Rocket turns 6 this month and he acts like an old man

This is our shop dog Dorian, he is 13yrs old and we noticed a wee something on one of his toes recently.

We have antibiotics from the vet whilst waiting to hear back from radiography but figured maybe if anyone here has had the same with their dog.

Sometimes it weeps a clear fluid and he's trying not to walk on it (tbf he doesn't do a lot of walking these days as he's an old boy) but otherwise he doesn't bother with it, isn't licking the area or anything. Still eating and drinking fine.

We currently have him in self adhesive bandages when he is outside to keep the area clean.

I guess we're also a little anxious incase the vet asks to put him under general anaesthetic for anything as he would be high risk due to age 😓

How does your whippet sit?

We have an almost one year old female whippet. We've mastered her not jumping up, as I'm pregnant and she used to bounce off us and it hurt. That took a while, but she doesn't do it anymore. What she still does do what we are having a hard time with training is the constant pawing. She paws at everyone's legs, leaving scratches (her claws aren't too long), and she also pawing her crate door on a night. She sleeps right through the night in her crate, but when I get up to pee (a few times because I'm pregnant), she wakes everyone up pawing her crate door. The issue with the pawing is I'm pregnant and we also have our nephews over (4 and 3 years old) and we cannot have her near them because her pawing is excessive and she will hurt them. My other dogs are around the children as they don't do this. If our whippet is introduced to anyone, we literally have to hold her legs so she doesn't paw. She gets really excited and the pawing is intense, like she's scratching a door in a panic, not just a couple of gentle pawings.

We've tried ignoring her until she stops, turning our backs, saying No and Ah-Ah (which worked with her jumping). We also don't open the crate door and ignore her until she stops. She's never got out of her crate or opened doors with her paws. We've been trying to train this for months now with zero improvement, and it's that bad that guests ask if we put her in a different room because the pawing does not stop and they get scratched to bits.

We haven't taught her the paw trick either, as I was told by a friend of a trainer that that encourages pawing as they think they're getting a treat from doing it. Also, please don't tell me it's just what whippets do (as I was told in another group), it needs to stop before baby is here as I want her to eventually be trusted around him as he grows up, but right now no, as she paws at kids faces with them being short. I've trained a lot of typical whippet behaviors out of her, such as chasing wildlife, so anything's possible. Also, our last whippet never pawed. Any tips would be appreciated, thank you.

My daughter tends to prefer fluffier animals, but she likes touching his ears and tail. He is mostly tolerable of her but isn’t a big fan when she gets loud. I’m hoping they grow closer as my daughter gets older.

Neighborhood kids on the other hand love him. He loves attention and generally enjoys other kids that are gentle with him.

How does your whippet do with children?

I have a 2.5-year-old Whippet who has become noticeably fearful/reclusive over the last few weeks, and I’m really struggling to understand what’s going on.

He routinely runs away from us, particularly if we approach him or he thinks we might want to do something to him. It almost feels like he thinks we’re plotting something. For example, we sometimes have to trick him to get his nails done, and now I wonder if he’s started associating us approaching him with something unpleasant.

He spends a huge amount of time in his crate completely by his own choice. He seems to genuinely want to be alone, rather than seeking comfort from us like he used to. If we call him or try to encourage him out, he’ll often just avoid us. He can also refuse treats, which makes it difficult to use food to build positive associations.

The strange thing is that he otherwise seems completely normal:
Still eating and drinking normally
LOVES going for walks
Happy and relaxed around other dogs and plays really nicely
Still interested in toys/normal activities
No obvious physical symptoms

He just seems… afraid of us and generally uneasy at home.
We’ve tried being very gentle, using calm voices, giving him different/high-value treats, giving him space and not forcing interaction, etc., but so far we haven’t seen much improvement.
Has anyone else had a Whippet suddenly become fearful or withdrawn around 2–3 years old, particularly towards their owners? Did you ever figure out what caused it? And did they eventually grow out of it?

I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who has experienced something similar, especially what actually helped. I’m also wondering whether this is something we should be getting checked out medically/with a behaviourist rather than assuming it’s just a phase.

He’s such a lovely boy and it’s honestly heartbreaking feeling like he doesn’t feel completely safe around us anymore.

I recently brought an 18-month old whippet home and I’m trying to teach her some commands since she only really seems to know “come” and “leave it”.

I figured I’d start with “sit” so we could get her to stay from that position, and it could help us maintain control of her when we see other dogs or squirrels/birds.

She’s picking it up slowly but she will pretty much only sit on carpet inside (we haven’g practice outside yet). Even if I tell her sit while we’re on our kitchen tile she will slowly walk over to our carpeted area and sit there.

Is it better to pivot and teach her a different command like “beside” or “between” as a good default? Or will she start to just sit on these hard surfaces once she’s a little more comfortable with it? I’ve heard some dogs are uncomfortable sitting but I also don’t want to confuse her by switching up and teaching her too many commands before we master one.

Just wondering, when did everyone’s puppies stop biting so much? Mine is a nightmare for biting hands and furniture.

He’s 14 weeks.

I know this is part of being a puppy and teething obviously, just wondering how long it lasted for others.

Hi all - appreciate any suggestions or support. Our whippet (nearly 4), has been travelling on trains for most of his life on a semi-regular basis. He was in a really good routine. We'd lay a blanket down on a seat / ground and he would lie down for the whole journey.

