We adopted a beagle through BONES (Beages of New England States), a rescue organization. He was named Webber by his foster family because they found out about him on the Web. One child thought we should change his name to Shiloh, but Webber he remained. He was about a year old, and had been found on a Virginia roadside after being hit by a truck. He was recovering from surgery when we brought him home. Among other things, the foster family told us that he 1) was housetrained and B) hated to be crated.
He was no longer housetrained when he moved in. It was probably the stress of the move after everything he'd been through, but there were messes in the kitchen whenever we were gone. (Although I must point out that we were grateful that he confined himself to the kitchen). #1 taken care of, it leads us right to B.
He really did hate to be crated. On the advice of our vet, we put him in a crate while we were gone-- the idea being that dogs won't make messes where they eat or sleep. Except that Webber hated being crated so much that he didn't care that it was his only place to sleep during the day. So, instead of coming home to an easily cleaned up mess, I came home to a smelly crate that had to be washed out every day.
Back to the vet for advice. He suggested putting his water bowl in there, to make it more "den like." This resulted in the mess Webber made in the crate being more easily smeared around the inside of the crate. So, instead of coming home to an easily cleaned up mess, I came home to a smelly crate that had to be washed out and a dog that needed a bath every day. We gave up on the crate, and -miraculously- he was trained.
There is more to this story, of course. There is the flash-forward two years to today, but I will continue later. For now, let's leave it on a happy note.
4 comments:
He's gorgeous, M&O. Sounds like he's been through some rough stuff though... poor boy. Have you tried those puppy-training pads that you can put down and encourage the dog to pee on? There's something about them (the smell, I think) that makes dogs want to use them as their toilet. Then you gradually place them outside, etc...
Mysty was a nightmare to housetrain. So intelligent in every other way, she picked up on all the basic commands in no time. But housetraining...? No. She was over six months old before she had the hang of it, and that's a long time for a pup to go.
Do you have a secure yard for Webber? Is there any way you could leave him outside for an hour or so before bed, so he has plenty of time to do whatever he wants out there...? I'm probably spouting tediously obvious stuff here, mind you. I just know how frustrating it is to have a dog that doesn't 'get' housetraining.
He used to get it, which is the frustrating thing. And unfortunately I don't have a secure yard for Webber (or Aurora, for that matter). It would be nice for both of them to spend more time outside.
"It would be nice for both of them to spend more time outside."
Nice for you or for them?
Jokes aside, i'm sorry you are having such a terrible time getting Webber housetrained.
He looks, as flowyks said, gorgeous.
It's weird that you posted these entries about Webber now, as i had been meaning to ask about the dog. You hadnt mentioned him for sooo long.
Nice for both me and for them, but I was actually thinking more of them. Since they can both spend time outside only with superivision and I don't really want to supervise. Well, Webber has a lead we put him on at times, but I can't really do that with Aurora.
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