I have a question for you about Whippets. I know that they will chase after small animals but do they have a tendency to just wonder or run off? and when they chase after something do they come back again? The reason for my question is that my family and I would very much like to have a Whippet for a house pet and friend, but we dont like to confine our dog's. We have almost forty acres of land for our dogs and have never had any want to roam or run off so far.
What do you think?
Any information you could give us would certainly be appreciated.
Thank you, Trenton F. Youngs and family

All breeds, including whippets can be trained. there is even a Whippet Obedience display team.

What has to be remebered that you have to realise what the breeds inclinations are when free. A herding breed will circle, so is usually not far from the owner. Other breeds are easily distracted by scent (mine have alwasy got their heads down, or noses twitching air scenting) and sight hounds will run after a moving target.

Normally they have no intention of running away from you, they are just totally distracted and forget all about you, this is where training comes in, making you the dogs main focus. so if they do mtake off, somewhere in their little brains the training will register when you call, even if not staright away in full flight.

Teach the dog to come to you as soon as it is too far from you, when there are no distractions, taching him to watch where you are.

With breeds that tend to range a bit ahead of the owner it is always wisest to only let off lead in relatively large safe areas, so that they cannot get ahead into danger, before you can see and stop them.

Nyt youngest bitch is not as reliable to recall as I would wish, so I let her free in the Country Park, but keep her on a flexi in some of the small playing fields that are close to roads. I know the older ones will stop if I shout wait, and also know that they have to wait at the gate, and not go in the road.

So really it is lots of positive training, training and more training. Just tailor your training to suit your breeds instincts. I would imagine visual cues from you to get the dogs attention off another moving object may work well. A fluffy small toy that you toss, so that it wants to chase that. All dogs are different. Try to find training classes where the trqainers have experience of a wide variety of breds, and what makes different dogs tick. Unfortunately many trainers now only understand the collie/GSD and other herding/guarding breed mentality, and have learnt to gear training methods to dogs who think that way.

Hello, we have two whippets and have never had a problem with recall. Previously we had a lone dog who wouldn't have left our side, because there is two they do run like the speed of light but more in circles than a straight line so don't go far either, either of them on their own could be walked in the town without a lead. Good luck.

I will state quite categorically that Whippets do not run Away !

What they do is run towards or after.
ie run towards something more interesting than where they are OR after something running away from them. Especially if it something small and possibly eatable :D

Dawn

Neighbours of ours have a 6 year old whippet that is always running away. It usually comes back home later. They say that it is a whippet thing - but they have never done ANY training with it, so is it surprising ? Certainly not a whippet thing - just lazy owners :(

Daisy

Well I must be one of those lazy Whippet owners as one of my Whippets has to be kept on a flexi lead or he will run away and Im sorry but no amount of training would get him to come back. My other boy who has discovered the rabbit burrows at the bottom of the field where we walk will take off in order to get first chase of the Bunnies. He comes back eventually or we eventually catch up with him. Strangely my 4 IGs that I also walk at the same time do not run off.

Oops - sorry ! Just made me mad that they hadn't even tried to train it, then they moan that it won't come back :( I'm sure that you have tried :)

Daisy