Dog breed choice? we love the coonhound and saluki

[chbeveridge]

Whippets are generally considered to be the easiest sight hound to train, and if brought into a family with a cat as a puppy can easily get along with them. When my Whippet girl joined the family I had two cats, ok they never got very friendly but they got along fine. The dog respected the cats and the cats kept away from the dog. Yes they have a strong chase instinct but normally this is for rabbits or squirrels which tend to be short chases, Rabbits go under ground and Squirrels go up a tree. For a family dog with children, in general they are wonderful. Obviously their will be exceptions. The other breed I have had that fits the op's request would be a Shetland Sheepdog. Very trainable easy to live with and gentle. The only draw back would be the grooming they need. If you have the time its a nice time with your dog, but unless your that way inclined you could consider it a chore

I am a whippet lady through and through. See my reply to LillyDaisy however.

Whippets are generally considered to be the easiest sight hound to train, and if brought into a family with a cat as a puppy can easily get along with them. When my Whippet girl joined the family I had two cats, ok they never got very friendly but they got along fine. The dog respected the cats and the cats kept away from the dog. Yes they have a strong chase instinct but normally this is for rabbits or squirrels which tend to be short chases, Rabbits go under ground and Squirrels go up a tree. For a family dog with children, in general they are wonderful. Obviously their will be exceptions. The other breed I have had that fits the op's request would be a Shetland Sheepdog. Very trainable easy to live with and gentle. The only draw back would be the grooming they need. If you have the time its a nice time with your dog, but unless your that way inclined you could consider it a chore

 

[chbeveridge]

We are finding it very hard to find the right dog breed choice for our family. We are a family of four. Two daughters age 7 and 8 and a siamese cross cat age 15 yrs.

we are looking for a puppy or young dog that we can take for walks and runs off a lead. We live next to a big village green but near a busy road.

We tried a rescue coonhound. We loved him very much. He was a lovely character. We just found him to strong on walks for our girls and a little too big for our small cottage and read he would run off if not on a lead. We were also worried for our cat. We didn't ever leave them alone together as worried what might happen to the cat. Maybe we should have persisted past the two week trial as we miss the dog very much. We love elegant looking dogs like the Saluki too. We liked the markings of the tan coonhound. Any advice be so much appreciated.

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Hi Lilly Daisy, whippets are wonderful. loving. gentle dogs. The last pair I had were rescued at age six. When I got them they had coursed but I successfully brought them into a household with my cat. To begin with, I kept them separate when I went out. My experience was that tiny though my cat Archie was, she soon got the upper hand. My lads chased anything that moved outside of the home but in a]the confined space of my home, they gave her a wide berth. I think you would need to ensure that your cat's food and water was kept where they could access it but the dogs couldn't.

I note that you said you would like a dog to run with. I'm not sure what you mean by that but if you are a runner, it is important to know that whippets are sprinters, NOT endurance runners. On the subject of recall, again in my experience, even when I first had my two rescued whippets this wasn't a problem. In fact when a new whippet came to town and I saw she was being kept on a lead I approached her owner and pointed out that whippets NEED the chance to run off the lead daily. He said he was afraid she would run away and I jokingly said "If you want rid of her, you will need to be the one to run away". I now see her regularly whizzing around. However I wouldn't take the chance of letting any dog run free close to a busy road.