Pottying FAR from home

[RHicks]

I am new to the forums. My basenji is 1 yr old and this is our 1st dog. Rocky will not go pee or poop unless he is about 2 blocks from home. When we tie him in the backyard he does not do his business so when we get home we have to walk him to his favorite spots far away. This is ok unless there is a big time crunch. How do I get him to have a fav. spot or area in hte yard?

[nala121498]

Welcome to the forum. I personally can't help you out on this one, but I'm sure someone here will! It's a great place to learn and share.

[Lenora]

No, I can't help you either. We have to go halfway to China to potty.

[lvoss]

Basenjis are naturally clean dogs. They do not like to potty in their living space. By keeping him tied in the backyard, he is actually be discouraged to potty there because he will not want to potty in an area that he is spending much of his time. My boy is very picky about where he potties and will not go in our yard. We are lucky and have a park to walk the dogs in that is only about a block away. Walk time is just scheduled into the daily schedule.

[MaxBooBooBear]

My basenji had a dog door to the backyard and pretty much free access in the entire house. My backyard is large, with a large grass area, a decorative rock covered area, and some flower bed/dirt areas, a some small concrete areas--and he would potty anywhere in the yard--even right close to the dog door. But he never ever pottied in the areas where he liked to lay in the sun--which were the flat concrete areas. Once he was housetrained--he only did his business outside. Maybe he thought of the house as his living quarters and the backyard as the recreation/potty area?

[tlbuddy]

I can not take Cali anywhere near my place to use the potty. I live in a condo and we have a place right outside my door that she can go and potty, but she refuses. I always pick up her poop because it is a requirement for this community. Regardless of whether it is raining or cold we have to walk close to the woods that is behind my building before she will relieve herself. This morning we had a raining ice mix and it was very cold, but we were outside for 20 minutes before she would do her business.

[RHicks]

After reading some of the posts on the forum I feel pretty blessed with Rocky. He def. likes his territory clean! We don't have problems with accidents in the house or crate. Just to clarify, since I am new to the forum, we do not leave him tied in the backyard all the time. He does have a tie-in on the back porch with a doggie bed nearby that is used when we are gone and he wants to stay outside.

[jys1011]

I have to chime & agree that my dogs do not like to go where they play unless they REALLLY can't hold it. Try to make a space in the yard for potty only (if you can fence it in do that) and teach him that he can potty there & play in the rest of the yard.

I too have to walk a few minutes before they can potty. I also noticed that my dogs will potty after a little walking. Maybe you can take him for a quick 5 min walk to "motivate" the bowel movement LOL :D and then take him to the yard where you want him to potty.

Good luck!

[alkite]

My dog has to trek far away before he will go. He also won't go out in the open, so he has to find just the right blade of grass growing next to just the right shrubbery before he will do anything.

If you find a solution to the hike before the potty, let me know!

[Duke]

I don't have a hiking problem with this issue, but after reading these posts, Duke would always pee & poop out in the front yard. (not visually pleasing), but now I might assume that he considers the back yard, his playing area and wanted to keep it clean - nice for when the kids are playing back there too. I had recently cut off his access to the front yard because he would harrass the pedestrians, and now notice he will "go" in the brushy wooded area in the very back of the yard. I love that - no more poop scooping! (I hope)

[barkless513]

My Tobias will not poop in our yard either, but strangely enough I think he knows exactly where the property line is, he will walk me to the edge of our property to do his biz. Does anyone have an answer to pulling when on the lead? has anyone tried the Halti? does it work?

[alkite]

Does anyone have an answer to pulling when on the lead? has anyone tried the Halti? does it work?

I sure don't. We've tried a number of things with Giz, but he just keeps pulling. Some days are better than others, it just depends on what kind of mood he's in. It's either the "oooo squirrel" mood or "yummy yum yum, squirrel, squirrel squirrel" mood.:D there is no in between.

[RHicks]

Rocky is a very funny dog. After finding the right spot he will spin around several times only to eliminate in a completely different spot

[lvoss]

There is a whole thread about pulling on while on lead. I know some people have done well using the gentle leader or easy walk harness by Premier. I have been working with my dogs on loose lead walking pretty consistently for 2 years now and though they will still pull it is much less than in the past. Just this week my obedience instructor commented on how proud she was to see that my basenjis are walking on a loose leash more often than not now.

[JazzysMom]

Jazz has no choice but to potty in our yard, as it is fully fenced. But she never goes close to the house.
When we visit my mother, who has 30 acres, Jazz never poos anywhere near the house. I like that....except at night and in the very early morning when we go out in the dark -- Mom lives in the mountains near the woods, and we've seen our share of cougar scat in the yard!

