Finn is a wonderful, sweet, affectionate dog. He's a little leery of secondary caretakers. He has growled in his previous home due to food issues, and in foster care, he growled 3x at my husband when he approached him to pet while he was lying down on his bed or floor.
I'm not worried about dominance with other dogs--he does great with his housemates. He'd also rather avoid a confrontation than provoke one. He's doing so much better in regards to waiting before going out the door and pushing the other dogs out of the way when I'm giving attention.
So then, the biggest issue to work on is the growling, which is more fear-based than aggression-based. We decided to eliminate the first trigger, which is food--namely bones. I don't give my dogs bones anyway (Gracie has kidney disease so it's a bad idea, and there tends to be tension anyway between her and her housemate). So that has been taken out of the equation, and I have had no issues with food.
Onto the second thing--growling at Chris.
We were right to have Chris help take care of Finn from the beginning. After consulting with other greyhound owners, I decided to also have Chris work with Finn on obedience training and on desensitizing him to his touch. Oddly, Finn had no problems with Chris giving him attention while he was standing. It's only been while Finn was lying down. So our decision was to have Chris pet Finn while I pet him as he lies down (he has never ever growled at me). So far so good. Next was to pet him himself while giving Finn treats. Last, Chris started obedience training tonight and we were delighted to find out that Finn knows both how to Sit and Lie Down!
In my opinion, Finn would do best with someone who has grown children if any, and who is willing to work on possible growling issues. Note that a single owner would probably not have any problems since he just loves his main caretaker. If you're a couple, then both people need to be agreeable to work together. He's a 2 y/o boy who is testing his limits, which is why I say he needs a strong leader/s to keep him on track.
I would be happy to help anyone who is interested in adopting him. I can show our training methods and give explicit information on how to handle things. With all that said, I think he will make a wonderful dog with some work!
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