icebear

Hi.
This is sort of an introduction post as well as a question post...


We adopted Molly about a month and a half ago. She's a really good dog, with minor issues in training.
She was crate trained as a puppy,but went missing from her former owners for about 8 months of her first year with them, her microchip is what got her safely back home.
We ended up with her because her owners are now divorced and living in dog-free apartments.

Anyway, when she disappeared and came back, the crate was no longer her size and the former owners never got back to it.

I have only owned Shelties and Sheltie mixes in my life, my hubby has had Afghans & Rotties and a sweet, dopey Chow/Shar Pei mix named Nutmeg who was his most recent dog.
I have been dogless since my 17 year old Foxy died about 5 years ago, so we both are out of practice dogwise...


I am used to crate-trained dogs, or at least ones that consider their crate their personal home base. Hubby has never had a dog that wanted a crate, his were mostly outdoor dogs. Whether or not to get Molly a crate seemed optional at that point and since we ended up taking her in a month earlier than expected, the decision was put off.

As far as Molly's behavior goes, she really is good.... very stubborn as i'm sure is a familiar trait, and since her former owners allowed her on furniture and i don't, we have a little problem. (I did try to ease the transition by forfeiting a stuffed armchair, she is allowed on that one chair anytime she wants and its in the living room so she won't feel isolated)

Being a smart dog, she knows we can't see her on the couch when we are upstairs sleeping. But when i sit on the couch to have my morning coffee i can smell that she has been there. (Keeping baths to once a month maximum is going to be hard for me, Bassets are more fragrant than Shelties!)
If we take her upstairs with us, she wants to sleep on the bed.
I love dogs, but this is not something i can personally allow.
If we don't allow her on the bed, she mopes into the bathroom where she steals samples from the cat's enclosed litter box.

So after learning this about her, i started putting toys on the couches at night to keep her off. We have a toddler and a 10 year old, so i have baby gates and guitar hero guitars and other large plastic toys that i use to do this.
So now, when she can't get on the couch at night she pees on the carpet.
Three nights in a row she did this. She was taken outside last thing before bed every evening and we get up early and go to bed late.

I have heard that Bassets can be a little vengeful, and scolding didn't deter her from doing it again...

Now my only solution is to use baby gates to trap her in a 4x5 area at the front door with a blanket and a couple treats so she hopefully knows i'm not trying to torture her.

I'm going to get her a crate. I like the Midwestern brand, but i don't know what size to get her.

I plan on it being her sleeping crate so it needs to be comfortable to stretch out in.

I measured her as well as i could. She's kind of slow on her basic commands and she couldn't figure out what i wanted her to do so she kept trying to act all submissive and made it way more difficult.

She's kind of an odd sort of bold, happy and then suddenly timid dog... it my not help that i have tripped over her in the kitchen a few times. I have a bad leg & bad balance and she likes to get underfoot in the kitchen when she thinks food is going to fall from the sky... She was supposedly not a beggar as we were told. I didn't believe a word of it and i was right, but its another reason she needs a crate. I'm sure every time i tripped over her she thought she was being booted and my landing screech isn't very reassuring either. She gets confused quickly when i try and give her commands and simply takes off for another room, so i really have to get to work on her with basic commands.

Anyway, she's about 42" from nose to end and about 21" from her toes to the peak on her head.

I'm a SAHM so she's not going to be in the crate much other than during our mealtimes and sleep times, and hopefully she will learn to use it as her escape spot when she gets rattled.

I just wanted to say hi to everyone here and make sure i'm getting the right size crate for her and accept any other general suggestions that might come up.

Bassets are a totally different kind of dog than a Sheltie!

Mikey T

Crate depends on how they sleep strsched out a 42" long crate if the curl 36" l should work fine.

bad idea it is much better to have a clear and consistent rule no furniture ever works better than some middle ground, This is not just because it is easier for the dogs to learn but also the humans are more consistent in inposing it.

totalaly off base premise that is an excuse by those that can not train. If you buy into the premise it basical mean you should give up on training because t
here is nothing you can do to retrain a behavior that occurs out of Spite.

