Hans Story Part II

The Story of Hans

Part II: Housebreaking!

Next…you guessed it! Housebreaking! I worked very hard with the little guy religiously taking him out, which really trained me rather than him. We were beginning to make headway and I felt the battle was about won when the family vacationed for a week in a lake cabin.

The cabin was built against a hill so we entered the main part of it on the second floor. The kitchen and the bedrooms were on this floor, and the living room took up the entire lower floor on the lake side. There was no bathroom in the cabin. Instead it had an outhouse on a path from the kitchen.

Well, Hans inspected the arrangement and made himself at home, however, he was not about to ask to go out. He decided the floor in the living room suited him fine! I worked that whole week to no avail. Evidently, the rest of us could “go” outside, but not he!

Hans had a great time at the lake digging in the sand and rolling in dead fish that washed up on the beach. The only flaw in his vacation was the first day when he ran out on the dock and off into the water. He sunk to the bottom! One of the children snatched him up and put him back on the dock. That incident frightened all five of us, but thankfully Hans did learn to swim by wading out from shore. Eventually he came to like the water a lot. When he swam, his tail always spun around like crazy. We figured that as long as his tail was out of the water, he was all right.

As all things do, the vacation ended and we settled into our routine at home again…except for Hans! He now had an affinity for using the living room instead of going outside. I tried again to train him and he would have nothing of it. One day the end came. It was him or me! It was the “OK Corral”, or perhaps “High Noon.” We faced each other, after taking several paces toward each other. Then I struck! I picked him up and literally pitched him out the front door. “Now who’s in charge here?” He never had an accident in the house again…ever! Does everyone have to use such drastic measures, or was Hans just exceptionally stubborn?

Editor’s Note: We don’t necessarily advocate this form of house breaking, but sometimes you just have to get the dog’s attention!

-- Up next: Part III of “The Story of Hans”: The Life of a Puppy --

Check back soon for the next installment of “The Story of Hans”. As part of the new look of Distinctively Dachshund, we will be posting stories about dachshunds on a more-or-less regular basis. We have many stories about our own dachshunds that we plan on sharing, but we also want to hear from you! We all know dachshunds have a special knack for arranging and interacting with the world around them.

If you have a dachshund story you would like to share with the world, please send it to us and we’ll try to post it on our site. Of course pictures are welcome, too.