[youngandtired]

Sahara will go in our yard, front or back, depending on her mood. She is great most of the time about making it snappy. The only time I have trouble with her going fast is when it has been raining and the yard is soaked. Of course I have to do the poop scooping , but that is ok, better than the house. Also at night she will not go out by herself, so I take her out on a leash in the yard, (did this when she was just a puppy) and she will go in 5 mins, but not on a leash and it takes forever, go figure!!!! I also have a doggie door so she goes out all during the day, and when I am at work.

[yonae12]

Yup I think most of our dogs need to find the right spot and are very selective when they go potty.

Make certain that if you have long grass or long shrubbery nearby that if he/she goes and does her business there that you check for ticks if you have ticks in your area every day!!

My girl got a paralysis tick on her when she was 13 years old at the time and she was very close to death. It only took a day with the tick on her before she started dragging her hind legs (they were paralyzed) and getting VERY sick. We were very fortunate the vet was able to save her and she was able to recover her leg functions completely.

We didn't keep our girl outside she was an indoor dog, we live in a suburban area and never thought that could have happened to us but it did.

[barkless513]

What? A paralysis tick? We live in TN. and I dont think I have ever heard of such a thing. Do you use Advantx or Frontline on you basenji? If you do and it did'nt work to protect your girl, let us know. Here in the south we have a big problem w/ fleas, ticks, and mosqitoes.With the winters getting warmer and warmer, I think prevention is key, wherever you are. Thanks for the heads up.

[SweetShelby]

Yonae12 is in Australia where everything can kill you. Here in the USA we don't have the same ferocious critters, luckily. Some ticks here can cause Lyme Disease and there are some people who have allergies to certain kinds of ticks but that's all. Of course, your b could have an allergy but unlikely. I spent some time recently in Australia so I had the opportunity to learn quite a bit about their fauna. :D

[JazzysMom]

>>Also at night she will not go out by herself, so I take her out on a leash in >>the yard,

LOL Jazz won't go out alone at night either. She just hunkers down at the edge of the porch, peering out into the darkness {we have woods up against our fence.} We have to make our old dog go out with her. Once Gypsy steps one foot out the door, Jazz will take off into the darkness. I guess she just needs to know that someone is there.
Gypsy is 12.5 yrs old though, and beginning to show definite signs of age. In another couple of years, I suppose it'll be me out there in the dark with Jazzy.

[yonae12]

Not sure what was being used before, my mum was taking care of the bathing as she was a family dog. Before this incident the only time when our girl ever got a flee on her is when we put her in a boarding kennel for a holiday we went on -- never again!

But yah whatever we were using before for the ticks didn't work! :( I can remember the vet saying that front line is good and we used that after she was in for a three night stay. It was horrible, I didn't sleep a wink.

Shelby is right, there is probably more of a potential with the ticks in Australia, esp. on the eastern coast where I am from, but the paralysis tick also exists in the US and in Europe too. So I guess you can't be completely safe anywhere.

I've been living in Florida for six months now (moved bcuz my hubby is from the US), the skeeters grow pretty big here too!! LOL. I didn't feel right taking Ash over here as she very old and is my "family's" dog, even though technically I picked her out of the litter, trained her and fed her for years. I miss her alot!

[spitfirekrl1]

This is all too funny. It definately must be a basenji thing. Alani will also walk very far away to do her business. She will never pee or poo any where near our building. And she also spins around for about five minutes until she poos and even then she sometimes isn't satisfied with the spot and will have to walk even farther. She won't go where dogs frequent (most people don't clean up after their dogs in my complex, very annoying) so we have to find a, somewhat, unused area.

[JazzysMom]

Oh yes, Jazzy usually must spin a few times before she can actually "go".
I've never had another dog do that.

[alkite]

Giz doesn't spin but he sort of seperates the grass with his paw, like he is sifting through it to be sure there isn't anything there before he squats. He has to have his back to us, too. When my hubby and I first started walking both dogs together, we couldn't figure out why he would NOT go. It took us 15 blocks before we caught on that there was someone on both sides of him so he couldn't turn his back to us.:D Poor Gizzy!

[jys1011]

Oh yes, Jazzy usually must spin a few times before she can actually "go".


How funny!! Both my B's do the same thing! :D

[Dajana]

At the wintertime, my dogs will pee near by front door. But won't poop. As you can guess, there is some difficulties about that when it's really cold weather and lot of snow. Temperature might be under -40 c in worst case.

