb, chicken or beef
Snack, ( raw duck neck )

Maybe giving her a duck neck ( they take a while to eat and ours love them ) would help? After lots of calming fuss - I put Bob Ross on tv if we've had a stressful day ( like a cat on the garden wall or getting caught in a thunderstorm on a walk ), he's like magic 😍

Good luck 🙂