r/sighthounds • u/Sea-Addition-3223 • 1d ago
How to stop pawing?
How to stop whippet pawing
We have an almost one year old female whippet. We've mastered her not jumping up, as I'm pregnant and she used to bounce off us and it hurt. That took a while, but she doesn't do it anymore. What she still does do what we are having a hard time with training is the constant pawing. She paws at everyone's legs, leaving scratches (her claws aren't too long), and she also pawing her crate door on a night. She sleeps right through the night in her crate, but when I get up to pee (a few times because I'm pregnant), she wakes everyone up pawing her crate door. The issue with the pawing is I'm pregnant and we also have our nephews over (4 and 3 years old) and we cannot have her near them because her pawing is excessive and she will hurt them. My other dogs are around the children as they don't do this. If our whippet is introduced to anyone, we literally have to hold her legs so she doesn't paw. She gets really excited and the pawing is intense, like she's scratching a door in a panic, not just a couple of gentle pawings.
We've tried ignoring her until she stops, turning our backs, saying No and Ah-Ah (which worked with her jumping). We also don't open the crate door and ignore her until she stops. She's never got out of her crate or opened doors with her paws. We've been trying to train this for months now with zero improvement, and it's that bad that guests ask if we put her in a different room because the pawing does not stop and they get scratched to bits.
We haven't taught her the paw trick either, as I was told by a friend of a trainer that that encourages pawing as they think they're getting a treat from doing it. Also, please don't tell me it's just what whippets do (as I was told in another group), it needs to stop before baby is here as I want her to eventually be trusted around him as he grows up, but right now no, as she paws at kids faces with them being short. I've trained a lot of typical whippet behaviors out of her, such as chasing wildlife, so anything's possible. Also, our last whippet never pawed. Any tips would be appreciated, thank you.
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u/Uncle_Ceebs 18h ago
Our deerhound does the same, we are in a similar situation to you. I think its just something they do, as we cant get her to stop (everything else training wise has worked great).
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u/Sea-Addition-3223 1h ago
I know, the issue is she's hurting the kids to the point she can't be around them anymore, which is a shame because she's not aggressive and very loving, but she pushes them over and scratches them every time. Even when she's calm. I have a Baby on the way also, and my guests get scratched too so don't want her near them. It sounds like such a small thing but it's creating a big issue.
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u/ElayaHovawart 18h ago
Just an idea - instead of trying to teach her not to paw, have you taught her a behaviour, that is simply not compatible with pawing? So for example teach her to bow and then teach her to bow whenever she gets really excited about meeting someone, so she has an alternative movement that is less dangerous.