I'm finally getting a dog!

Dominic

I do like a Bassett .......great dogs

joneve

What a bloody lovely dog! 

With regards to toilet training and sleeping, we set alarms every few hours the first few weeks of getting our springer, to get up, take her out, get her to toilet with loads of praise, stick her back in her crate and go back to bed with minimal fuss (other than praise for going outside). 

Repeat process often in the day and they soon get it. 

Sounds like she’s happy in her crate already which is usually half the battle. If they love their crate, you’re laughing as it makes everything else so much easier! 

Revolutions

Congratulations, she’s gorgeous! Dogs are the best

boogieman

Awww, what a lovely pup. Enjoy life together. 

RedRabbit

Woke up this morning to a very happy pup and a clean crate!  She did make a mess inside again after I'd already taken her out and she'd done her business in the garden.  She might be a double pooper in the morning.

The garden got invaded by my neighbour's three dogs while we were out last night.  Thankfully, they're all very well socialised and just had a quick sniff at her before bounding off.  Layla was completely unfazed by it.

She keeps getting hiccups after eating so I think I'm going to have to get her one of those puzzle bowls.  

She's currently curled up in a patch of sunshine with Mr Duck (the only toy she's really taken to).

Brio

Brilliant. She looks spot on.
I'm reunited with the dogs in Weymouth and am really looking forward to 10 days on the cliffs and beaches with them.

Offset

With so much shit going on elsewhere in the world this is such a happy, heartwarming thread and returning to it today immediately cheered me up. Dogs are wonderful creatures.

Chris77

We nearly adopted a rescue Bassett a few years ago - lovely dogs.
Ended up with another two year old cross breed who had never been on a lead and had zero recall.  
After a lot of trial and error I discovered that having a dog whistle and a tube of Primula cheese in my coat pocket was magic solution. 
She now 'gets it' and responds to the whistle whether there's a reward or not. 
Bassets are famously stubborn but all dogs seem to be mad for cheese.

RedRabbit

Okay, I'm after some advice here.

Layla has settled in nicely but seems to be struggling with toilet training.  I appreciate it's early days, but she just seems like she'd rather wee inside than out.

I'm taking her out at least once an hour and always after she's slept or eaten, but when I take her out she just wants to walk along the flag stones and try to eat the bushes.  If I purposefully put her on the grass, if she doesn't go pretty much immediately, she just starts pulling to go to the flag stones/bushes.  If I let her go to them she just spends her time sniffing and digging up moss.  If I don't let her go she just keeps pulling no matter how often I bring her back to me.

I'll have her out for at least 10 minutes and she'll do nothing (which I expect occasionally).  The frustrating bit is that a few times I've had her out for a while (always at least 10 minutes if she's not doing anything) and she'll pee almost as soon as she's back in the house.  I've just had her out twice in 30 minutes and still she peed when I got her inside.  I don't think it's just a case of leaving her out longer.

If she pees/poos outside she gets treats, praise and a fuss.  If she pees inside I pick her up and take her straight outside (though she hasn't yet finished outside when doing that, she doesn't have big enough wees for that).

Any suggestions welcome!

drofluf

I think you’re taking the right approach. You just need to be patient. The garden is new and exciting with lots of smells and sounds so she’s too interested to pee. Relatively the house is boring so when you take her in the full bladder comes to the front of her mind. 

With my first dog, also a Layla, it took a couple of weeks, but her breeder had done a lot of work for us. The second, whose breeder had been more hands off took a bit longer. 

Revolutions

Yeah, just takes time. The easiest way to achieve it to get on her timing schedule rather than try to get her working to your schedule. Take her out an hour after she pees & see if that helps. But mostly, give it time. Week by week puppies get easier & more self-sufficient.

joneve

Would agree you're doing everything right - just takes some dogs longer than others to click! Try and use a command when she wee's in the garden too (we use "go wee") as it helps when trying to get them to pee on command down the line (ours both go in the garden a wee when asked now) 

RedRabbit

Thanks for the reassurance that I'm at least doing the right thing.  

The first few days have been great and it seemed like things were going well, but today it's like she's been trying to test my patience (thankfully I have plenty of it) and has forgotten the progress she's made over the last few days.

She's fast asleep now, so I'm hoping she wakes up in a more cooperative mood.

joneve

RedRabbit said:

Thanks for the reassurance that I'm at least doing the right thing.  

The first few days have been great and it seemed like things were going well, but today it's like she's been trying to test my patience (thankfully I have plenty of it) and has forgotten the progress she's made over the last few days.

She's fast asleep now, so I'm hoping she wakes up in a more cooperative mood.

We had (have) a 9 year old springer and 2 kids (18 months and 6), and thought bringing another springer puppy into the family was a great idea. 

