Why Do Whippets Yawn So Much? The Truth + Reasons & Tips

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Yawning is a totally normal bodily function for whippets to do. However, when their yawning becomes excessive it’s usually because something is bothering them.

Being able to tell the difference as their owner is important.

Why Do Whippets Yawn:

Whippets yawn as a way to communicate how they’re feeling in a given situation. They could be letting you know they’re feeling anxious, showing their disinterest in something, or signaling to you they’re bored. Other reasons are because they didn’t sleep well or they’re getting impatient.

In this post you’ll discover:

8 real reasons why whippets yawn so much
When your whippets yawning becomes concerning
4 tips to help your whippet yawn less (Tip #3 helps with all the reasons below!)
And much much more

Let’s jump right in.

Table of Contents

8 Real Reasons Why Whippets Yawn So Much

1) Bored & Wanting To Play

It’s not uncommon to see whippets yawn more than usual when they’re feeling bored and wanting to play.

Just like when you’re bored and trying to stay awake you’ll yawn, so will your pup.

If it’s been a few hours and they’ve attempted to get your attention several ways they may yawn more than usual to put their boredom on display.

It’s also likely an attempt to bring you over to them if they yawn a few times and make them big and dramatic.

Your whippet is likely really good at pattern recognition.

If they’ve noticed in the past that when they let out big, drawn out yawns you go over and give them attention/affection, they’ll want to do it more.

So just like a yawn from you is sometimes from being bored and wanting to do something more exciting, it’s the same with your whippet.

2) Not Wanting To Wait Any Longer

Picture this, you come home after work and it was a looong day.

You normally take your pup out for their evening walk within 20 minutes of being home.

But today you decided to take a nap and do a few things around the house.

And following you around like a shadow is your whippet, letting out far more yawns than usual.

In this situation your pup is likely demonstrating their impatience with you.

They know the usual time they go on their evening walk and today is taking far too long in their opinion to do their favorite activity.

They’re likely thinking, “I’ve got trees to sniff mom/dad.. Come on, let’s go!”.

Anytime your whippet is excited to do something and waiting on you to help them do it you may notice a few more yawns than usual.

3) Too Much Excitement?

This reason might look like a typo, but it’s true, a reason for your whippet to yawn a bunch could be from over-excitement.

It’s a little unexplainable but some people say it’s because they’re attempting to wake their body up quickly so they’re fully alert for the fun they’re about to have.

Yawns are known for keeping people awake so this explanation isn’t too far of a stretch.

For example, as soon as you pull out their leash to go for a walk they jump up from resting and rush over to the front door.

They were just in a low-energy state and immediately moved into a high energy state.

Yawning in all their excitement is an attempt to wake their body up so they are fully ready to enjoy the walk they’re about to go on.

They don’t want to have a tired bone in their body while doing their favorite activity.

So they yawn a bunch of times when they all of a sudden become super excited to help wake themselves up.

4) They Caught Your Yawn

Yawns are contagious.

At some point in everyone’s life they’ve seen another person yawn and it involuntarily made them yawn themselves.

And if your dog sees you yawn, they may have caught your yawn.

It’s completely involuntary.

For whatever reason, yawns are contagious.

For a long time researchers thought when a dog yawned after seeing their owner yawn it was a sign of empathy.

However, more recent studies found there was no real evidence to support that.

Which means contagious yawns are simply one of life’s great mysteries.

5) Signaling Their Disinterest

There’s two circumstances where whippets might yawn as a way of showing their disinterest.

First is when they’re around another dog that’s showing signs of aggression.

They’ll yawn here to signal to the other dog that they don’t want any conflict and want things to remain peaceful.

This is different from showing submission.

A submissive dog is showing they won’t fight back and recognize the other as the more dominant/alpha.

But when your pup yawns when faced with an aggressive dog it’s more signaling that they don’t want things to escalate but aren’t going to roll over and submit.

This means conflict between the two dogs can happen if the one showing aggression doesn’t calm down.

Which is absolutely something you’d want to avoid.

The second situation where your whippet might yawn to show their disinterest is if someone in their pack is showing signs of being anxious.

The dominant wolf in a pack is known to have done this in the wild.

Whether it’s you or their furry brother/sister, if they see someone in their pack is anxious about something that they don’t feel is a threat, they’ll yawn to help put the other’s mind at ease.

