I stupidly tried to help... and now I've made a mess of it... (essay, sorry)

[MindReader]

For a really long time I have wanted a dog (have kept spaniels in past).
I live in a house with a garden but the garden is accessed via a busyish lane (ie dog cannot access safely on own) so I didn't think a shelter would allow us to re-home a dog.

I was on gumtree and saw a dog who needed a new home (owners moving, cant take her). I arranged to go see the dog. My initial reaction was: NO as she was much larger than I had been told and also obese. Her eyes looked sore. I spoke to the owner some more and spent a bit of time taking her for a walk. She seemed a lovely dog living in very inadequate circumstances and I felt very sorry for her. She was with another dog and 3 young children in a small chaotic space. I agreed to take her for a couple of weeks to see if she would settle with us. I paid a small sum which the owner had asked for to make sure 'her new owner was genuine' which seemed fair enough to me.

I took her to our vet who says she is clinically obese and has eye and ear infections which seem longstanding. She also has a cherry eye problem. She is very very clingy and will not leave the house with anyone but me. H cant get her over the doorstep ( she is heavy -6stones) so all the walking is down to me. She wakes up at 5am and wont settle so I take her downstairs and give her a light feed and take her outside to toilet. On quite a few occasions she has refused to go out. This morning she refused (as I stood outside in rain) and toileted on H's newspaper sat on floor next to bag ready to leave for work. This has happened at her night time 'toilet walk' (10pm) too.

She is completely unable to cope alone for even 2 minutes. If I go to the loo she will howl and pace and get upset. She is clearly frightened of men - H is taking time with her and she is very wary. She will not move on the lead for anyone but me. If I step outside the front door or creep upstairs when she is asleep she will howl and bark - very very loudly as she is a hound. I work from home so she would never be left for long, and I realise it is early days - poor dog must be so confused - but I cannot be a prisoner like this forever.

I appreciate I have been really stupid here.
I wanted to help but I have taken on much more than I bargained for.
I have started her on Vet treatment for her ears and eyes and she has already slimmed down a bit. She is not being left alone and is begin given plenty of affection and walks. She is a lovely dog in every way but her needs are quite high.
Her old owner will 'accept her back' but will immediately re-advertise her on gumtree as he 'cannot take her' and is moving imminently.
My feeling is that she would be happier with an older retired couple.
I don't want to re-home her, she is not a parcel to be passed around, and my children adore her. BUT, the old owner now tells me she would howl if he left the house, even when at home with their other dog and his wife and kids, so I am clear (only NOW this is not what he told me at the time, of course) that it is a long standing trait of hers.

Please don't flame me. I have been stupid I see. I wanted to 'rescue' her out of her environment (not bad enough for PDSA but bad enough to want to rescue her, iyswim) but I don't see how we can keep her long term?
I also don't want to damage her further by re-homing her again.

Vet quoted £60 for injections, and £200 for spaying (a little less if we can get weight down).

She suggested I contact the Breed society / rescue centres to see if they can advise / help financially as, like me, she would prefer her not to go back to previous owner / random person from gumtree (which I was, after all, but I am doing my best for her, and the Vet can see that).

It's very early days. It's a great shock to the system with a new arrival in the house especially one of a different species. It really sounds as though your dog has landed on her feet. She is losing weight, having her health needs looked after, being loved and being trained.... Our 2nd dog was a nightmare and we really wondered if we'd done the right thing bringing him home. For about 6 months. Our 3rd dog was awful in very different ways and it took a good 18 months to get on top of his behaviour. Our latest arrival is quite easy in some ways and a lovely animal. They all bring their own different things to the household, and all are a huge commitment. The difficulties will pass, and you will have a fantastic best dog ever!

Just wanted to share my experience with our dog's separation anxiety, in case it helps. We crate trained him because he hated being left alone for any time at all, and it was the BEST thing ever for him (and us!). Any time we left him he weed and pooed everywhere, accompanied by an orchestra of howls! Bought a book - Crate Training Quick and Easy by Teoti Anderson and followed it pretty much to the letter, and his crate (or house, as we call it!) is now his fave place to snuggle up in when we leave him on his own. Now we just leave the door open all the time and it's his little den to go in and out of as he pleases :)

I looked after a dog who was exactly the same with weeing in the house instead of on walks. She would literally save it for the whole walk and the flood the hall as soon as we got in! So I feel your frustration here :) perhaps you could try giving her treats and loads of praise when she wees on a walk, so soon she will associate with positive things and do more wees on walkies, and therefore have less need to go inside! But I'm not sure about actually getting her out the door...ours has always been raring to go!

