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housebreaking a bassett hound
I'm having a housebreaking problem with our Bassett. We adopted him
from a rescue organization three months ago. He is approximately 1 to 1.5 years old. In the three months we have owned him, he has urinated a half dozen times in his crate, and a half dozen times on our carpets. The problem is that he never ever tells us when he has to go. No howl, no crying, no pacing, no standing by the door, nothing. To be on the safe side, we always let him out at scheduled times: 6:30am (after his meal), 12:00 (when I come home from work for lunch), 3:30 pm (when my wife comes home from work), 5:30pm (after his meal), and then 9:30 pm (right before his bedtime). This dog just cannot hold his water. This forces us to meter the amount of water we give him and when we give it to him. I really hate to do that but we have no other choice. If we give him just a tiny bit more than he's used to, or if we give it to him at the wrong time, or if we give it to him more than three times a day, it goes right thru him. Whenever we leave him outside anywhere, we have to make sure there is no standing water anywhere. When we visit my in-laws we have to remove their dog's water bowls to prevent our dog from drinking from them. As I stated above, I started measuring the amount of water we give him and gradually increased it every few days when I thought he was able to handle it. I started him with only a 1/4 cup at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. As days became weeks, I started to increase the amount every few days to a 1/2 cup, 3/4 cup, 1 cup, 1.25 cups, and now up to 1.5 cups. He was really catching on so I figured that since my wife and I are almost always home in the evenings, that I would give him a full bowl of water at dinner. He probably only drank half of that each time, but I always gave him the opportunity to drink more. I would always dump what he did not drink within 15 minutes of setting it out. I had to, in order to control his schedule. He had an occasional incident here and there, but they were mostly our fault...when my wife and I crossed signals about whether the dog last drank, and when he was alone in his crate longer than four hours. Until last night, I thought we finally housebroke him. Yesterday I gave him his usual 1.5 cups at breakfast and lunch, then gave him a full bowl at dinner. He drank less than half his bowl at dinner. He urinated and pooped right after dinner and I decided to take him on a walk (it had been a week since his last walk, but when we are home he is free to roam our huge backyard since we have the invisible fence). On his walk he urinated again (only 15 minutes since the last time) and when we came home, I had to leave the house for a while, but my wife was home, so she kept him outside for another 1/2 hour. While outside, he finished his bowl of water. Big mistake on our part, we should have dumped the water he did not drink. My wife brought him inside the house around 7:30pm, not knowing that he finished his bowl. I returned shortly thereafter and planned to take him out for his usual 9:30 bedtime bathroom break. At 9:15, I noticed he urinated on our carpet. This confused me. He had gone almost a month since the last incident and did not give any indication that he had to go. He did not pace, did not howl, etc... In fact he was playing as he usually does with his little stuffed animal. What can I do to make him "tell" us when he has to go? I really don't want to give him up because he is a great companion, but I can't tolerate this much longer. Please help! |
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