house training an older dog

Question
I recently adopted a female bassett hound from a family member. She has not been spayed and she is approx. 18 months old. She is crate trained. Actually she has been kept in a crate most of her life. Is it possible to train her to potty outside? She goes regularly when I take her out but every time I try to let her out of her crate for an extended period of time she goes in the house. I would like to train her to go to the door when she has to go. Is this possible at her age? Please help.

Answer
If the dog had normally gone outside, a regular routine to potty trainthe dog should work.  There are inexpensive books at pet stores that detail this quite well. If the dog was used to going on pads indoors, it much harder to train to go out because it is acciostumed to indoor potty and you have to untrain that while training outside potty. Old habits are hard to break.

Regards,
Henry Ruhwiedel
www.dogkennel.org