Post by crazy4scraps on Jan 31, 2017 17:21:12 GMT
I don't want to say do it or don't do it, but did want to share our experience with taking in adult rescue dogs.
We got our current black lab when he was two years old. He had first been owned for six months as a house dog, but then that owner couldn't keep him and gave him to a guy that lived out on a farm so for the next 18 months he was a full time outside dog when we got him. We lived in the city at the time, and we don't believe in keeping a dog outside by itself and away from its "pack" so when we decided to take him we knew it would be some work getting him to adjust to indoor living again. Oh, and he wasn't neutered either.
If memory serves, I want to say it took a couple months for him to get fully on board with house training. I don't think he ever pooped in the house but he did (start to) pee on the floor, at which point we stopped him and got him outside. He learned pretty fast, and I was working from home so I was able to be on top of the task. We couldn't kennel train him due to anxiety from being left alone for so much time before, but it was definitely a lot easier than training a new puppy from scratch with everything that entails.
One thing that helps A LOT is just limiting when the dog eats and drinks at first, and if you have a kennel that makes it even easier. You take her out first thing, feed and water the dog in the morning for a set time, maybe 20 minutes, pick up the bowls and take her out again 15-30 minutes later. If you can't watch her closely after that, in the kennel she goes until he lets you know she needs out or until you have time to pay pretty close attention to what she's doing. Do the same thing in the evening. When you're having dinner, she is too, again limiting when she eats and drinks and getting her out shortly afterward. EVERY time she does what she should outside, praise, praise and praise some more! Dogs live for making their people happy!
You will get to the point fairly quickly where her pottying habits are pretty predictable, and then you can leave the water down all the time and the dog will only need to be kenneled or confined when you're out.
I also want to add that we're now on rescue #3 and this one is a small indoor dog, 18 months old and spayed, but not housetrained very well because her previous owner was somewhat disabled and couldn't get her out when needed. We've basically been doing the same thing with her that we did with him, limiting food to morning and night and taking her out when it's likely that she will need to go and enthusiastic praise when she does. We've had her since Dec. 23rd and it's going very well. We're at the point now where her water is down all day, and I take her out maybe 3-4 times during the day usually when I'm going outside to do something else anyway (run out to get the paper or the mail, or to wait for the bus after school), and she is only kenneled at night or when we leave the house.
We've only had maybe 1-2 small accidents inside in the last week or so, and those incidents were more human problems than dog problems (some of the humans in our house need to pay closer attention to things, LOL).
The bottom line is, I wouldn't totally write this dog off just yet. I wouldn't let the house training issue be a deal breaker for me because we've already successfully navigated it once with a big dog and are well on our way through it with this second adult dog. I also wouldn't worry too much about the dog needing to burn off a lot of energy, and at five years old a big dog like that is more or less middle aged. A couple nice walks a day and some outdoor playing is probably all she will need, and by that age all of our labs had settled down a lot. Couch potato would be a pretty good description, LOL. Only you know what you're ready to deal with and work through.
Good luck with whatever you decide to do.
We got our current black lab when he was two years old. He had first been owned for six months as a house dog, but then that owner couldn't keep him and gave him to a guy that lived out on a farm so for the next 18 months he was a full time outside dog when we got him. We lived in the city at the time, and we don't believe in keeping a dog outside by itself and away from its "pack" so when we decided to take him we knew it would be some work getting him to adjust to indoor living again. Oh, and he wasn't neutered either.
If memory serves, I want to say it took a couple months for him to get fully on board with house training. I don't think he ever pooped in the house but he did (start to) pee on the floor, at which point we stopped him and got him outside. He learned pretty fast, and I was working from home so I was able to be on top of the task. We couldn't kennel train him due to anxiety from being left alone for so much time before, but it was definitely a lot easier than training a new puppy from scratch with everything that entails.
One thing that helps A LOT is just limiting when the dog eats and drinks at first, and if you have a kennel that makes it even easier. You take her out first thing, feed and water the dog in the morning for a set time, maybe 20 minutes, pick up the bowls and take her out again 15-30 minutes later. If you can't watch her closely after that, in the kennel she goes until he lets you know she needs out or until you have time to pay pretty close attention to what she's doing. Do the same thing in the evening. When you're having dinner, she is too, again limiting when she eats and drinks and getting her out shortly afterward. EVERY time she does what she should outside, praise, praise and praise some more! Dogs live for making their people happy!
You will get to the point fairly quickly where her pottying habits are pretty predictable, and then you can leave the water down all the time and the dog will only need to be kenneled or confined when you're out.
I also want to add that we're now on rescue #3 and this one is a small indoor dog, 18 months old and spayed, but not housetrained very well because her previous owner was somewhat disabled and couldn't get her out when needed. We've basically been doing the same thing with her that we did with him, limiting food to morning and night and taking her out when it's likely that she will need to go and enthusiastic praise when she does. We've had her since Dec. 23rd and it's going very well. We're at the point now where her water is down all day, and I take her out maybe 3-4 times during the day usually when I'm going outside to do something else anyway (run out to get the paper or the mail, or to wait for the bus after school), and she is only kenneled at night or when we leave the house.
We've only had maybe 1-2 small accidents inside in the last week or so, and those incidents were more human problems than dog problems (some of the humans in our house need to pay closer attention to things, LOL).
The bottom line is, I wouldn't totally write this dog off just yet. I wouldn't let the house training issue be a deal breaker for me because we've already successfully navigated it once with a big dog and are well on our way through it with this second adult dog. I also wouldn't worry too much about the dog needing to burn off a lot of energy, and at five years old a big dog like that is more or less middle aged. A couple nice walks a day and some outdoor playing is probably all she will need, and by that age all of our labs had settled down a lot. Couch potato would be a pretty good description, LOL. Only you know what you're ready to deal with and work through.
Good luck with whatever you decide to do.
I want to say we paid about $200 to have our last female dog spayed at our regular vet. It was nowhere near $500-600.
One was a full time outside dog, and the one we have now was an indoor dog that was poorly trained and she's coming right along with it. I'm pretty surprised by how well it's actually going with her considering it's the dead of winter right now with snow on the ground, at times we've had brutally cold weather and she's a tiny little thing that had to be shaved down much more severely than I would have liked for this time of year because she was so matted up. 
