kasiunut

My husband and I adopted a 2 year old basset hound female about 2 months ago.

She's absolutely adorable and has wonderful patience with our 4 year old and in general is a very affectionate dog.

However. We are having MAJOR obedience issues.

For example:
The rescue agency told us that she was house-trained. Well - she will urinate or worse almost every single day. And its not for lack of opportunity. For example, I let her out this morning. I saw that she peed but did not poo. However she came back in. Then I went to drop my son off at daycare and when I came back she had pood on the carpet! I had only been gone 20 minutes too. She's done this many times - peed or pood if we leave her (even for very short periods of time), and it seems like she is doing it out of spite.

Also she steals food like its her job. I know its important to remove opportunity and I have tried - but today for example, I came home to find that she had some gotten into a tube of brand new red icing. It had never been opened and was on our kitchen table. She destroyed our carpet (red icing was everywhere) and then has spent the rest of the evening vomiting.

And this is just ONE day!

I'm at my wits end with her because I want to love her but its like as soon as I do, she goes and pees all over the ground, destroys something or eats something. I'm scared to leave the house because all I can think of "what will the dog destroy/crap on while I'm gone?"

We are not the type of people who would ever give up a dog, so I really just want her to be good.

We are thinking of getting a crate and just crating her whenever we leave the house, but is this really a good long term solution??

Any advice would be appreciated.

We are thinking though of getting a cra

Mikey T

that is because it is her job that was what they were bred to do always be on the hunt for food. . so as for an obedience issue I would say the problem is she has not been very effective at training you to put food away and out of reach. expecting a basset to leave food is a loosing battle.


I hate when anyone says this, and it speaks to their ignorance of how dogs learn and look upon the world. Humans are great generalizers. they learn something new an look to see how it applies to other situations, Dogs are poor generalizer but great discriminators. That is once they learn something they look to why what they learned is unique to that situation. for example if you teach a dog sit on only do so in the kitchen that is what the dog learns to sit in the kitchen. Ask the dog to sit in the living room they are likely to ignore you not out of spite but bercause the context and situation is difference. In order for dog to generalize a behavior general take 100 to 1000's of training experience in different contexts, environments and under various distractions. So it is highly unlike any dog in a new environment is housetraine. what the dog learns is the proper place to go in a particular house but it is not that likely that it learn to apply that knowledge to all houses is simply is not how dogs learn. THerefore you must alway assume the dog is not housetrained unless and until it proves otherwise.

Which begs the question why do you allow her back in when you know she has more to do. When you allow her back in you simply training her to pee outside but poop inside. you need to procedd as if she is a puppy see Housetraining Your Puppy

the one and only thing this article is missing is the imporance of a ridged schedual for eating, sleeping, play and access to water. When these are on schedule the dogs elimination happen on a schedule making them much more predictable and therefore possible to manage effectively eliminating accident. a lack of accidents is not a guage of housetraining simply the first step to it.

That said you do not provide and addtional info to confirm but if the only time you are having a problem with housetraining is when you are gone it may be a whole different issue involved Basset being highlly social animals are more more likely to experiece this problem than other breeds see Seperation Anxiety

Mikey T

depend on the cause of the problem is seperatioin anxiety being confiended in a crate makes it much worse ffor some dogs and better for others that said a crate can be invaluable tool for housetrain and is not necesarily a longterm solution but can be an effective tool to help teach appropriate behaviors.

It can also be useful in basic training tool as well


Crate Games DVD


FWIW as you know well most bassets are highly motivated by food. When it comes to training food can be your best friend when it comes to training a basset

Training with Food

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


on thing I see all the time when training a basset with food is the presence of food itself become to big a distraction for the dog to overcome which is why I recomend the following exercise to teach the dog self control especial in the presence of food


and for house train especial the coming back inside before finished problem I think the following tip can help
Potty training Tip

barneysmom2510

^^^ good advice. As far as pottty training I know I rescued a chihuahua and she was house trained where she was but in the new enviornment she had to relearn it in a new place. I also agree scedulele food and water most peop,e get upset when aI say limit access to water but it works. If they are randomly eating and drinking throughout the day it is impossible to get a potty scheduele going and when puppies have accidents it is or fault. Forget about food I don't know any dog who could resisist snatching food when it is in their reach. Don't leave food within reach and for a basset that is all the way back on the counters.

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-LISA


Mini daschunds Sadie Lou & Daisy dukes
Chihuahua Lola
Bassett Hound Barney

Wworm

Congrats on your basset rescue & please post some pics soon!

the fastest way to housetrain for us (mission accomplished in 1 to 1 1/2 months with less than a dozen 'accidents') was to follow Worm around everywhere when he first came home as a 4 month old puppy. the moment he started peeing or pooing we interrupted him & made him stop, and took him to the potty spot. he learned quickly from this actually.

anytime we could not literally follow him around, he was in the crate. ie. when we r cooking, using the bathroom, taking a shower, taking out the trash. so for us, the crate was invaluable. if we left him unattended at home, he would have certainly had had more accidents. i would say the crate is the best thing for this type of training. unless you can leave him outside when you can't watch him closely. otherwise even if you fence off a room in the house or let him only in the kitchen, would you be ok having him pee/poo there when you couldn't watch him? probably not. and if the answer is yes, then it can get more confusing for them. ie. i can pee/poo in the kitchen but not the other rooms. that is hard for a dog to understand.

so we made the rule, no business whatsoever inside. it's all outside. & Worm seems to get that. so for us, the crate was the only option for us.

good luck with everything!

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see what the Worm is up to: http://bassetworm.blogspot.com/