[Dailydrool] Congrats on the new puppy and answers to those questions

[Katie Strobel]

Suzanne,

Welcome to you and your puppy! I've given my answers to your questions
below, but by no means do I proclaim to be right or an expert - Watson
is our first basset too and a lot of learning how to care for him came
from trial and error. Each hound is different and really what's is
best for me, or you, may not work for anyone else. Still, the stuff
below is what works for us...congratulations on the new addition! Feel
free to email me anytime. I didn't find the drool until Watson was 1
year old, so I felt helpless a lot of the time during his
puppyhood....or early puppyhood. I wish I would have had this place
back then. Take to heart what these people have to say because they
REALLY know their stuff.

"He was free fed until I got him and I want to put him on a schedule,
I'm trying to do this, but he doesn't eat a lot at one time. Do I need
to pick the bowl up after a certain amount of time and let him get
hungry?"

I would give him about 20 minutes to eat in the morning, and the pick
up the food and try again after an hour, and then if he's still not
interested, pick the food up again. That way he learns that when it's
time to eat, its time to eat. We fed Watson in a x-pen for the first
year of his life because that taught him that in order to get out of
the pen, he had to eat his food. He was also uninterested at first and
thought that the food would just always be there. He caught on pretty
early, but we did it for a long time because the other dogs would try
for his puppy food instead of their adult food so they had to be
separated.

"I'm thinking giving him treats for his outside pottys is maybe
filling him up..? But, I know I need to give him treats when he does
what I want him too."

We didnt potty train Watson with treats - just lots of happy praise
whenever he went potty outside. Also, when we caught him mid-squat we
would say NO! and pick him up and put his belly right side up because
he would stop peeing so that he wouldn't pee on himself. Then we would
rush him outside and tell him to "go potty" and when he did we woudl
loudly and in a high pitched happy voice praise him and make a huge
deal about it. I am sure the neighbors thought we were crazy

"He grunts a lot, does yours??"

Watson grunted all the time when he was little - but he stopped....we
used to call him squeakers because he was always either squeaking or
grunting.

"I want to crate train him, should it be covered to make it more 'den'
like? Or be open all around?"

We cover Watson's crate with a sheet on three sides and then put it up
against the wall so that he still gets air circulation.

"Where I got the dog from fed him Pedigree dog food. I want to change
this to a better brand, how should this be handled? Is he too young to
switch? Will it upset his tummy?
Should it be gradual? "

We switched Watson from puppy chow at week 10 and he was fine - just
make sure its incredibly gradual and watch how he reacts. If you
notice an upset stomach back off on the new food and start over
gradually. We started with mostly puppy chow and just a sprinkle of
the new food for like 3 days and then replaced just a tiney bit of the
chow and added more new food for 3 more days...etc. It took a good
three weeks before he was completely switched over - and he had no
issues.

"The treats I am giving him, he is not interested in all the time,
should I be making them more 'special'? Like cheese or something?"

We crate trained Watson with Milkbones so every time he went into his
crate, he got a puppy milkbone - those are now his favorite because he
only gets them for going into his crate so they're special to him.
Then for other training, like tricks, we used smaller treats like
these tiny steak training treats that come in a can - they're smaller
and not as high in the fat count so Watson could have more of them
when learning his tricks. Also some people I know cook up a bunch of
hot dogs, cut them up into bite size pieces and then keep them in a
zip lock bag for training....its cheap and not as unhealthy as store
bought treats.  Watson love cheese too - but he only gets that when he
1) steals it off of the counter or 2) we hide medicine in it.

Hope this helps - and I fully admit that I may be wrong or that others
may have a better way... My theory has always been the more
information one has to make an educated decision, the better.

Katie and Watson (did somebudy say cheese?)