Two 2yr Old Bassets potty problems

herohound · 02-03-2010, 10:27 AM

Hi there,

I have two gorgeous Basset's girl and a boy (Betty & Frank), Frank is very good 95% of the time and will wait until the appropriate moment to do his toilet. However my girl Betty waits until we are all asleep to do her business in the house, when outside she will even go right outside the kennel entrance? I've never heard of this unless they have nowhere else to go but they have plenty of garden space to use?

Please help as I thought it would have got better the older she got, is it maybe a territorial thing?

Any advice will be much appreciated.

oliwa · 02-03-2010, 01:34 PM

Hey there! Welcome!

Can you post some more history? Have you recently moved? How was she potty trained originally? What have you tried to correct the situation?

Beverly Anne · 02-03-2010, 02:13 PM

Where's Mike? He has amazing information on potty training. BTW, bassets are notoriously hard to housebreak.

Mikey T · 02-03-2010, 11:32 PM

Quote:

is it maybe a territorial thing?

Dogs do not mark things to claim then as theirs. They scent mark mor as Saying I am here. The scent mark in unfamialiar teritory more than familiar and more at the edges of an area than the center. Marking is notthe issue when a large puddle is left.

nt Marking in Dogs

More on Scent Marking in Dogs: Lisberg Study #2

Urinary behavior of female domestic dogs (Canis familiaris): influence of reproductive status, location, and age

Quote:

my girl Betty waits until we are all asleep to do her business in the house

So you want to know why she does this, The answer is remarkably simple because she can. It has been my experience that any dog that sneak away to deficate does so because they have a susbstrate preference for what the defificate on, but want to avoid the reprocusion of doing so. The real question is why is she allowed free reign in the house when everyone else is asleep. Confinement could solve the problem while working on changing the dogs substrate prefference. Keep in mind it once delveloped it takes more effort to change a substrate prefference than it does to teach appropriate prefference in a younger pup that does not have one.

There are three basic requirements to house train a dog

1. Eliminate accidents. This can be done successfull by strict management of a schedule for feeding, drinking, sleeping and play. Whith a schedual the dogs habits become predictable and therefore you can more easily manage them. It also require strict supervision or in the abscent of that supervision confinement.

2. Teach the dog to hold it when an appropriate option for going does not exist. Again confinment is a wonder for tool for teaching a dog this. But the confinement must be of an appropirate size i.e. not to big. Often times people wonder why their pup is going in the creat when they have been told dogs never go in their den, Heck when the den is the size of a multi room house it is not rocket sicience to discover that one of those rooms is designated as the bathroom. Also the dogs capacity to hold it is not limitless. At some point the dog has no choice. If the dog is force to endure to lengthy a confinement and forced to go while confined it is more inclied to do so again and again because it does not have the prospect of holding it is going to work.

3.Teaching a clear signal that the dog can use to hell you it need to go out. To often people assume this is easy for the dog to pick-up on their own but it does not happen all that often, Teach the dog a clear signal that you will not ignore goes a long way to solve this problem which is often the cause of many a housetraining problem

See House Training: Ring My Bell!

Also one can not overlook possible medical causes, UTI, and endocratic desease often effect house training. The use of certain medications like steriod can as well. Spay incontinence is another possible cause but this is general marked by urine puddles wher the dog normal sleeps. That is because that is exactly what is happening. The dog usually female loses control while sleeping, this is cause by a lack of estrogen. It usually is effectively cured with PPA which can be obtained in vet formulation under the trade name "proin" and is relatively inexpensive.

when it comes to soiling the house it is best to assume no alterior motives ont the part of the dog, it is not spite, marking territory, simply it is the dog is not house trained

Why Can't a Dog Be More Like a Dog?

