Can We Housetrain An 8 Year Old Dog?

This is a question I was asked recently and of course, I said, absolutely. This dog had literally been peeing and pooping in the house all its life. The elderly lady that owned it simply never took the time to housetrain her dog.

She felt that this breed was difficult to housebreak so why bother. However it turns out that she said that about every dog she ever owned. Now she is in hospice care and her daughter has agreed to take the dog if we could get it housetrained.

It seemed pretty straightforward and yes we have housetrained dogs this old before however there is now a twist in the problem. We always use a crate and I also like to get the dog out of the house and on the grass as much as possible so that the grass becomes the preference of where it does its business.

But guess what? This dog has recently been diagnosed as being allergic to grass. Well we were not going to quit just because of that. We actually helped the client create a potty area using a small hard plastic kid's swimming pool. Inside the pool we installed some artificial turf that you can get at any of the big box building material stores.

Then we bought a puppy exercise pen and stuck the potty pool inside. Now we have an enclosure that she can put her dog in until it does its business.

But wait we are not finished, there is still more.

We want the dog to be in one of three places for the next 4 - 6 weeks to create the new house training habit. The dog MUST be in one of these places at all times:

1. The crate

2. The potty pool area

3. Attached to the dog owner with a leash so that it cannot wander off and do it business in the house.

After 5 ½ weeks of training, she started allowing the dog to have some freedom in the house. She also followed my directions and removed the puppy x pen from around the pool so that the dog had access to it without having to be placed in the pool.

SUCCESS!!! Yes, this 8-year-old dog is now house trained and living a happy life with the new owner instead of being sent away to a shelter.

If your older dog needs potty training take the time to do it. It's never too late.

Source:http://ezinearticles.com/?Can-We-Housetrain-An-8-Year-Old-Dog?&id=9021148

5 Benefits Of Adopting An Adult Dog

Adopting an adult dog has many benefits over starting off with a puppy. In this article, we are going to talk about some of those benefits that you might enjoy by adopting an adult dog.

1. Don't have to deal with all the puppy raising issues

When was the last time you raised a puppy. Raising puppies can be a real pain in the rear and time-consuming as well, especially if you work or are gone away from home for long periods of time. In the beginning puppies need lots of time and attention to take them out to do their business and in feeding them multiple times a day. With an adult dog you shouldn't have to do that.

2. Possibly house trained

When starting with an adult dog there's a possibility that it's already housetrained which will make your life much easier. However if it isn't housetrained when you adopt it, it should be very easy to accomplish that task.

3. You know what you are getting

What I mean by this is when you get a puppy you never really know what you have until it matures. With an adult dog "what you see is what you get" so you know exactly what the dog will look like and how big it will be. You also have an opportunity to see its personality and demeanor around other dogs and other people before you bring it home.

4. Possibly had some training and some manners

With any luck possibly your new dog has had some training but if not no big deal because contrary to what you may have heard before "you can teach old dogs new tricks". In fact sometimes an older dog can be much easier to train because they are calmer to deal with.

5. An adult dog can be calmer

Depending on the age of the dog and whether or not it has had any training you may find an adult dog is much calmer than a puppy. This has its benefits if you're bringing the dog home to a family with small children or older adults.

As you can see there could be some real benefits by adopting an older dog. However please understand that it's not always this easy. You need to make sure that you learn as much as possible about the dogs background and why the previous owner was disposing of it.

I think one of the most important things to consider is aggression. If the dog wasn't socialized properly as a young puppy there may be fear or aggression and that is something that can be tough to deal with.

I always warn people when adopting a new dog that the first 15 days you really don't know the dog yet. It seems that they always seem to be on their best behavior for the first couple of weeks but after that time the real dog comes out. So make sure that were ever you adopt the dog from global and we take it back if there are some major issues that pop up later that you are not willing to deal with.

So go become a hero to a dog and give it a forever home. It will love you forever!

Source:http://ezinearticles.com/?5-Benefits-Of-Adopting-An-Adult-Dog&id=8560319