I bred a litter of whippet 2 years ago as a good breeder i said i will always have the dog back no matter what. well mr whippy has come back to me the family are having a baby. Well i found him a new home in no time with a good friend of mine. he has been there 3 weeks, she rang me up yesterday Mr Whippy has bitten the son in laws leg. she said they was all in the garden mr whippy was barking at him. they all ignored him, the son in law turned round to go back in the house and Mr whippy bit him on  the leg. he made him bleed. well he is back with me today. and his mum and sister  hate him he is in a cage in the front room.

Can this dog be rehomed?? as he has bitten some one?

You would need to know the exact circumstances which led to the bite incident but if it was me I would not rehome him again. I guess you have to ask yourself could you live with it if he bit someone harder or if it were a child.

I would be looking to do a vet check including thorough physical exam, full blood panel and full thyroid panel - unless the reason for his biting becomes apparent (such as the circumstances leading up to it - had the son teased him or ignored subtle warnings and so on).

As this was a bite from the blue I would be wanting a thorough check at the vet to make sure if the dog has a problem that may have made him behave out of character. One does not know what may have gone on at the first home that may have affected his reliability. Think, having checked his health, I would try to home him with experienced people after making sure they knew he had bitten.

Sorry stopped to eat a potato and you posted Nikita

Hi,

I would agree that a vet check would be worth while but think this is much more likley down to the poor lad feeling unsettled and anxious and maybe feeling threatened by SIL.  Not saying SIL did anything wrong but that the dog who was likely already feeling unsettled and stressed and didn't trust him for what ever reason, he was obviously warning them that he didn't feel comfortable by barking at him so really should have been removed from the situation to avoid the incident happening.

This young dog sounds like he has had a lot of upheaval in the last few weeks.  The previous family would likely have been giving him less attention /acting differently towards him due to being pregnant and then decided to pack him off.  Then he thankfully came back to you but still another upheaval to be moved on again.  As you know they can be a very sensitive breed and changes do upset and stress them.  I would certainly not be writing him off because of this incident alone which does sound somewhat understandable, even though far from desireable.

I think if you can find an expreienced home with no children and without hustle and bustle where he will be given time to settle in in his own time, and obviously be very clear with new owners about his behavior and needs.  I hope he is ok and finds somewhere to settle :-)

thanks very much for your advice he has been so good here with me not showing any signs of bitting anyone. he is chilled out on the sofa. as mum and sister are now having there turn in the cage.

Problem is you don't know maybe if anyone dd anything to him in the first home after you so it is hard.  There could be so many reasons why he did this.  It may hve been due to excitement also.

Ditto Perrodeagua. There are loads of reasons why this may have happened. With a good vet check, behavioural assessment and an experienced home hopefully you will be able to resolve this. :-)

I once rehomed a dog that allegedly bit someone.  Kept him with us for around 6 months to make sure he was safe and do you know he has been in his new home for 18 months and they have never had any problems either.  Not even a growl.  I think there might be many reasons why a dog bites.  It might just have been stress from its new enviorment. Did the guy accidently tred on him you will never know.

Hope you do sort it out. :)

I think the only way is for you to keep him for a good while to assess him properly with men and all situations.

Then you will know what to do. You can then do a proper assessment.

I would ask the previous owners too if there was a history. He could have been abused by them, who knows? Once they've gone, they've gone, and noone knows what goes on behind closed doors.

I'm sure your two will accept him in time.

I think it is difficult to know if anything happened in his first home - sadly people can be very economical with the truth when giving reasons for rehoming (at least in rescue, so I suspect the same when returning to a breeder), so you can't be sure.  It may well be that he was unsettled, excited etc, but this was  not a nip, but a bite that drew blood - and for the family to return him immediately, I'm guessing must have been a fairly serious bite.
Personally, I don't think he should be rehomed.  As his breeder, the final responsibility has to rest with you, even if it was caused by something happening in his first home.  Poor lad is now in his third home, will need to stay for some time to allow him to settle and get assessed properly (in my experience working with rescue, some dogs take six months or so to really settle enough to show their true colours), and will you really want to rehome him just as he has setted again.  He is your baby after all ;-).   That's obvously assuming that there are no health problems causing this and there are no more instances.

I've been reading this thread with great interest.....recently I had to put down my friends and I's  beautiful little "adopted" boy Shadow...he came from rescue and at the time he was adopted, Rescue admitted they knew nothing about his background except he was boistrous and needed a firm hand but otherwise ok....
My hubby and I have had this type of dog before and so have the friends he went to live with when we brought him home. My friends had done a lot of research on their chosen breed and were always asking us for advice etc.....
when we were handed the poor dog he was in such a state, very nervous, highly strung,scared and so skinny you couldve played a tune on his ribs bless him.