Quote:

Assuming dogs have an human appetite for spite and revenge is a convenient excuse for the dog's obvious lack of elementary education. A flagrant advertisement that the owner neglected to teach the dog where to eliminate, what to chew, where to dig, when and for how long to bark, and when and upon whom to jump-up. It is conveniently simpler to blame the dog than train it. Personally I would never insult a dog by even suggesting it has fallen foul of these especially execrable and exclusively human foibles - spite, revenge and viciousness. Whoa! So, a lot of you disagree. But of course we disagree - this is a moot point: None of us will ever know for certain what a dog is thinking, what are its motives, or why it does what it does. What we do know however, is what the dog did. And if for example the dog soiled the house, let's just housetrain the dog and then the owner will no longer be annoyed, the dog will no longer be punished but instead, it can be happily reintegrated into household living and therefore, will no longer be chewing, digging and barking whilst in solitary confinement in the garden. (Or, if you prefer your interpretation, the dog will no longer have any reason to exact revenge.) And once owner and newly-housetrained dog are living in harmony, then, and only then, would it be profitable to engage in moot debate of the differential etiology of housesoiling. Even so, it is still unlikely we'll reach agreement. Luckily though, this is not important because few owners are interested in the etiology of problems which no longer exist.

The Macho Myth

Quote:

Some ill-advised, big blue meanies are confusing issues and trying to take the fun out of dog ownership. In my book:

A dog which marks indoors, needs to be housetrained.
A dog which mounts people, a) needs to be instructed to desist and b) requires social introduction to another suitably inclined furry quadruped.
A dog which steals food, a) is in desperate need of an owner who remembers to put food away and b) requires rapid introduction to my favorite booby-trap.
A dog which jumps-up, needs simply to be taught to sit when greeting people.
A dog which is tricky about eye contact should be taught a) that human eye-contact is no threat, b) to look away, or look at its paws on command, and c) to lovingly gaze in the eyes of its understanding owner.

To learn more on the important of substrate preference in house training and other helpful housetraining techniques my favorite house training article on the web

Housetraining Your Puppy

Quote:

The behavior behind this training: Dogs develop substrate preferences for eliminating. By substrate, I mean what they feel under their feet. In their first few weeks of life they need their mother to lick them to stimulate elimination. Around 4 weeks of age they begin to control this themselves. It is a self-rewarding behavior because it feels good. They associate this good feeling with the environment they are in at the time. This is about the same time they are walking well enough to go outside. If they are taken outside enough, several times a day, during this period of development (4 through 8 weeks) they will associate the good feeling of relieving themselves with the grass under their feet, the sky above, and all the smells and sounds of the outdoors. The tactile experience, the texture under the feet, becomes the cue.
If your puppy does not already have this outdoor experience, then you can provide it for him now, to retrain the "substrate preference" he has already learned.

02-03-2010, 10:27 AM	#1 (permalink)
herohound Junior Member Join Date: Feb 2010 Posts: 1	Two 2yr Old Bassets potty problems Hi there, I have two gorgeous Basset's girl and a boy (Betty & Frank), Frank is very good 95% of the time and will wait until the appropriate moment to do his toilet. However my girl Betty waits until we are all asleep to do her business in the house, when outside she will even go right outside the kennel entrance? I've never heard of this unless they have nowhere else to go but they have plenty of garden space to use? Please help as I thought it would have got better the older she got, is it maybe a territorial thing? Any advice will be much appreciated.

02-03-2010, 01:34 PM	#2 (permalink)
oliwa Member Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Cincinnati, Ohio Posts: 61	Hey there! Welcome! Can you post some more history? Have you recently moved? How was she potty trained originally? What have you tried to correct the situation? __________________ My Basset is smarter than your honor student. YouTube: Snickers Is Smarter Than A 5th Grader 'Dog Whisperer' Training Approach More Harmful Than Helpful

02-03-2010, 02:13 PM	#3 (permalink)
Beverly Anne Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Boston MA Posts: 737	Where's Mike? He has amazing information on potty training. BTW, bassets are notoriously hard to housebreak. __________________ Francis's Bevy

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