Good luck and persevere - it's amazing that you have given her a home and a family! I'm sure she will turn out to be a wonderful addition with a bit of TLC.

Hi mind reader , when I read your first post I guessed you had acquired a basset :) They are lovely loving dogs but as a previous poster said they are known to be susceptible to certain health conditions. It might be worth you reading up on the breed so you know some of their characteristics. They are very much lap dogs, despite their size so I'm not surprised your hound is trying to nudge your DD out the way to get close to you. My basset doesn't like the rain either & would stand at the door looking outside & as soon as the door was shut , would wee! I think if I was you I would try and house train your hound as if she was a puppy. Taking her outside every 30 minutes & when she goes to the toilet outside, giving her loads of praise. We did crate train our basset too , he's 11 months now and clean in the house so we don't use it any more . Remember that bassets are stubborn & they respond to positive reinforcement, not punishment.There is a FB page called the basset rescue network of Great Britain, they've got a website too. I'm sure they'd be able to give you advice.

Hey! You've done a great thing in choosing to keep the dog, so many people give them up as soon as they're hard work. However I agree that you need to really work on altering some of her behaviours such as her anxiety and weeing inside, and not just letting it become the norm.

I live in England and am not sure quite about differences in the PDSA but I do know that here, if you claim certain benefits then you get reduced vets treatment at PDSA vets. Maybe also get in contact with breed specific dog rescues for help and advice with her, but also local ones? Just for general day to day help and support. I hope she settles in well, she sounds like she could end up being a wonderful girl x

thanks again for the further input!

She is doing well, but we STILL have the 'I wont go outside in the bad weather thanks mum, I'll just pee on the rug' attitude.

She has refused outside 4 times in last 48 hours and we've had 2 accidents - she doesn't even bark to let me know! Aaargh.

Will try the frequent trips advice. She just wont get her paws wet, and I live in Scotland, so it's not a happy situation.

Lovely dog though...

Are you on Facebook? Basset rescue network will give good advice, as will basset hound sos.

Will return to this thread...

Thanks.

Last night.
Out for walk. Home. Fed. 5m later - pees on good rug. No warning woof.
Last night. Refuses to go for late night walk, therefore no last thing pee.
Up 5am - hungry. Refuses walk. H feeds her - turns to put empty bowl on side - she pees all over kitchen.
Took her at lunchtime for a brief walk and she pee'd on grass (she'll only pee on damp grass so far). Took me 10mins to persuade her away from front door. She has loads of 'spare skin'. We have a harness now as the choke was cruel. If you clip the harness really tight it pinches her skin so I leave it 'loose' and if she doesn't want to come she just ducks and weaves till she's wriggled out of it, the minx.
Refused to come with me to collect kids at 3pm so had to leave her 'home alone'. Came back and she was completely hysterical. Heard her howling 2 streets away almost.

Hard work. Lovely lovely lovely girl, but neurotic as heck.

The weeing isn't particularly abnormal in a basset, if it's all been health checked by a vet. They're notoriously difficult to house train (stubborn) and often if they get it into their heads that they'd rather wee inside it can be a hard slog to break it, particularly if it's been ingrained from an early age. Not impossible though.

Is her crate as dark and as blanketed as possible? They often like to nest down, and a lot of crated dogs prefer a proper cave retreat.

Stuffed, frozen kong when you're leaving may be a distraction. Difficult if she's not as food motivated, but that may change once her weight is down a bit.

Simple solution (pets at home) or biological powder in hot water work for washing down floors as previously mentioned. Remember their noses are damn powerful.

Could also try giving her a carrot or pieces of cucumber to chew on, less calories , my hound loves both :)

Well she's just consented to go out for a wee. 4mins in total but the wee is on the grass not in my house so she's been heaped with praise! THe second she'd done her wee she wanted back (it's darn cold tonight - about -5) so we did that. Now in her bed smiling at me, I swear! She IS lovely!

Yes, she loves carrot and pears so is having them for a treat.

yes, Kong good idea as used to use with Spaniel (also neurotic).

She doesn't have a crate and as far as I know didn't have one before.
Might be worth a try?

Mine goes mad for a carrot too (we give them instead of treats. Cheaper and healthier!)

