The First Week With Your Greyhound
What to Expect (Part 2 of 5)
You've read Part 1. You've bought the bed, laid down the rugs and accepted that your sofa now belongs to someone else. Your greyhound is home.
And now everything feels a bit weird.
That's fine. It's supposed to. The first week with a new greyhound is one of the strangest, most rewarding and most confusing experiences you'll have as a dog owner. Especially if you've never had a dog before. This is where patience earns its keep.
Decompression is not a problem to solve
You'll hear this word a lot. Decompression. It sounds clinical, but all it really means is your hound is adjusting. They're processing a completely new world, and they need time to do it.
What does it look like? It varies. Some hounds pace. Some freeze. Some refuse food for a day or two. Some sleep for twenty hours straight. Some stand in the middle of a room and stare at a wall like they're buffering.
One of ours spent the entire first evening standing in the hallway, facing the front door, as if waiting to be taken back. By day three, she was roaching on the sofa with her legs in the air. These things take time, not intervention.
The 3-3-3 rule
This is a rough guide, not a rigid formula, but it's useful for managing your expectations.
3 days: Your hound is overwhelmed. They might not eat, might not settle, might not show any personality at all. They're just surviving. This is normal.
3 weeks: Things start to loosen. They're learning the routine, testing boundaries and beginning to show you who they actually are. You'll see flashes of personality between the uncertainty.
3 months: They're home. They know the routine, they trust you and the real hound emerges. This is usually when people say, 'Oh, so this is what you're actually like.'
Some hounds move faster. Some take longer. Don't measure your dog against someone else's timeline.
What to do in week one
Keep it boring. Seriously. The temptation is to introduce them to everything, show them the park, invite friends round, take them to the pub. Resist all of it.
Routine first: Same walk times, same feeding times, same sleeping spot. Predictability is security. Sighthounds thrive on it.
Short walks only: Ten to fifteen minutes, twice a day. On lead, always. Quiet streets, minimal distractions. This is not the week for adventures.
Let them come to you: Don't crowd them. Don't force cuddles. Sit on the floor near them and let them approach when they're ready. Some hounds want contact immediately. Others need days. Both are fine.
Keep visitors away: Your friends will want to meet the new dog. They can wait. Your hound needs calm, quiet and consistency right now, not a parade of strangers reaching for their head.
Garden on a lead: Even if your garden is fenced, take them out on a lead for the first few days. They don't know where they are yet, and a spooked sighthound can clear a fence you'd swear was high enough.
What not to worry about
New owners panic about everything. We did too. So here's a quick list of things that are almost certainly fine.
They won't eat: Most hounds skip a meal or two in a new home. Offer food, leave it for fifteen minutes, take it away. Don't fuss. They'll eat when they're ready. We'll cover feeding properly in Part 3.
They follow you everywhere: This is called velcro behaviour. It's common in newly adopted sighthounds. They've found their person and they're not letting you out of sight. It usually eases as confidence grows.
They sleep constantly: Greyhounds sleep a lot. Like, a genuinely alarming amount. Eighteen hours a day is normal. If they're sleeping, they're comfortable. That's a good sign.
They don't play: Many greyhounds have never had a toy before. They don't know what to do with it. Some never learn. Some discover toys at three months in and go completely bonkers. Don't force it.
When to actually worry
Most first-week oddness is just adjustment. But there are a few things worth flagging with your vet.
Not drinking water for more than 24 hours.
Diarrhoea that lasts more than two days or contains blood.
Limping, whimpering or signs of pain.
Complete withdrawal. Not eating, not drinking, not moving, not engaging at all after several days.
If something feels off, trust your instinct. You don't need to be a vet to know when a dog isn't right. A quick phone call never hurts.
The bit nobody tells you about
The first week isn't just hard for the dog. It's hard for you.
You might feel overwhelmed. You might wonder what you've done. You might lie awake listening to them pacing at 3am and think, 'I've made a terrible mistake.' You haven't. You're just adjusting too.
Give yourself the same grace you're giving your hound. You're learning a new language, building a new relationship and figuring out a routine that didn't exist a week ago. It's a lot. It gets easier. And the first time they curl up next to you and sigh, properly sigh, like the whole world is finally okay, you'll know exactly why you did this.
Coming up next
In Part 3, we'll get into the daily stuff. Feeding, sleep and exercise. The practical rhythms of life with a greyhound, including why they eat like they've never seen food before and why they sleep like they've been unplugged.
The Savvy Sighthound is a small, independent website built by sighthound enthusiasts in the UK and Ireland. We share practical tips, honest stories and hard-won wisdom about life with greyhounds, whippets, lurchers and sighthound mixes. No sponsors. No sales pitch. Just real life with long dogs.
Also: We're sighthound lovers, not vets or sighthound specialists. If you're ever unsure about your hound's health or wellbeing, always speak to your vet.