[BDawg]

Lexi will pee on grass, but prefers pinestraw. She will not poop unless we take her to "her spots" which are at the opposite ends of the earth. We can take her around and around and spend a lot of time-- OR we can just go right to her spot and she'll go as soon as we get there. So at least we get to choose: time or distance. hahahahaha...

[BDawg]

I forgot to mention that today was the first day Lexi has seen snow. We only have a few patches, but she kept going up to each little patch and sniffing it-- and then she kept marking on them. I guess she thought they were little while poo piles. It was really cute because she just couldn't quite comprehend what they were!

[alkite]

I think Giz would love to be somewhere where there was only a patch here and there. We just got a few inches and Giz just gives us the MOST disgusted look when we take him out in the snow:rolleyes: you just know he's thinking "stupid human, must we do this?"

[spitfirekrl1]

It isn't so bad for us unless it's a blizzard out. The last big snow storm we had she refused to go out in. But when it's just a few inches on the ground she doens't mind. She LOVES the mounds that we have from the last storm. She likes to climb to the top of them like she's queen of the mountain. Find the next one from the top and run down to the next.

[jys1011]

OMG!! me too me too!!! We had snow for the first time & they looked around like what's the deal with this stuff...I don't think they liked this at all :eek: and this morning they would NOT poop...I'm worried I'll find a present when I get home today. UUUGGHHH!

Can it really be too cold or snowy to poop??!

[JoeyQ]

Joey too will pee in our yard, but NEVER poop! He has his spots which of course are way down the street and are field areas with taller grass! (More privacy you know.) He does the, what I will now call "the B spin", before he poops too. Sometimes it takes him FOREVER though to get the last little tidbit out. I think he thinks his insides have to be super clean too!
As for snow, he is indifferent. He moves a bit faster as I am sure it is cold on his paws, but doesn't act as anything is too different.

[red and white furever]

Can it really be too cold or snowy to poop??!
Stormie says yes it can be - and too rainy, as well. Life with b's is always interesting! lol!

[Mantis]

I am new to the forums. My basenji is 1 yr old and this is our 1st dog. Rocky will not go pee or poop unless he is about 2 blocks from home. When we tie him in the backyard he does not do his business so when we get home we have to walk him to his favorite spots far away. This is ok unless there is a big time crunch. How do I get him to have a fav. spot or area in hte yard?

When my two were indoor dogs for 3 years in a condo community, we had to walk and poop everyday. I always had to have them poop in specific areas so that the other people living in the community wouldnt get mad.

Here are the things I did to get them to poop immediately on our walk. I fed them after work. So the routine when like this. I came home. Peed both in the back yard as soon as they were let out of the crate (gigantic). Then they immediately came in to eat. I do not free feed because of Beta's food aggression and my fat cat experiences. Once fed, we immediately went for our walk.

They both walked together on a splitter leash and I kept the leash short for the first half on the walk. If they pulled, I stopped and stood until they would both sit and look at me. Then we would continue. They recognized early on that walks required them not to be lunatics on the leash at first until they went potty. I didnt let them sniff the grass or pee everywhere. We just walked in the road until they got to the spot I wanted them to use. That was the first grass they touched. I usually could determine where the spot would be based on (please excuse my crassness here ) there ahole. I would call it the eye jokingly with my husband. I think the key with this was not letting them wander in the grass until it was time.

The rest of our walk (a circle) was long leash the whole way back to the condo. They understood that business came first, and then free range sniffing because I wouldnt have to worry about them going in someone's yard.

Plus! Coordinating poop pickup by yourself with two basenjis on a spliter leash should really be considered an art form!

Doing this with my kids made it much easier on me and I enjoyed our walks together.

Caesar always likes to walk it out a bit when he is preparing to go. I found early on that a slight tug when he is preparing will turn him around and change his direction. If I give him a slight tug each time he turns, he will poop closer to me than far away. Beta would just unleash her business when it was time without any need for pacing.

So what do you think about that? It was my routine. I never let them pee in our front yard because the other dogs in the neighborhood would try to mark their scents. I used stinky plants and flowers in our beds to keep animals away from the yard. What are those flowers called? The little yellow and orange hearty small round flowers contruction people use in landscaping? They are also used to line gardens to keep rabbits out? Anyone know what I am talking about? Chresanthemum? Is that it?

[red and white furever]

I used stinky plants and flowers in our beds to keep animals away from the yard. What are those flowers called? The little yellow and orange hearty small round flowers contruction people use in landscaping? They are also used to line gardens to keep rabbits out? Anyone know what I am talking about? Chresanthemum? Is that it?

Marigolds maybe? I use them around the border of the veggie garden to make it semi-bunny proof.

[Mantis]

thats it,marigolds!