The first 3-4 months was harder than raising either child (or first dog) - as she was a nightmare and just wee'd all over the hallway carpet - which is now permanently stained - despite multiple cleans and multiple carpet vac treatment (luckily it's an old carpet from before we moved in and we'll eventually be replacing it)...patience wore very, very thin. 

Since she's had her double elbow surgery and been stuck in her crate for nearly 4 months, we've had to take her out on the lead, into the garden 4-5 times a day - so now she understands waiting until she's outside - but there's definitely moments where you question your sanity. All part of the fun  

RedRabbit

For fucks sake, she's just done it twice in quick succession.

I gave her her tea about 4ish and waited 10 minutes to take her out.  After 15 minutes, she did nothing.  Came back in and she was weeing on the carpet in front of the TV within 5 minutes.  Grabbed her and ran out with her. 

Spent another 15 minutes wandering around the garden and yard making sure she could sniff about and wander all she wanted.  Again nothing, so brought her back in.  She immediately squatted in front of the fire and started weeing again.  Grabbed her and ran outside again and all she wants to do is eat grass, moss and the hedge.  I keep pulling her away from the moss and grass or pulling it out of her mouth and I'm slightly worried that it's me doing this that is putting her off weeing out there.

She's now curled up in her crate after putting her in there while I was cleaning up her messes.  I think she knows I'm a little upset with her.

Kittyfrisk

It probably won't help much, but I am currently dealing with a not radically dissimilar situation.
'My' dog is a rescue that has been rehomed at least a few times, for various reasons, known & unknown.
She's about 3 years old & has been with me for 8 months, to avoid her being put down.
She had housetraining issues before I got her, but they stabilised really quickly... until the last few weeks when she has really not wanted to go in the garden last thing for a piss & poo before bed.
She'll go out, maybe have a quick wee then rush back indoors, only to have 'accidents' during the night in her crate/den.
No gentle persuasion or more forceful attempts, will get her to stay out for longer & the behaviour is worse if it's raining, which is fair enough I guess.
I have had to start taking her for a longer walk, sometimes twice at about 11pm before she'll do the business & be OK overnight. Bloody tedious...

The apparent reason for this change in behavior & the (very genuine to her) anxiety?
 I have a photo of the culprit... the scourge & bogeyman of all dogs sleeping happily in their beds at night...


Yep, a single small hedgehog that visits the garden occasionally in the evening can completely freak out a 20 kg dog.
During the day, everything is fine & she's relaxed in the garden, but after 7pm all bets are off & she gets spooky.
(The hedgehog feeding isn't regular, just something I tried after a few visits & done out of sight of the dog).

Dogs are very basic & incredibly complex (like fretboarders), it's just hard to know which bit you are dealing with 

mikeyrob73

With Mini 
we used puppy pads for first couple of weeks, then moved them to the back door, so if we could see her go to the pad, Open the door and and off she would go 
had to wait quite a few weeks for that to work due to her being too tiny to manage the back door step but once she got it, as long as I remembered to let her out every hour she sussed it out very quickly, lots of praise and treats and as she seems to be food driven that worked well. 

https://i.imgur.com/VeJW5kL.jpeg

Offset

Reading some of the stories on here makes me feel like we got off very lightly as far as house-training is concerned!  We got our big rescue when she was between 6-9 months old.  No clue to her background but we suspect she'd been mistreated.  But... it took 2-3 days for her to become completely house-trained so she must have had some previous experience.  She definitely didn't like pee or poo in her living space.  Then 11 months later we got an 8-week old labrador pup - yes there were loads of accidents, but within what can only have been 2-3 weeks he started following the big dog out and going to the loo with her.  There were still occasional accidents but it was all relatively painless.

joneve

Offset said:

Reading some of the stories on here makes me feel like we got off very lightly as far as house-training is concerned!  We got our big rescue when she was between 6-9 months old.  No clue to her background but we suspect she'd been mistreated.  But... it took 2-3 days for her to become completely house-trained so she must have had some previous experience.  She definitely didn't like pee or poo in her living space.  Then 11 months later we got an 8-week old labrador pup - yes there were loads of accidents, but within what can only have been 2-3 weeks he started following the big dog out and going to the loo with her.  There were still occasional accidents but it was all relatively painless.

We were hoping our youngest would start following/taking lead from our 9 year old..but turns out she’s just fucking batshit crazy (in stark contrast to our older Springer who just wants a quiet life ) and that isn’t what happened at all 

Offset

^^ Well our lab isn't the sharpest tool in the drawer and he tends to follow rather than do his own thing.

...and, of course, there was never going to be any doubt as to who was top dog :-)