It was only when we got him home the truth came out....this poor dog had been treated badly and had severe separation anxiety.
He wouldnt let my friends out and used to block the doors so they couldnt leave.It litterally took hours to leave the house the first time they tried and although they were only gone about 30 mins ,when they returened thier kitchen was trashed litterally.
We also discovered over time he didnt like a men with a certain look,especially in  high viz jackets. He started off going mad and really growling and barking at them,this soon progressed to him trying to attack them.
We saught advice from vets,books,behaviourists etc and muzled him when he was out and about just to be safe.
It got so bad we even rang rescue to rehome him at one point as my friends couldnt cope with their house being trashed everytime they left and him trying to get at men when they were out walking him...everything they tried  didnt seem to work.

At this point, and this is just MY opinion, Rescue failed us....they admitted they knew nothing of the dogs background when he was placed with us as they hadnt had time to asses him properly, they also said it would be difficult to find a suitable home for him because of his problems  so we had to keep him till they could find him somewhere else.
We heard nothing from them since.

Then disaster struck...... their postie was delivering a parcel to the house one day, the dog was shut in the kitchen when my friend answered the door but he managed to get out and shot past my friend before she could catch him and nipped the postie...he was wearing a high viz jacket and had the look  the dog didnt like unfortunately.

As soon as he had done it the dog mustve known hed done wrong cos he slinked off to his bed and stayed there for ages .
Fortunately the postie wasnt hurt too much and he didnt want to take things further.

We rang rescue again...with no luck as they again never got back to us.
The dog after that had an amazing turn around, he just seemed to settle and behave like a normal dog should and it almost felt like he knew he was on his last chance. He became so well behaved  we decided to keep him as byt this time wed all grown so attached to him....He loved being at my house with my dogs and we could leave him in our kitchen with our dogs and come home to no mess just 4 happy dogs snuggled up together.
He never ever showed any agression of any kind to us or to my friends and hewas becoming the dog we all wantedin the first place. He put weight on and became very obiediant.

Then out of the blue disater struck again.......he was in my friends place of work...he has a car bodyshop, the shop was closed apart from the small door to leave by ,which was open to let air in whlie they tidied up but had a big steel fence across so the dog couldnt get out. .as the garage was shut they took off the dogs muzzle and he was running free quite happily amongst the lads as they were getting ready to lock up and leave. Someone came into the garage moving the fence to get in thinking it was still open and without warnihng the dog shot across the garage and savaged his leg...this was awful he wouldnt let go,no ordinary bite ,the guy needed surgery it was that bad.

We knew in our hearts the dog had overstepped the mark and it was the seond time it had happened,we couldnt let it happen a 3rd so we had him put to sleep as the guy is suing and its going to court.

Rescue said "Well weve since found out after you took him that he was given up twice for being like he was and he was also up till my friends got him ,living with his litterbrother who his second owners kept but we  didnt know this till after he was homed with you " and  "oh dear thats a shame,youve done the right thing...Would you like another one!!!!"  Great help they were eh.(Again just my opinon)

What im trying to say is...Ive always believed a dog should be given a chance if its nipped someone for the first time, depending on the circumstances etc...eg was the dog provoked,was there something wrong with the dog out of the ordinary that would make him do that etc etc. but the second time it was so bad there wasnt any other option and it was just so out of the blue too.We couldnt risk it happening again as god knows how bad it wouldve been a third time..I dread to think.My head tells me it was the right thing to do ,but my heart is broken.

So to answer your question my advice is just keep a close eye on the dog from now on, never drop your guard just in case,we thought our dog had settled down,he too was never agressive with any of us, ever .Try to find out why he felt the need to do what he did ,was he scared,injured in anyway,ill etc so you can try to stop the circumstance arising again. I hope your dog is happy now and doesnt feel it has to bite anyone again and it was just a one off......We all  blame ourselves for what happened and it broke our hearts when Shadow  was pts,I particularly feel I let the dog down as I couldnt get to the bottom of why he ws like that,even though I did all I could to cure him.With me he was the most loving dog ive ever met and he was so obiediant and well behaved,I never had a problem with him and I wish he couldve been with me permanently...but my circumstances at the time wouldnt allow.

I hope your dog is happy and settled now hes back home with you take care
Philly x