[jjgleason]

wondering if anyone can help me. in october i adopted a shelter dog, mixed beagle/bassett, appx 4 years old. we crate trained him and he has the basic idea but many days i come home and he has wet and/or soiled in his crate, sometimes moving his bed right over top of the mess. other days, there is nothing. so i figure he is able to hold it but often does not. my understanding of the crate process is that a dog will not want to mess in its own area, but this is proving untrue with buddy. he's basically a good dog and is very loving but i worry that the more this goes on the more he will think its ok. my husband says that buddy is a hound dog and does not belong inside but outside in a pen and allowed to come in when we are there and able to supervise him. we've tried making the crate space smaller, tried coming home at lunch, etc. and none of that has made any difference. thanks!

[Ebonyfox]

I don't know much about hound dogs, so I wouldn't know if your husband is right or not. though my neighbors had a basset and they crate trained him fine to the best of my knowledge.
but I have a question and its if your dogs been to the vet? it could be a bladder problem or that he's a bit sick. Thats just a guess though of maybe why hes doing this hes an older dog so it wouldn't be unusal to me at least.

If thats not the case then I would be glad to look some more on the situation for you. I'm going to school to become a Veterinarian so I'm a nut for animal behaviour.

Hope everything turns out better. I LOVE beagles!! lol

[jjgleason]

thanks for the reply. no, he hasn't been to the vets since we got him, with all his health care up to date at that point. that has come up but if there is a physical problem, why would it only happen some of the time? for example, so far this week, buddy has only peed 2 of 3 days and then not much and not pooped in the crate at all. also, he does fine at night, and is in the crate sometimes as long as he's in it on a workday, so my thinking has been if it were physical, it would be more consistent. maybe i should just go on ahead and see what, if anything, the vet says. will update this with any developments. if its behavioral, you can use him for a paper for school at least! thanks again. meg t