While some people are more sensitive than other a basset should not stink. This is ussual a sign of a yeast infection. Basset are prone to them at the ear, skin folds etc but more often than not a yeast infection is the result of mre primary condition i.e. allergies or Seborrhea. IMHO Seborrhea is serriously underreported and treated in the breed. Those that suffer from it is ussual the oilly form Greasy coat with large flakes of dandruff. There is no cure but frequent bathing minimium once a week with and antisheborrheaic shampoo can keep it under control.

seborrhea in dog


Question About Hound Odor

Seborrhea

There is nothing magical about bathing once a month vs more often. If you do bath more often you may want to be sure to use a shampoo for dogs. (Higher ph) And a one that tends to moisturize i.e. oatmeal or add a moisturize, adding omega 3 and 6 (fish and vegitable oil) to the diet can help improve coat quality and dryness that occurs quite often in kibble fed dogs.

most people that have experience in training bassets find them among the most intelligent dogs, but intelligence does not necesarilly translate into easy to train. Most training methods rely on a dogs willingness/need for approval from owner trainer. This is referred to as biddability. The breeds that rank high on easy to train lists are breeds that tend to be vary biddable. Bassets and onter breeds rank low on training list are just othe opposite. The rare care what the onwer wants, that are for a lack of a better term more selfish, they are more concern with themseves. When you ask a basset to do something the first thing they ask is why? if you can not present to them some expectation it is in their best interest to do so you will not get coperation. Secondly bassets react differently to punishment and stress That is the react negatively. (negative meaning the opposite of positive (adding something) not badly) That is the stop do nothing withdraw. It is this, what must interpret as being stuborn.

see
Hard to Train?
look at "difficult-to-train" breeds and the reality of what shapes these canine minds.

Media Hound, Front and Finish: July 1994
FWIW Heather Nadleman author of the review was the past owner of this forum and has owned and competed with both basset hounds and border collies.

They are more alike than different both being dogs but there are son key diffrences.

Bidability which affect how you go about training. For most bassets making training about food work well. Also contrary to much misinformation just because you use food in train does not mean the dog need to see food before it will work or that you must always carry food without etc. if You have specific question about using food in training. How to keep the dog from being distracted of overly attracted to food during train etc just ask. The also tend to be more social and social concious, this simply means they are better manipulators. I.e, while you are training a basset they are also training you.

WHY NOT TAKE CANDY FROM A BABY? (If he lets you!)

icebear

wonderful, that size is well within my budget
Oh, darn.. yanno, i had a sneaking suspicion that it might turn out that way but i really hoped it would be a nice thing to do for her. She was losing her whole 'pack' all of a sudden and its hard to accept that trying to do something like that for her would actually cause more of a problem.

[/quote]
thats another area where its hard to not be anthropomorphic... the word "spite" was the word used to describe it to me by my brother in law who's mother used to breed Bassets, but this was when BIL was little so his memory may be faded or somewhat fanciful which tends to happen as time passes. There does seem to be a cause and effect to their behavior that would sometimes support this impression, perhaps not accurate though.

[/quote]

I think its mostly my sensitivity to scent. Her skin is nicely clear, she does not have any sign of skin irritation (that i can detect), flakes, redness, unexplained itching, which i am happy about. She submits graciously to ear cleaning. But the one thing that i do have a hard time about when it comes to dogs is their scent.
I once smelled Pizza Hut pizza on my husband after he visited his sister who had the pizza for lunch. He merely touched the empty box. Its ridiculous what smells hit me when the rest of the time i can't smell anything due to allergies. I think its more me than the dog, but i will keep an eye out for the condition of her skin and i do keep up with her ears which do get dirty. I'm not used to floppy-eared dogs.

i put powdered brewer's yeast and flax seed oil in her food, it had always done well for my other dogs, so i do it as a matter of course. I have heard mixed things on dog foods. I used to work in a pet store that sold so-called "boutique brands" and my Cat is fed Solid Gold. We are finishing the bag of Nutro Large Breed kibble that she came to us with but hadn't decided what we want to switch her to. She is a healthy size, not chunky or thin and her coat is good, shiny and not too much shedding.
I have seen it repeated often enough that bathing dogs more than once a month was not good, so i took it for granted. I also tend to not trust the labels on things like shampoos. Human shampoos make ridiculous claims so i tend to not trust pet shampoo bottles very much. They say on the label that there is all sorts of good oils and vitamin E, but its in such a small percentage that its largely useless. What brands are likely to be more trustworthy and of a decent quality?