Yawning here shows your pups disinterest in what’s bothering other members of their pack.

And signals to them that they don’t think it’s something they need to worry about.

Which helps them calm down.

6) Feeling Anxious

Whenever your whippet is going through higher than usual levels of anxiety they may do a variety of excessive behavior.

Yawning being one of them.

Whippets are known for getting scared more easily than other breeds which can contribute to them feeling anxious more often.

But also, if your pup has gone through a big life change recently it can cause them to have more than usual anxious feelings.

Things like your family moving to a new home, a family member passing away, a new person living in your home full time, or a change in their schedule.

Dogs like structure and routine and when their environment changes dramatically it can stress them out quite a lot.

So if your whippet has had a big life change recently their increased yawning could be a sign they’re having higher levels of anxiety lately.

7) Indicator They Want To Rest

Your whippet needs more sleeping hours than you in order to feel well rested.

Which means even if you both get a good 8 hours of sleep overnight, your pup may still yawn a bunch because they simply need more sleep.

The American Kennel Club says that dogs only get roughly 10% REM sleep when they’re asleep.

Which is much less than people where they get 20-25% on average each night.

This is why your pup needs 12 hours+ of sleep each day in order to feel well rested.

And if they aren’t getting those 12 hours, or you’ve seen them recently wake up from a nap and are still yawning, this is likely why.

They simply need quite a lot more sleep to feel fully awake.

8) Bliss

One of the more positive reasons for whippets to yawn is when they’re feeling completely content with their situation.

They’re totally relaxed and enjoying their current situation and let out a few yawns because they’re comfort levels are maxed out.

There’s no message they’re trying to communicate with you here.

It’s simply their body expressing their blissful feelings.

4 Tips To Help Reduce How Often Your Whippet Yawns

1) Find Their Yawn Trigger

If your whippet is yawning because of reasons outside of it being their body’s response to boredom or being tired, there’s more than likely a trigger that’s causing them to yawn.

And if you feel your pup is yawning more than they should be, do your best to find whatever is triggering their yawns.

Does it happen more around a particular dog or person?

Do they yawn a lot in certain situations?

Or has their environment recently changed in a major way?

If you’re able to find what’s causing the behavior you can either reduce how often they’re exposed to their triggers or you can work on helping them overcome their negative feelings.

2) Help Them Get The Rest They Need

Helping your whippet get the quality rest they need can help stop them from yawning so much.

You could do this by having quiet times in your home so your pup can take a nap.

Getting them a dog bed that keeps them warm and comfortable for uninterrupted sleep.

Or, giving them more exercise each day to ensure they’re actually tired when it comes to bed time.

The more accommodating you can make your home and their situation to needing more rest the less often you should see your pup yawn.

3) Increase ‘Boredom Buster’ Activities

Sometimes life gets busy and you aren’t able to spend as much time with your pup.

And if this goes on for too long your doggo may start to feel neglected and do whatever they can think of to get you to play with them or interact with them in general.

Which could be why your whippet is yawning more lately.

So if you do more activities with them to help curb their boredom and tire them out, they’ll spend more time resting rather than yawning for attention.

Whether it’s more time playing fetch outside, hiking on a new trail, adding another walk to their day or trying another walking route.

The more time you spend with your pup the less likely you’ll be to see them overly yawning from boredom.

4) Speak With a Professional

Speaking with a behavioral specialist or a veterinarian is never a bad idea when your pup is behaving unusually.

Yawning for the most part is completely normal, but when it becomes excessive there’s usually a reason behind why they’re doing it more often.

And speaking with a professional can help you get the answers you’re looking for as well as help your whippet get back to normal quicker.

Other posts you might find interesting:

6 Reasons Whippets Like To Cuddle + 6 Reasons They Don’t

7 Alarming Reasons Whippets Eat Poop + Tips To Stop It

11 Ways Whippets Can Become Aggressive & Tips To Prevent

Sources:

Why Do Dogs Yawn?

Dog Yawning Decoded: Why a Dog Yawn Is Worth a 1000 Words

Familiarity Bias and Physiological Responses in Contagious Yawning by Dogs Support Link to Empathy

Contagious yawning is not a signal of empathy: no evidence of familiarity, gender or prosociality biases in dogs