[carol]

I had the same problem with my guys, but I cannot walk them here, we have no safe areas, and I live in the suburbs. We have screaming neighbors, coyotes ready to snark you or the dog, and also the occasional loose dog.
So I would wait till Angel, a mix who hates everything,had to go so bad when I got her to where I wanted her to poo, she was ready!! I also keep a small lower, cement floored hall; paper covered! Samuel even if he is in emergency mode, to do stuff, seldom goes inside, he runs out does business and runs in! gg No sniffs if he has to go!! I just picked a good spot close to house, picked up a poo on the paper, put it out there and Angel went there. Its hard to get them to do what they do not want too do!! ggg Carol

[Cherylwordweaver]

I am so relieved to read about the Basenji spin, I was at first worried that Beeji had a twist in his guts or was just having a fit, but then realized he just has to spin. I can tell when he is going to poo since he spins but he hasn't exactly picked one spot to go. We have about four places that he will use but all at different times. Go figure.

I too believe in the poop and scoop and though it is not fun, I do it. Lots of folks here in the neighborhood don't do it and some even look at me like I am nuts for picking up. I sometimes wonder what they are thinking!!

The only challenge I have with the spinning is that the poo doesn't wind up in a single pile but layed out in a circle so I have to stretch a bit.

I have taught Beeji to stand still once he is done. I wait till he finishes and does his kicking thing. (do all Basenjis do that? He kicks dirt and grass etc up with his back feet sort of in the general direction of where pooed. He also does this when he pees.) Anyway after the cat kick as I call it, I tell him to stand and then I slip the lead around my wrist, get the plastic bag and do my part! Then off we go.

I like the idea of a short tight lead till he actually gets to the business of pooing. I will try that in the morning.

What a hoot a Basenji is. Even my mix can make me wonder so I can't imagine a full blooded B and me!!! But it might be fun. After all, I'm finding with Beeji, he is sort of like chips, you have a hard time stopping with just one!!!

Aloha,

[MaxBooBooBear]

The only challenge I have with the spinning is that the poo doesn't wind up in a single pile but layed out in a circle so I have to stretch a bit.


Since Max often had loose stools due to inflammatory bowel disease, I would take paper plates in a plastic bag on our walks. When he would start the basenji spin, I would reach down with a plate. I got pretty darned good at catching everything :) Of course, sometimes the neighbors would look at me funny. But that was easier than trying to get it up off the ground if it wasn't firm. One time, a young boy was with his dad who was doing some construction on a house by me, and he had his dad's megaphone he was playing with. He started giving a blow by blow description over the megaphone of me following behind Max trying to catch his poop. Now that was a little much :eek:

[JazzysMom]

Jazz doesn't spin while she goes, but before. She remains still to poo, which makes clean up nice and easy.

That's also how she lets me know she needs out to poo. If she only needs to pee she just runs to me and acts very restless, but if she has to poo she stands in front of me and spins.

[Mantis]

When I first adopted Beta as a rescue, she would walk or pace and poop becuase she was scared of the area around her because it was unfamiliar.

[Cherylwordweaver]

Since Max often had loose stools due to inflammatory bowel disease, I would take paper plates in a plastic bag on our walks. When he would start the basenji spin, I would reach down with a plate. I got pretty darned good at catching everything :) Of course, sometimes the neighbors would look at me funny. But that was easier than trying to get it up off the ground if it wasn't firm. One time, a young boy was with his dad who was doing some construction on a house by me, and he had his dad's megaphone he was playing with. He started giving a blow by blow description over the megaphone of me following behind Max trying to catch his poop. Now that was a little much :eek:

You gotta love little boys!!

I am sitting here laughing out loud with tears running down my face!! The visual of you keeping a paper plate in position....

Oh my, I needed that laugh. I have no clue what Beeji would do if I tried that. I had a friend who had a Samoyed and when she went, my friend would place a sheet of newsprint under her. Upon finish, roll the print and bag it.

This morning we went on a nice long walk and Beeji found a new place to poo! It is even farther away, but then it was my fault for walking so far (he says)

At least I'm getting exercise! I should take some before pics of me now and then this time next year. After a year of daily long walks, I should notice something!!!

Aloha,

[firefoxkatan]

hmm I was having a hard time getting Bindi to poop in the back yard, she was doing fine for the first week, she kind of went in the same places for the most part, she changed them every now and then, but now I can't get her to poop out there

she's not really leash trained yet and often is too distracted by traffic to do her thing in the front yard :/ maybe she feels the back is her play spot? yet she poops right next to the toys in the living room sometimes *sigh*

I hope she poops outside soon, she's been holding it for most of the day :/

~Kat