Shelties seemed to know what we wanted almost before it had to be asked. Moving through a house with a sheltie at your heels was more like dancing, lead and follow. With a basset its a constant, mobile obstacle course, lol. Bassets seem to need to be coerced into everything, so it is a learning curve for me. Not a bad thing, but an adjustment to previous experience.

True that it does not teach, i'm hoping it would help by keeping her safely away while training is unfolding.

Thanks for the info and discussion, i have briefly browsed some of the links but i will read them more thoroughly in the next couple days.

Thanks again!

Mikey T

Like ivory soap 99 44/100 of everything uttered on dog food is either B.S. or simple marketing hype. On my comment on kibble The formation of kibble structurely requores atleast 19% carbohydrate/starch and that is bare minimum twice that is more typical. carbs replace fat as an energy source in kibble vs a more meat based diet. So kibble in general has a lower fat content some lots less than others. That said I am not advocating against kibble but rather there is no reason against adding fat to a dogs diet. Dogs are better at using fat as a fuel source than carbs so it is actual better for them. If interest do a search on the site for dog food or feed and there with be penty of myths and myth debunking. The bottom line is there is a lot more that we don't know about dog nutrition than we do, what is known what works for one particular dog does not work nescissarily for another you need to feed what work for you and your dog. The one big myth that I woud caution about is stick to a single feed. It is clear that we don't know enough about dog nutrition to even come close to substantiating a "complete and balanced" claim. With humans we overcome this by insisting of variety but dog fodd mfg and marketer have done a marvilous job of promoting their agenda feed my brand and only mybrand for best results. Seem contradictory to the very premise of nutrition in that through variety we are not likely to cause surplus or shortage of a certain required nutrient that was not previously known to be impportant. This has happen frequently enough but we seem to forget the lesson

It is not the brand that is important rather than ingredients. If there is a substantial amount of a ingredient that the manfacture thinks is important they will put a percentage on it if they don't it in not likely to contain enough to be an asset. Ie colliodial oatmeal shampoo will give a percentage of colloidal oatmeal the other ingredients not so much.


It is not as strange as it may sound but all animal tend to become desenitised to things they are around all the time. i.e. get use to the smell of hound, However if most of the time you don't smell anything it is not surprising to be more/hypersensitive compared to other who have become desensitized[/quote]

Putting flame suit on I have a theory, not that popular with many basset owners. I think a healthy percentage basset owner gravitate toward the breed precisely because they are "hard to Train". Not to show there ability quite the opposite. No need to even bother trying to tray a dog that can't/won't learn in the first place.

Keeping in mind breed generalities are not as strong as the individual traits of a dog and most dogs fall out side of the norms for the breed in some way, I have a different take that is well, less flatter to the sheltie. There have been a number of studies done on dog intellgence admittly small in number of dogs test that included a fair number of shelties. Shelties tend to come up poor in independant thinking which is what the basset was bred for, The actual look toward the human to solve a problem for them whereas a basset will charge in and solve the problem for themselves. So that dance you talk about with the sheltie they like to follow and the basset well they prefer to lead.

How to judge the Intelligence of Dogs
[quote]Actually, studies by Scott and Fuller prove conclusively that there is no breed of dog that is smarter than any other breed (and they also looked at mixed breed dogs). They found that highly biddable breeds (such as herding dogs like BCs and Shelties) are great at following direction but terrible at independent problem solving (which terriers excel at). Canine intelligence is actually a function of the individual dog, that dog's degree of training and what specifically you are testing for.[quote]


Basenji Intellegence
has a good synopsys of the work of fuller and scott