Louie helps Ryli

While setting up some equipment to play music, I caught some horribly cute video footage of Louie trying to help out.

Louie’s First Beach

Since today was so beautiful and sunny, we took the opportunity to introduce Louie to a small beach in nearby Candas, Asturias. He had such a blast, but got a little sandy and a little wet. Naturally, we have a video to document the experience

Louie Meets Elliot!

Today, Louie is exactly 4 months old, and we were happy to mark the occasion with the meeting of Louie and Elliot! Elliot is the only other Basset Hound in the area that we know of. Every time we take Louie for a walk, people stop to pet Louie and they all call him “Little Elliot”. We’ve been trying to find Elliot for a while now, and we finally caught up with him at the park today. He’s a very calm, very sweet 7-year-old Basset Hound. I call him “El Padrino” .

Louie’s First Walk

Louie took his first walk outside today! As we figured, he didn’t start out very well. But, once he got more comfortable with his surroundings, he walked like a pro, all the way through the park and back home. Once we got back home, he was so wiped out, he immediately fell asleep and stayed so for hours.

To Use Newspaper or Not To Use Newspaper

Its been a tough decision, deciding whether or not to encourage Louie to do his business on newspaper inside the house. So many people encourage it, saying that its a great method: “When you leave the dog alone for a long period of time, he’ll know to use the newspaper while inside the house.” “When you visit a friend, you can lay out newspaper in their home, and the dog is sure to use it as opposed to their floor.”

I spent a few days trying to encourage Louie to use the newspaper for the purpose of doing his business. I took some advice and rubbed some of his previous pee on the newspaper, so he would be drawn to the smell and know it was okay to continue peeing there. This actually worked. It seemed he immediately knew that was where he should go. Unfortunately, he started bringing all of his toys there to play amongst the filth. Additionally, he’s going through a chewing phase, and the newspaper was his favorite material to chew.

After talking it over a bit with Juan, we decided it was best not to use newspaper as a training method. I know plenty of dogs that have been house trained without the use of newspaper. All of them are able to hold off until they’re taken outside before they do their business. Hopefully, we can teach Louie the same

If you have any opinions/experience to share about this, please leave a comment!

Louie Surprises MaryLiz

On April 14th, 2010, my boyfriend gave me the best surprise gift I could’ve hoped for: A 3-and-1/2-month-old Basset Hound, who my sister named “Louie”. This video shows the moment of surprise.