Could be worth trying the crate, particularly if you can borrow one off someone. I got mine off eBay for under £30 brand new though so you don't have to pay the inordinate pets at home prices. There are good guides on introducing them around on the Internet, but I've always fed/given treats in crates to help give positive reinforcement.

Dogmantics.com (kikopup) has some good videos for training - I'm not sure what her crate training ones are like but I'm assuming there will be good stuff on there.

Again, the basset sos group on Facebook is brilliant - one poster in particular really knows her stuff with problem/difficult hounds and could possibly give you some good advice.

Well, she's not pee'd in the house for 2 days ... AND WENT OUTSIDE FRONT DOOR AREA AND PEE'D AFTER HER BREAKFAST TODAY!!!!

mind, she did refuse to go more than 100 yards to collect child from activity last night (not raining). Had to call H to come collect her so I could get child. Dog then refused to move from spot she'd last seen me so when I pitched up with child 5m later H and dog still rooted to spot

I can see why Bassets have a rep for being stubborn!

Taking her back to Vets tonight to see what the week's eye drops have achieved.

Aw that's some progress then :) if you're thinking of buying a cage, we bought a medium sized one from amazon, I think it was around £24. They are stubborn, but that's part of their charm!

Oh she is luffly. When you go near her she lays on her back and waggles her stumpy wrinkly wee paws in the air and wags her tail and looks so grateful when you tickle her tum.

Later, if we keep her, I'll name change and put up a pic.

Then we can all chorus: 'why the long face, doggie?'

Oh love, you are a glutton for punishment! Did you not have quite enough on?! .

It sounds like she's coming along though, with the weeing at least.

Lots of good advice and I've nothing to add really other than...

Hi Chipping - ah, you've found me

Yes, glutton for punishment is about right...

But, actually, she's filled a dog shaped hole in my life, and - most importantly - she doesn't talk back! (though a dog with poss PDA is not quite what I needed, it is true...)

She makes the children laugh too, and they chat happily away to her, so that gets my vote...

I'm not brilliant on my feet but she is such a sedate old tank even my 7 year old can manage her so we stroll along very slowly and that is good for me too.

Yes, a dog can be such a lovely addition to a family. She sounds adorable.

The vet said that with our dog that the separation anxiety was compounded by her terrible eye sight and that she was probably just very scared when she wasn't with us :(

I hope it works out x

I have 2 foster dogs and they were both hard work to toilet train as they'd always lived in kennels. I always use a cue word when I take them out to toilet, something like "wee wees" or "toilet", it's amazing how quickly they learn the association. Also take them out to toilet as soon as they wake up and as soon as they've finished eating. I go out with them, sometimes in my coat and refuse to come in until they've been, one foster I soon discovered has to have 3 wees. She used to have a wee, cue lots of praise and i'd bring her in only for her to do 2 more in the house, so now I have to wait for the 3....strange dog!!!

Another of my foster dogs immediately clung to me like a limpet and cried and howled when I left the room. I slept on the settee for 2 weeks but as she settled things slowly got better, the first time I went to the toilet without her screaming was a major moment lol.

Bassets are well known for the howling, years ago my Auntie had one and one day we could hear this almighty screaming howl, thought something terrible had happened and my Auntie was trying to get him out of his basket and he refused to move...they are extremely stubborn but very loving!

To help with the separation anxiety, they say don't fuss the dog when she comes and demands a fuss, call her to you then fuss her. Also during the day do lots of going in and out of the room shutting the doors behind you even if it's just for a few seconds or minutes.

She sounds like a lovely dog though and you can see that she is making progress already! I've had 8 foster dogs and some have nearly had me in tears with their behaviour but they all come right in the end, it just takes time to put right other peoples mistakes xx

Yes ! Pictures would be great, you don't see many bassets around so I always get excited if I meet another one in RL I'm sane honestly

Dear 'Tank'

She's been back at the Vet tonight and the Vet is really pleased with her.
She's already lost 2 kilos with the walking and better diet.
Her eyes are improved and Vet thinks that it is possible that the cherry eye op can be put back if she responds well to steroid eye drops.

H doesn't want to keep her. He thinks she is too clingy. Pah.

I know which one would be going.

Clue: not the woofy one!!

Chipping you are naughty! but I like it!

that's the thing about dogs - they don't sulk (not for long, anyway...).

They don't sulk much.
They don't leave wet towels on the floor.
They don't hog the remote.

....

I could go on, fact is, we all know which we are better off with if ultimatums are given