Dog training questions

Howdy all,

My sister and I recently moved into a house together and she has a 4 month old Basset Hound puppy. The puppy is quite adorable, but, she has only had it for a couple of months. Her old roommates made no real attempt to train the dog well, so we’re still working on the fundamentals of going to the bathroom outside.

Since she’s working nights and I’m working days, puppy has pretty good access to us.

Basically, what we’ve been doing is leaving her outside - it’s very mild and seasonable here right now, she has a bed outside and access to water and plenty of shade, plus a big fenced yard to poke around in with lots of birds and squirrels. She seems to like it and I see her wandering around out there a lot when she thinks we’re not home. We use crating only at night. This won’t be practical in the winter, but, we’re hoping that by then she can be left in a room inside. We could also crate her, and come home during the day (we both work 5 minutes from home so we can come home at lunches).

However, we want her to be an inside dog, but we can’t always keep an eye on her all the time right now to make sure she’s not peeing somewhere; we’re moving in, cooking dinner, and what have you. Our basic technique is when we come home or get up in the morning, let her see us (we’re working on having her not bark, and she pretty much just sits by the door now), then, go outside with her, let her get excited and greet her. After that, we try to have her go to the bathroom. She is pretty good about doing this most of the time. Then, we bring her in. After an hour or so, we take her out again.

We are really working with the words “No”, “Inside”, “Outside”, and “Potty”. She seems to no “No” and “Potty” (not that she always listens).

There have been very few accidents with this method, but we’re having a couple of problems:

  • How do we teach her to “ask” to go outside? It’s basically always us prompting her.

  • She seems to associate her command to go to the bathroom (potty) with peeing. We’ve let her have some outside time after dinner, and there have been only a couple of nights with accidents in the crate, and once was pooping. But, we don’t know how to get her to know that “potty” means poop too.

Everything we read indicates Bassets are among the most difficult to train. She does not seem to exhibit too much stubbornness (except for liking to sneak away and grab your shoes). She seems eager to please for the most part.

Any suggestions? This is our first dog so we are really trying to train her right.

What you are asking could take up a whole book… and has. May I suggest My Smart Puppy by Sarah Wilson and Brian Kilcommins?
Leaving your pup outdoors is not training anything, and is missing a whole lot of training/socializing opportunities you could be having.

Until you get the book, though - either crate the pup or tether her to you. Don’t let her wander around until she gets the urge to pee!

For teaching her to ask to go outside, buy a bell, and hang it on the wall next to the door. Every time you take her out, have her ring the bell with her nose. Pretend to be very excited when she rings the bell. Eventually she’ll start ringing it on her own. You must let her out every time she rings it, even if she just got back inside at first, so she’ll know that ringing=outside. Hounds can be hard to train just with praise, so you might need to give her a treat too. Every dog is different and she might not ever become stubborn, but she most likely will as she gets older. One other thing: never let her off leash in an unfenced area. It’s near impossible to train a hound to come back 100% of the time.

For training her to go on command, my beagle has different words for number 1 and number 2. I don’t know if it would be possible to teach a dog two behaviors for one command. I’d start using the crate during the day too sometimes when you can’t watch her. Of course you don’t want to leave her in there all day, but it’s important that she learn to be comfortable in there during the day if necessary, that way it won’t be a shock when winter comes.

Fetchund, thanks for the advice. I have already done a lot of reading but am trying to focus on just those specific issues, and most books don’t seem to have “troubleshooting” – it’s more like “do this exact routine”, which doesn’t always fit. I really don’t want to have to crate the dog during the day, as it’s much less pleasant for her. I do keep her inside as much as possible, even with a leash to keep an eye on her, but am looking to move to the next step.

Omega Glory, the bell is a really interesting idea. We may have to try that. So far praise has been valuable but we do use treats on occasion. She seems very receptive to praise for a hound - she gets really excited. So far I’ve been trying to play with her for a few minutes after bringing her inside, too.

We won’t let her off-leashed in an unfenced area. She’s only ever offleash inside, in the fenced backyard, or at the (fenced) dog park.

Actually, the crate should be very pleasant for her. My dog is just a little older than your dog and I’m working from home today. Normally I leave the house about 7:30. Murphy ran around a little this morning, by 9:00 was sleeping at my feet, and shortly thereafter moved to his crate (with the door open) where he has been voluntarily for two hours. He feels secure. He naps all day anyway. We get him out for half an hour or so around lunchtime. Then he’ll nap the afternoon away and spend the evening making trouble with the kids.

Though you have to make sure the crate is small enough so she won’t mess in it. Sounds like that is a problem for her.

Hounds are supposed to be very tough to train. However both of my beagles learned very quickly. I think Quincy learned within a couple days . Nordberg learned even faster. We have a breezeway and I followed them outside to make sure they went. When they did I petted them and praised them. it takes a little time but I think consistency is the clue.
Your dog will have you trained in a short time.