Advice Please Folks

Hi peeps,

Need your advice...I have been trying to persuade my husband to get another whippet..a pup...I don't want another adult rescue as we have had quite a few rescue dogs over the years and I would particularly like a pup this time around.

i think some of his concerns are about whether Badger and Bryn could cope with a puppy....But already Badger wrestles and plays with James the beagle boy and is quite happy to do so..Bryn doesn't play with anyone so there's no real issue there.

We're sensible adults and have plenty of experience of dog ownership...Badger has always had a whippet friend and I'm very aware of how old Bryn seems these days and I don't want Badger to be left without a buddy of his own type.

Obviously the other issue is the fact that we now have four dogs and we said we weren't going to have five again :lol: :b but also it would be nice for young James to have another youngster to play with too.

Obviously I would love another whippet and we both love the breed, I just want to be sure I'm not being selfish or irresponsible thinking about having another one.

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

 

Thanks, we are used to a multi dog household( been a multi dog household for 17 years so far) already having four dogs...we had five until 26th September when Woody the whippet was PTS.

we have always left the whippets together but Zoe the boxer has the conservatory in the mornings while we're at work( too destructive when left for long indoors.),she is left with the whips indoors after lunch when my husband comes home for lunch, I then come home after my shift an hour after my husband goes back to work after lunch.

James the beagle boy is on his own in the kitchen all the time we are out,simply because he is too young and too destructive to be given his freedom just yet, he can see the other dogs though, as we have fitted a child gate to the kitchen doorway.

We have always left the whippets together, even when we fostered for whippet rescue, the adult whips were always trusted and seemed to know if one dog was under the weather or needed space( Bryn has always slept on our bed during the day and the others have all learnt that is his place of safety and they don't bother him there, he is profoundly deaf too)

we have never left a youngster alone with the adult dogs and this is not an issue at all, the pup would either have a large crate when he was very small and then he would have the kitchen and James would go in the conservatory with Zoe in the mornings, just like Parker our previous beagle did when he grew up.

our current dogs are...Badger whippet dog aged 13...Bryn whippetX dog aged 12yrs 8mnths...James beagle dog aged 9 months...Zoe boxer bitch aged 5yrs 10months.

They are left for four and a half hours in the morning and one hour in the afternoon four days a week and for four hours in the morning on a Friday but not left at all on Sat or Sun..although we work full time, my shifts are such that the max they are ever left is 4.5 hours.

The new pup has to be a whippet, they are my real love and I don't just want another dog for the sake of it and it has to be male as we do not ever intend to own another bitch of any breed ever( the effect of owning Zoe our boxer).

all my dogs are neutered and all kept under reasonable control and certainly we don't tolerate any argy bargy and they all obey the house rules. there is a hierachy in the household and that has never changed no matter what dogs have come and gone,we maintain it that way.

as for circumstances changing due to illness etc we have been through plenty of stuff, breast cancer scares, my husbands temporary blindness last year where we were told he had something pressing on his optic nerve,my slipped disc and a road accident where I had a slight head injury etc etc....we have been through redundancies in the past two years BUT during all of that the effect on the dogs was practically zero, other than them noticing we were occasionally a bit stressed.

Both my two younger dogs are insured and the new pup would be too.

Hope that helps a bit..or confuses things more LOL

 

just to add, Bryn is deaf and understands quite a few hand signals and we do spend plenty of time physically in contact with him..he looks at our faces a lot too for expressions etc.

 

only a boy...only ever a boy :lol: remember we own Moonpig(Zoe) the most evil bitch in the world and we will never willingly own another...all our other dogs over the years have been boys and we only ever fostered boys as well..Moonpig was our baptism of fire and never again.

 

Thank you..yeah we are pretty familiar with the pitfalls of multi dogs :lol: and I do agree that there is something about whippets and their own kind,which I haven't seen in the other breeds we have had,they really do seem to like other whippets...whenever we meet other whippets out and about, mine have always reacted differently to them than they do when they meet other breeds..it's almost a recognition..like...." ooh another one of us!" :lol:

we still haven't decided yet whether or not we will actually get another dog..well I have decided that we will and I just need to get my husband to agree...I don't think he will be too difficult to persuade,although last night at the emergency vet with Bryn may have put him off a little :b :lol:

 

just an update to say I believe I now have the ok from the husband sooo I shall start looking for my new addition in the next month or so....

we both really like fawns and also black whippets appeal to us.....I guess to some extent I'm going to look for something solid coloured and possibly much like Badger as he is fawn but with white socks and when he was a baby he had a dark muzzle with a white stripe on his face. :b

I do like solid fawns though.

it will be lovely to choose.

 

it's funny isn't it..there's something about fawns where no matter what other colours I look at, in my mind I'm comparing them to a nice fawn..but I do really like black ones too...my friend has a black whippet bitch called Lara who comes from racing/showing lines and she is the most perfect whippet I have ever seen( bearing in mind i don't show dogs)she is exquisite in my eyes....she also loves me like no other persons dog but my own LOL

 

I guess my love of fawns stems from just one particular dog...my boy Badger..he is just the best dog in the world...I still remember the day I collected him 13 odd years ago....he had the shiniest coat and the blackest muzzle with the gleaming white stripe up his face ( although I do like plain faces now despite having had two parti-colour dogs and always saying I'd like black parti one day)...I can't explain it but he was almost mushroom colour and I guess i want another mushroom baby :b also for me solid fawns just look nice and clean and tidy too :b

honestly though, I'll probably have my mind set on a fawn and fall head over heels for something completely different colour...I do know what i'm looking for in facial terms though and am really looking for a pointy face rather than the slightly coarser thicker muzzle that I have seen on some whippets....apologies as I've probably offended loads of owners with coarser faced dogs BUT when we had Woody and Badger, there was a definite difference in their face type and I love the look of Badgers narrower muzzle.

both dogs are in my sig( the left hand two dogs) but you can't see the difference so well there but Woody definitely had a thicker muzzle if that makes any sense at all.

 

Thank you...it will be a little while before i start looking, we want Bryn to be fully recovered from his operation and I've just paid out roughly £1200 on two lots of car tax, car insurance and a couple of other bills, this is on top of the cost of Christmas and then there's Bryns emergency vet visits etc so I need a few weeks to recover from all that extra expense and replenish the bank account a bit and since I am indulging myself with the purchase of a baby whippet, I want to take my time and choose the right dog from the right breeder etc

It's always said that the breeder has to look for the right owner and ask loads of questions etc to be sure it's the right kind of home, but it also works the other way and owners need to be sure that they are happy too. I will keep you all posted once I start my search properly and you'll be the first to know when I have found the right boy..and yes there will be pictures in abundance. :b :b

 

The above may sound a bit harsh but having been let down badly I think, by James's breeder who sold herself as a quality breeder of quality beagles giving lifelong support etc etc but then turned out not to give a crap and to have knowingly sold me a dog with a recognised inherited health problem and who's lifetime support turned out to be one email telling me I bought the dog so it was my problem and we haven't heard from her since....

..i'm very aware of how hard it is to choose the right breeder, so I shall be really careful as I want my next dog to be a companion for a good many years so I want to look for the healthiest lines so I can have a lifetime of fun with my next furry pal... remember we also went through hell with Parker our other beagle too and he only got to live six years, three of these in poor health.... we also have Moonpig who has spondylosis and pancreas issues( she came from a well reknowned breeder supposedly too) :b so please don't take offence anyone who breeds but I'm so wary of getting it wrong and having another poorly boy, i want to do things as carefully as humanly possible............. :b