Anxious Italian Greyhound in a Busy Family Home

An Italian Greyhound in a house with three under-fives — that's a lot of noise, unpredictable movement, and energy for a breed that's genuinely sensitive. IGs aren't built for chaos. Is your dog reacting to the kids directly — jumping away, hiding, trembling — or is it more a general state of tension throughout the day?

That makes sense — she's self-managing as best she can. The bedroom is her decompression space. The problem is she probably spends large chunks of the day in low-level stress even when nothing dramatic is happening, because the unpredictability never fully switches off. Does she have free access to the bedroom whenever she wants it, or is she often in the living room whether she likes it or not?

Right — so her one reliable refuge keeps getting breached. That's actually the core issue. No amount of calming products will work well if she never gets genuine downtime. Before anything else, I'd strongly recommend a stair gate or a room she can access via a cat flap insert that the kids physically can't follow her through. That's foundational. But alongside that, there's something that can make a real difference to her baseline anxiety throughout the day.

The Adaptil Calm Home Diffuser. It plugs into the wall and releases a synthetic version of the calming pheromone mother dogs produce with their puppies. It won't sedate her or change her personality — it just takes the edge off ambient stress. For a dog who's basically living in a state of constant low-level alert, it helps the nervous system settle a bit more between incidents. Put it in the bedroom — her safe space — rather than the living room. That way it's reinforcing the place she actually relaxes, not competing with the chaos downstairs. One diffuser covers up to 70 square metres and lasts about four weeks. Most owners notice a difference within a week or two.

Yes, completely safe for long-term use — no side effects for the dog, children, or other pets. You just replace the refill every four weeks. I'd use it consistently for at least two to three months rather than treating it as a short-term fix, because the goal is to shift her baseline, not just react to bad days. Pair it with protecting her bedroom retreat and you should see a meaningful improvement in how settled she is day-to-day.