Ella84

I have done some reasearch into Basset Hounds & the breed seems perfect for my family environment. I have 2 young children, my oldest daughter is 4 years & my youngest daughter is 6 months old. I spend alot of time at home as I'm Agoraphobic & my partner works full time.

I was wondering if you could all tell me about your experiences when you brought a Basset Hound into your home & how long it took to house train your puppy.


Thank You in advance.

murraysmom

Hi!

I'm sure you'll get some direct reponses to your post, but another way to get information on just about any topic is to go to the bar at the top of the page, click on the "search" option, and type in the topic you're interested in.

This is the link to the page I pulled up when I typed in "housbreaking" :

http://www.heatherweb.com/cyberhound/board...2Bhousebreaking

Welcome to the forum! :P !

Aruuuu

The very first thing you need to do is go here:

Basset Hound Club of America

The Basset Hound Club of America is the national parent club, lists member breeders, and has loads of good advice about the breed. You may find there are breeders who will not place a dog in your home because your children are so young. Please don't be offended by this. Training a puppy is extraordinarily time-consuming -- much like child-rearing! And for many people, it's too much. Personally, the best thing I ever did was wait to bring a puppy into our home. We lost our 16-year-old Westie when our daughter was an infant. We were dogless until she was almost four, and the boys were six, eight, and eleven. At that point, I had time to train a puppy!

Please let us know how you make out.....

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If stress were exercise, I'd be in great shape!

Lightning&Stomps

Bassets are great dogs, but many first-time owners are often surprised by how different they are from their stereotype. I was one of those people. I thought bassets were quiet, low-energy dogs, and boy, did I learn how wrong I was. At 10 years old, my youngest dog still has more energy than I thought he would as a puppy! He's very rambunctious. I can't let young kids come to my house because he just doesn't understand you can't body slam them. His bark wakes the entire neighborhood, and I live in the country! He was probably a year old before he was completely housebroken, which isn't unusual for this breed unless you are extremely vigilant. They are NOT dumb at all--in fact, mine are constantly finding ways to outsmart me, which really bruises my ego. On the flip side, they are the sweetest dogs you will ever encounter, and so comical and fun. But I agree with Aruuu, in a home with a 6-month-old and a 4-year-old daughter, maybe you should either wait to get a dog, or get a more manageable-sized breed, like a beagle. Or, contact your local basset rescue and find an adult basset that is already housebroken and proven to be very good with children. Good luck to you.

vienneau4

I don't usually post but....... I have two children. They would have been 3 and 6 when we got Daisy, who was 13 weeks old. I also babysit 3 other children and they would have been 2 @ 2 years and 1 @ 4 years old. My next door neighbor babysits children from 1 year old to 13 years old. Daisy fits in well with ALL the kids. In fact she is more comfortable with the little ones than the older ones (parents). Being a stay at home mom, I think, helped with the potty training. Daisy was completely trained within a couple of months. This is just my experience, don't know if all pups would be like this. I just wanted to say that bassets and kids do mix. Good luck with your choice!

Jim

I've had three Bassets. Two were rescues and one I adopted as a puupy from a young couple who had a two year old daughter. The puppy was too rambunctious for the two year old. I brought Maggie home and was amazed at her energy level. She was easy to housetrain, but it took a long time to train her not to jump up on people, chew on furniture, or to mouth on hands. At about 15 months she started to settle down and actually started to sleep during the day. She's six now and a great dog. Puppies are cute, but they are a lot of work. Be prepared for the jumping up on the kids and the nibbling on hands. Discouraging those behaviors took much longer for me than the housetraining. I love Bassets but for me personally, I don't think I'd ever go through the puppy experience again. I'll rescue instead. Jim

Yogi's Mom

I got Yogi when he was twelve weeks old and I just had so much fun with him when he was a puppy. He is very smart and was so easy to train! I was prepared for battle with the housebreaking and the chewing and the biting but he was just amazingly easy with all of those things! Not your usual puppy. The next puppy was the GSD who I thought was going to be easy but he was hell on wheels! Not so much with the housebreaking but with the biting and the chewing, we were going out of our minds with him. The GSD that we had before this one was also a very easy puppy, so much that we used to call him the "gentleman" puppy! The point is that you never know what type of puppy you are going to get for sure and it is a great deal of work even with an easy puppy. Since you are home most of the time it will help a great deal with working through many of the puppy issues but you will really have to supervise the kids and dog and never, ever leave them alone together. Most bassets that I have met really seem to love kids but one can never be too careful. I also want to add that you need to be careful and find a good breeder. In my opinion a good breeder does not let the puppy go before eight weeks old and much better if they are ten to twelve weeks old. Maybe you might decide you want a dog that is a little older and many breeders have older dogs that didn't make it as show dogs or are retired from breeding that need good homes. Good luck with getting a puppy!

ruby_doo (AUS)

HELLO, and WELCOME, i have had 7 bassets(2 currently) one Beswick is a rescue and ruby is 1/2 way thru her 1st preganancy!!

I have never had isues with any of my dogs with what has ben said above? May be as along with dogs I have always had horses and manners have been no 1. I had one that was a barker but citronella collar fixed that. Current bitch I have has always slept by day and night with bigtime z00mies in evenings. We have 4 dogs ATM, 2 bassets.

When I got my bitch as a 10 week old, I was ill+++ with osteomyelitis, but didnt know it at the time, she was happy to sleep with me when I needed to which was a lot and be up when I was

We dont/cant have kids but do have plenty visit and never had a problem

Rubydoo

Uh oh...Another Rubydoo???? Might get confusing...

I saw the ruby doo and was wondering who this is.

Anyway.....


Janice and little Ruby (aka Rubydoo)

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Take a basset hound to lunch today!
--Bassets rule....and drool!

Mikey T

Bassets are notoriously slow in house training. Six months is fast with 12 months being more typical before you will have a trust worthy home.

Personally I would not recommend a puppy given the ages of your kids. All puppies regardless of breed go through a mouthing stage that must be handled correctly in order to prevent future problems, See. Bite Inhibition - How to Teach It and the Help with Puppy Chewing and Nipping Links in the FAQ Forum

I think you would be happier and safer with an adult dog from rescue. It will be temperament test with small children and there is a good chance it is already house trained as well but it is no guarantee that house training carries over into a new home.