We live in a rural home, in an 80ft x 40ft home, very large and spacious, with 7 people in the household. This includes myself, my mother, my father, my brother, my sister, my sister-in-law, and my niece. My brother is 18, my sister is 17, and my niece is 4 months old. We own 5 dogs, 4 Basset Hounds and 1 mutt. Whenever we moved into this house last year, my dad declared that no animals but my small pets (guinea pigs, fish, hermit crabs, and hedgehog) were allowed indoors, because he is sick of dog hair. Now, to be fair, we had 3 full-grown Basset Hounds, about 50lbs each, indoors all in one small home, about 40ft x 20ft. It was a small house and we didn't have proper heating or conditioning in it, as we were just living in it temporarily until we could find a new house after we were kicked out of the other house due to payment issues. So, my father ordered a lot of fencing and built a kennel outside. Then we moved, and for about 4 months my dogs all ran loose around the yard (it is over 20 acres of wooded area, 100 acres of field, and 3 acres of lawn) because he was busy moving things from our old house to our new one and building his new garage and whatnot. About 7 months ago he finally set the kennel back up, but it wasn't completely finished and then somebody tried to shoot one of our dogs and then somebody stole three of ours and tried to sell them on Ebay. So, we bought 4 20ft dog cables and hooked them all up seperately.
We didn't even realize that the female had gone into heat, and the next day whenever I got home from school, I noticed that three of our dogs were missing. I freaked out thinking somebody had stolen them again, so I called all of my neighbors and asked them if they had seem them, and they all said no or didn't answer the phone. About fifteen moments later my phone rang, I picked it up and it was my neighor, Mindy: "Ummm... Are your Bassets out of your yard?" I was SO relieve to hear her ask that! I said yes, and that I would be over there as soon as possible with leashes and some lures. I didn't really like the next line. "You might want to bring a car... I don't think these two can be walked on a leash like this. Say, can I have pick of the litter?" My response: "WHAT???" Mindy: "Well, you see, Honey is in heat again, evidently. Buster got some booty in my backyard and I had to save them from nearly falling into the pond like this. Either you gotta wait a while or take them together like this! They are tied!" I had my sister-in-law drive me over there and we waited for about 45 minutes before they finally became unstuck. We tried pouring water on them several times, they didn't budge. So, we went home with a pregnant dog.
We couldn't abort the puppies, my family doesn't think like that. To us, aborting puppies is cruelty. Either spay the female before or raise the litter, is our belief. We had totally lost track of time after moving to even think about Honey coming into heat soon. So, we waited and surely enough, five weeks later she was the size of a watermelon. I had never seen such rapid growth of puppies in my life. I thought she might have a zoo instead of a litter! On October 12, 2008, she gave birth to 7 gorgeous babies, unfortunately one died about 3 minutes after he came out. So, we had 6 babies left. My dad let her and the puppies stay indoors until the puppies were 9 weeks old, then they had all necessary vaccines and check ups done and they were moved outdoors until the new owners came to pick them up. We decided to keep one.
So, then my dad said no more dogs inside for a long time, because the smell was horrible and they stunk so bad. We bathed them once a week in warm water (the puppies) and then once every two weeks in baby shampoo to keep the odor down. My dad is just being a crybaby. I don't know what his problem is about a little hair here and there. He said that there were puppy hairs all over his speakers, and that it was outrageous. I looked myself, and it wasn't even puppy hair. It was my guinea pigs hair. She is allowed to rome around the living room as much as she wants as long as I watch her.
But, now my dad refuses to let my dog, Toby, come back inside. He is the least-shedding dog we own. He is one of our Bassets. He is 2 years old, 50lbs, veryyy healthy, and is already obedience trained and he is very well housebroken. He LOVES children of all ages, especially my niece. He loves to give her puppy kisses! And, Toby is having a surgery March 10 to get his cherry eye removed and he has to stay indoors for 1-3 months so the other dogs don't bother his eye and so he doesn't get an infection in it. Well, I asked my dad if he was allowed through the entire house, and he immediatly said no. He told me that he has to stay in the utility room... The filthy, crowded, and unsan
By being responsible, careful,and keeping everyone clean. Also do some cleaning yourself. Get out the vacuum with a brush attachment and run it all over. Especially where there's hair. Also, do a quick clean with a lint brush or a hand vac, and use some freshener if needed. (Don't let the animals breath it)
Yeah, men can be crybabies, but he is the dad and maybe he is right in some ways. We started letting our outside dogs in more and more often, and now I notice our living room smells kind-of doggy and there's hair. But I do enjoy the dogs being in. So we need to compromise and have some rules and the rest of the family, if they enjoy the dogs, needs to clean more often!
Good luck. Live well and do good!
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