r/Lurchers

1 Year Mark and seek reassurances

I see alot of post for lurchers at the 1 year mark but we're really struggling at the moment and seek like minded reassurances or maybe a reality check.

We're a family of 4 , 2 kids ages 10 and 12 and has had a dog in our family all their lives. We lost our King Charles Last year of old age and got a rescue lurcher puppy who has now been with us for a year.

She can be so affectionate at times but of late , we are worried and are questioning if she is right for our family. Although the kids would be devastated and find it hard seeing us finding her a new home.

So im here to seek advice and hope to get reassurances that her behaviour is not for much longer. I see the shelters are full of lurchers around this age.

Today , she snapped when we tried to move her away from the dishwasher and is resource guarding constantly. Nothing is safe from her despite trying to lock everything away and find ourselves scattering to get our things back a couple of times an hour.

She still sees my 10yr old as a plaything and it can become overwhelming very quickly as she is constantly seeking him out to pull in his clothes. It seems like she becomes over stimulated very quickly and really hard to bring down her high levels. Even with lick pads and now even natural medication.

She has never given us a bite but right now , we're a little concerned and feel a little unsafe. We dont host any guests and cant really leave her with anyone due to lack of trust. She jumps up on people and can be very intimidating.

We are also considering maybe fostering another lurcher to see if having a friend helps and would love your opinion on whether this is a good idea or not?

Also does this get any easier because its not enjoyable right now and dont want to lose another dog so soon.

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u/stevepow1927 — 4 days ago
▲ 219 r/Lurchers

The power of an emergency recall word!

We've had our sweet lurcher for about 6 months. She's about 90% sighthound. Not being at all familiar with the breed, I read everything I could find. I ran across a recommendation by a Redditor to train an emergency recall word using a jackpot of treats and have been practicing about once a week to keep it up.

Today, the wind blew the gate of our fence open, and I didn't realize Fia had gone walkabout for about 15 minutes. I ran up and down our road calling for her - Nothing. I started yelling her emergency word and it must have only been 3 minutes before she came running. (Delighted with herself, of course).

I couldn't believe it. We live in a rural area with SO many interesting things for her to explore - horses, cows, fields, birds. And she came when I called 😭 Granted, she knew she'd get a million treats, but I am just so relieved and proud.

Hopefully, this helps someone else! Recall is so important, and having trained a word that is so rewarding may have saved her today.

u/sweet_tater_precious — 6 days ago