In the last few weeks/trips, he's suddenly become restless and scared. He won't lay down for more than a few minutes at a stretch, pants, and whines. Obviously, we'd like to correct the behaviour as having him travel with us is essential! No other major changes have occurred so we're unsure what's caused this deterioration.

Thanks! (And of course, including a photo!)

Been really hot here lately and we have tried a few times in the past to get him to wear shoes. Makes it easier to walk between shadows now

I've been waiting as long as I can for my pup to grow up before I buy any fall/winter gear for her. At 6+ months she's just about there, but I'm not sure where, besides Amazon, where the pickings are less than inspiring, and Etsy, where the pickings are expensive, to go. Where is everyone getting rain coats and sweaters and jackets for their medium-sized sight hounds??

Benny won his 6-9mo puppy class, earning another POA point. Jet took reserve winners for no points, but a fun ribbon!

Zoey loves just watching activities going on outside the house… that and sunning herself

She's six months old and full of pepper.

Rocket had fun carrying this. He didn’t quite understand how to deal with the width when walking by bushes

Hi everyone! I have a 16-week-old Whippet (she has been with me since she was 9 weeks old), and I could really use some advice.

The first few weeks were extremely difficult. Figa simply could not settle herself. She would get overstimulated very quickly, and the more wound up she became, the more she would run around, destroy things, bite, and generally lose control. We had to constantly help her fall asleep by putting her in a dark, quiet room — that was the only way we could get her to take the naps she needed for proper development.

After about three weeks of fighting for every single nap, she finally learned to fall asleep on her own. I thought we had finally turned a corner… but then another problem appeared: Figa has absolutely no idea how to entertain herself.

At the moment, we are trying to follow a routine: wake up → 10–15 minute potty/sniffing walk → about 10 minutes of calm play → then she is expected to entertain herself for a while and eventually go to sleep.

Unfortunately, she was still destroying and chewing absolutely everything, so we bought a puppy pen and blocked off part of the living room for her. Basically, she now has her own little room where she can do whatever she wants without being able to hurt herself or destroy the house.

And now she has discovered Whippet Opera.

She whines. Constantly.

She whines in the pen. She whines outside the pen. She whines when she is on a leash inside the apartment. She whines when she wants to go outside. She whines when she is outside on a leash. (She cannot be off-leash because then she immediately activates her “destroy everything in my path” mode — and a human desperately trying to catch her is apparently the best toy in the world.)

She also absolutely hates being covered with blankets. She sometimes lies on them, but covering herself with one? Absolutely not.

At this point, I honestly don't know what else to do. I have been exhausted and sleep-deprived for the past two months, and by the end of the day the whining gives me migraines. She has a very specific, high-pitched whining sound that unfortunately is a huge trigger for me.

So please, any advice would be very much appreciated.

What should I be doing differently? What am I doing wrong? Is there something I should stop doing altogether?

I am also deliberately teaching her to be comfortable spending time alone and entertaining herself, because unfortunately she will soon have to stay home alone for around 6 hours. I simply cannot work remotely forever.

I know she is still a very young puppy, and I don't expect her to magically become independent overnight. I just feel like I'm missing something obvious, because right now I feel completely overwhelmed.

If anyone has raised a similarly intense Whippet puppy, I would be incredibly grateful to hear what worked for you — and what definitely did NOT.

Sorry in advance for the long post but we’re at a loss.

For context, my partner works full time Monday to Friday, and I only work weekends. We work around each other because of the issues we’ve been having (our pup not being able to be left alone).

I have a 13 week old Whippet, we had him at 10 weeks old. He’s overall a good puppy, he’s been very easy to train, however he is a proper Velcro dog.

Straight away we noticed he couldn’t be alone for any length of time. He’d follow us room to room, and if we put up barriers like a baby gate, he’d immediately cry and scream until we got back. This was the same for the crate, he’d cry, scream, bite at the bars etc constantly and he wouldn’t stop. He just has to be touching us in order to settle.

With previous dogs, we always allowed them to sleep where they wanted, which usually was our bed. So we allowed the puppy to share our bed with us because he slept really well that way and we’ve never had an issue with dogs in bed. I know this likely hasn’t helped, but we needed sleep and are conscious to not annoy neighbours with the endless crying.

However, now he is starting to be destructive at night time while we sleep and during the day. I don’t care so much about the damage to my house as it’s all replaceable, but what I do care about is his safety, so we are now looking at crate training - I have never had to crate dogs before.

Things we’ve tried, but haven’t worked:
- Kong/licky mat with peanut butter - unfortunately he seems to have an intolerance to peanut butter as his bowel movements went very runny so we had to stop that.
- Tried covering the crate both partially and completely.
- Tried playing the radio etc.
- Tried making the crate cozy with beds, blankets etc.
- Praising him for going into the crate.
- Putting a worn item of clothing in the crate.
- We’ve tried both a smaller crate, and a larger one.
- We’ve tried feeding his meals in the crate.
- He has teething/chewable toys in the crate, including Bamboodles.
- Tried making sure he’s physically/mentally tired, and all his needs are met.

We’ve tried leaving him in a puppy proofed room with the same things as above, still the screaming persists.

This isn’t a fear of the crate or a fear of confined spaces, this is a fear of being alone or not being able to get to us. He will go into the crate willingly to play and he will sleep in there if he’s really tired and I leave the door open. But freaks out the moment I close the door or leave the room.

Our hope is to crate him at night, and to hopefully be able to crate him during the day if we need to go out. At least until the destructive phase passes.

Any advice will be appreciated…TIA🖤

My nurse when im home from work not feeling well