Frustrated with pup

[WayneS]

Hello,

I am a new owner of a 6 month old Basenji girl named Max. We got her when she was about 2 months old. For the most part she is the perfect dog, smart, playful, quite, and clean. However, she is also very stubborn. We take her on walks in the morning and evening, and during the day occasionally. These walks have one purpose, to get her to pee and poo outside. For a while she would pee and poo pretty quickly outside, then she started taking longer and longer to go. For the past couple of weeks, she holds it forever, and then goes in the house once we get back in. I am loosing patience and am tired of cleaning up the messes.

She is crate trained, and stays in a crate during the day with our Yorkie without any issues. We walk both the Yorkie and Max together and the Yorkie goes without issue, but she is older.

I have noticed that Max does not like to go on the wood or tile floors, so she tries to find a rug, or she jumps on the couch and pees and poos on the couch. This is very frustrating.

Help…

[ibi_n_sane]

maybe in her case she gets attention when she does it in the house and no attention when she does it outside?
I am not sure but it doesnt sound that you do a lot of activities with her, go out more with her, do games, make things fun, give her the positive attention that way she doesnt need to get negative attention.
Praise her when she does it outside and take her outside more often to do her poos and pees and take her also outside to do other things, let her see things etc. as I am not sure if you do that and I think this is her way to get attention anyways…..
when you do it , let me know then I can get you other advice.

[nobarkus]

Definitely trying to let you know about something that's going on. Have you taken her to the vet for a check up? Dog's behavior changes many times tied into something going on physically. Or she's upset about something going on. Has any thing changed in the house? I had a Basenji some years back that was very good alone in the house one day tear up a chair cushion. Turns out he was in bad pain from a bladder infection and that's how he needed to get me to take action. My fault for not taking him in sooner.

[WayneS]

She does not get as much outside play time as she should. We have not finished our privacy fence yet so for the most part, her outside time is on a leash. And she has actually just fully recovered from a broken knee, which was very expensive. We did recently get an outside 10x10 kennel for her to run around in, but she is not too excited about it. She has been to the vet regularly and all is good there.

My wife thought she noticed some discharge the other day, she may be getting close to her first heat cycle.

[nobarkus]

How long are her walks? Does she walk/play without any favoritism the that knee? Sometimes it takes mine 15-20 minutes into a walk before he poops. She may just want more walk time. I'm just guessing here.

[lvoss]

Another thing, when she does pee or poop do you continue to walk her or do you turn back around and head home? If you head home as soon as she is done doing her business you inadvertently teach them that doing your business means the end of the walk. Make sure you keep on walking for a little while after she does business before heading home or that you are walking a specific walk that you always walk so she know pottying won't change the length of the walk.

To try to get her pottying again outside on walks, try taking her someplace new even if it means a short car trip to get to a local park. Usually the excitement of being somewhere new gets things moving and they will go then you can praise for doing her business outside.

[Rita Jean]

If we take Jaycee out first thing when she wakes up and only walk her in the yard. Not good we run her around in the yard and play ball what ever until she is all worked up and out it comes. The other day was the first time since we got Jaycee back in March all of us were gone for one hour and soon as we got home we took her out and she pee and poop and came in looked at us like well you left me watch this and she went potty on my floor. When my husband named Jaycee it was to be just J.C. with that stand just cause I can, just because I wanted to, just cause I will. He may have been correct J.C. not Jaycee.
Good luck let us know what happens.

Rita Jean

[nobarkus]

I take mine on different walks each time. Never anything less than 30 minutes and up to 1 hour. Sometimes I take him out in the truck to a different location for a walk or to the dog park for at least 1 hour.

[Basenjimamma]

I wish I had any input, but I don't. I do agree on maybe praising her when she does go outside so she get positive reinforsement "drilled" into her behaviour..We have a schnauzer mix that sometimes does just that, pees once she comes in again, we just simply tell her "go potty, be a good girl", and when she does we parise her up and down about being such a good girl, going potty.
Is she is coming in to heat, normally her vulva would swell a little as well as a discharge being present, but the discharge can be days after she is actually already in heat. Our girl, the schnauzer mix, actually ended up having a "false pregnancy" so she got very swollen and grumpy, although we never did see an discharge at all.

[tanza]

@WayneS:

Hello,

I am a new owner of a 6 month old Basenji girl named Max. We got her when she was about 2 months old. For the most part she is the perfect dog, smart, playful, quite, and clean. However, she is also very stubborn. We take her on walks in the morning and evening, and during the day occasionally. These walks have one purpose, to get her to pee and poo outside. For a while she would pee and poo pretty quickly outside, then she started taking longer and longer to go. For the past couple of weeks, she holds it forever, and then goes in the house once we get back in. I am loosing patience and am tired of cleaning up the messes.

She is crate trained, and stays in a crate during the day with our Yorkie without any issues. We walk both the Yorkie and Max together and the Yorkie goes without issue, but she is older.

I have noticed that Max does not like to go on the wood or tile floors, so she tries to find a rug, or she jumps on the couch and pees and poos on the couch. This is very frustrating.

Help…

I would have to agree with lvoss, she has figured out that going potty means the end of the walk… and also sounds like she may not be getting enough walk time......

[WayneS]

Thanks everyone. I will try to take everyone's advice. I had read that basenjis can be head strong, but I guess I wasn't as prepared as I thought I was.

I think I will take her down to the lake this evening and let her play. In the mean time, I am going to put the fence project on the top of my to do list. Once we finish the fence she will have a half acre to run around in.

[tanza]

Good Luck and let us know how it goes. We would love to see pictures too….

and as my favorite public service announcement: Has she or her Sire and Dam been DNA tested for Fanconi?

[agilebasenji]

I was going to say almost exactly what lvoss said. What I've been doing with the new (not puppy) malinois is this. I take her out on leash and she has 10 minutes to pee/poop. (With her I was less concerned about pooping as she won't do that in the house, but she's not so concerned about peeing in the house. And let me tell you she has a HUGE bladder.) If she does, I praise!!! and she gets to stay out longer. She loves a good game of fetch, so we do that. If she does NOT pee in 10 minutes, she goes back inside and in her crate. The mantra for her is "No pee; no play". I then take her out in an hour or so (you may want to do more frequently for a young pup; the mali is about 2).

Why don't I just go out and wait for her to pee? Because I don't want her waiting longer and longer to pee. Because I may decide to do agility with her and I don't want to have to stand out with her for 30 or 40 minutes waiting for her to pee because she's learned that I'm okay with that. Because I do travel with my dogs quite a bit and I don't want to add hours to my trip because I had to wait 30 or 40 minutes waiting for her to pee. Because it gets cold here in Colorado and I don't want to stand outside in nasty weather waiting for her to pee.

The only other thing I'd add, is don't think of her as stubborn. Things like that tend to be self-fullfilling proficy. And if you approach her with the mind set of "she's very stubborn", you're putting yourself at odds with your pup from square one. She's not stubborn; she just wants what she wants when she wants it. Just like you. Just like everybody else. She's clever, maybe even brilliant. You just have to be as (or more) clever than she and find a way to communicate with her. It's a fun challange and you're up for it. (That's the mind set you have to have to successfully train and have a wonderful relationship with a basenji.)

[sharronhurlbut]

I have to warn you, b's like to keep the yard areas the live in clean. I have a large backyard, fenced and they love to lay in the sun out there…but when it comes to going potty, they want to be away from their home.
So, they get at least 2 long walks a day...
They have to be sick to go in our backyard.
This is fyi.

[Rita Jean]

Agilebasenji, What you said was great I like it. Thank you.

Rita Jean

[MacPack]

Lvoss and Agile are correct, she isn't stubborn, just "focused". And if you go home as soon as business is done, they will try and hold it forever! More tension does not improve behavior, either! So good luck to you, a girl basenji with a mind of her own is an awesome thing.

Anne in Tampa

[tanza]

@sharronhurlbut:

I have to warn you, b's like to keep the yard areas the live in clean. I have a large backyard, fenced and they love to lay in the sun out there…but when it comes to going potty, they want to be away from their home.
So, they get at least 2 long walks a day...
They have to be sick to go in our backyard.
This is fyi.

I have never had a problem with mine going in the yard… and we have a large yard also... they all had their "spots" to go... most in the grass as they prefer to lay on the concrete or the deck...

[WayneS]

Well that seemed to do the trick. I picked up a 16ft retractable leash on the way home and she seemed to love the extra freedom that she gained.

[Basenjimamma]

She is gorgeous and looking mighty happy. Thanks for sharing. Let us know how she is doing..

[MacPack]

Great, glad to hear you had a good walk with her.