My mother has rather bad dementia, and resides in a care home. We always take Beanie along on our visits to see her - Beanie gets loads of attention and cuddles, and my mum and all the other old folks really seem to brighten up while she’s there. We watch Beanie like a hawk though. Why? Well it’s not because as a pup she’s quite likely to pee if she gets really excited. The residents have christened the carpets plenty of times already - one little doggy puddle isn’t going to make much difference. Nope, the real worry is that there might be a stray pill or other toxin hiding under furniture which Beanie could swallow. So if it looks like she’s got something in her mouth, I investigate immediately. Fortunately, our little pup is normally quite happy to let me open her mouth and fish around in there with my fingers.

Ok, so here’s the scene. We’re on a visit, and we’ve brought Mum some chocolates. Chocolate is toxic to dogs, so we’re watching her carefully to make sure she doesn’t try to feed any of them to Beanie. We stop by her room, and while we’re sitting chatting Beanie goes on her usual nasal reconnaissance mission. Suddenly she picks up a scent and crawls underneath the bed. When she emerges, there’s something in her mouth. I grab her and pry her jaws open. Whatever it is, it must be really tasty because Beanie’s fighting to keep hold of it. Eventually I get a finger behind it and flick it out, and Susan and I study the object as it sits on the carpet.

Me: “It could be a stone”

Susan: “Is it a chocolate?”

Then a horrible thought enters my mind. I try to dismiss it, but… I have to be sure. I raise my fingers to my nose and sniff.

Yep. You guessed it. Four letters, ends in “IT” and is found at the bottom of bird cages. No - not “grit”, the other thing. And the worst of it is that this didn’t come out of Beanie’s rear end. It has to be my own mother’s bottom sausage.

There’s a pause while I process what’s just happened, then I fall into a routine that I’ve done countless times since getting Beanie. I reach into into my coat pocket, extract a poop bag, stick it on my hand, pick up “the thing that is not chocolate” and close up the bag. A trip to the bin and a really thorough hand wash and it’s all over.

The good thing is that my Mum was none the wiser about the incident. The bad thing is that I’m going to need therapy. Lots of it.

In my last post I said that we were going to try the Natural Training approach with Beanie. Well here are the exercises we’ve been doing, along with our initial impressions.

Pushing at Feeding Time

This is apparently one of the most fundamental exercises, and to quote from Neil Sattin’s blog, it’s goal is to “shift your relationship with your dog, increasing their level of attraction to you during high energy moments, and also helping your dog learn to be relaxed during those times”. Here’s Neil’s description of how the exercise should be carried out, and here’s his explanation of how it works.

Well you may recall from my earlier posts that feeding times have become a little difficult with Beanie, particularly since she had a stomach bug. It’s often difficult to get her interested in her food (though she’s always desperate to get hold of any of our food - even scraps on dirty plates as they’re being loaded into the dishwasher), and one of the tricks we sometimes use is to take a handful of food, wave it in front of Beanie then run away from her. She gets drawn into the chase, and in her excited state loses some of her fussy appetite. We found it quite easy to transition from this to pushing, in fact even in the first session Susan was able to skip the initial stages and go direct to applying a little pressure with her free hand.

Even in the few days we’ve been trying this, we’ve seen dramatic changes. Beanie is now uncharacteristically enthusiastic at mealtimes, and often ends up on two legs as she fights to get to the food past the restraining hand. She retains a fair chunk of this enthusiasm even if we skip the pushing and just pop her bowl down in front of her. It’s really great to see her eating proper balanced dog food with gusto, and it’s changed how the three of us feel about mealtimes. Previously, I often felt that there was some kind manipulative game going on between us and our dog. For our part, we really wanted her to eat so that she’d have the necessary fuel to grow bigger, stronger and more healthy. Beanie seemed to view this as a weakness she could exploit. I know I’m putting a human interpretation on what’s probably a purely instinctual dog behavior, but that’s how it felt. Happily, all that seems to be behind us now!

Tug of War (with assured victory for the dog)

Like most pups, Beanie loves to get hold of our clothes. Shoes are good, socks are better, but the holy grail for this naughty pup is used underwear. When she gets hold of a pair of Susan’s knickers, you’re in for a tugfest as you try to pry them free from her needle-lined jaws. You can probably imagine our frustration then when our initial attempts at playing with a proper tug toy went down like a fart in space suit. She was happy to chew the damn thing, but if we grabbed the other end of it she just dropped it without a struggle.

We didn’t give up though. We bought a soft rubber tugger and a chocolate flavored rope from our local pet shop, and rather than pulling as soon as she got hold of them, we’d start with a gentle side-to-side shaking motion. Each time she got a good grip and tugged, we let her win and praised her. Neil Sattin’s blog recommends using two identical tug toys so that after her victory you can start another round with the second toy. We didn’t have two identical toys, and we found that it was easier to get her interested in just one toy. Bringing a second, different toy onto the scene just seemed to complicate matters and detract from the game. After a victory, Beanie generally chewed the toy briefly then dropped it so we could continue with the same toy. I don’t think that reusing the same toy is a big deal, as long as you’re not actually removing it from your dog’s mouth, thus tarnishing her victory.

Regardless, Beanie’s now starting to get the hang of it all, and this morning I think I saw the first concrete signs of the exercise starting to work. Previously when Beanie picked up a toy she’d often carry it off to a secluded corner for a private chewing session. Today though, she carried her rubber tugger over it to me and dropped it, as though enticing me into a game. As soon as I grabbed it, she did the same and we had a robust tug of war that we both enjoyed!

Fetch Tug (or “when ball games go wrong”)

While most other dogs seem to love retrieval games, Beanie has never seemed to understand them. Throw a ball and she’d chase after it while it was in motion, then lose all interest as soon as it came to rest. I don’t think this is unusual for Beagles. There’s an episode of the Dog Whisperer that features a beagle that howls constantly while on a walk. The introduction contains a clip of one of the owners throwing a ball; the Beagle glances over his shoulder as the ball flies past, but stays rooted to the spot with a look that says “Look mate, I’m not stupid. You threw it. You can go get it back yourself”

Anyway, while on yet another visit to the pet shop I came across a toy that consisted of two soft, textured rubber balls with bells inside them, strung together with a strip of elastic. It was advertised as being great for tug games and teething pups so I bought it. Beanie showed a lot of interest in it, but within about five minutes of solo play she’d chewed through the elastic. I made a temporary repair by reconnecting the balls with her old collar but she chewed through that too, at which point I gave up on the whole repair project. She still seemed to like the balls though, so Susan tried using them in a game of fetch one evening while I was out. I don’t know how Susan managed it, but by the time I got back Beanie was actually playing fetch and loving it. Of course, this is Beanie we’re talking about, so the gameplay is occasionally suspended for a moment of classic Beagle single-mindedness.

In her excitement Beanie sometimes forgets to return the first ball. She arrives back at our corner of the kitchen eager for the next round, so we throw the remaining ball too. Beanie chases and catches it, but is then faced with a problem that pushes her brain cells to the limit. She’s got two balls, but only one mouth. She drops the ball she’s holding, grabs the first one and starts back towards us, then it dawns on her: the second ball is now on the floor. She backtracks, and switches balls. Solved! She happily sets off again, then freezes as she realizes that she’s still leaving one ball behind. And so it goes on. And on. Aren’t Beagles meant to be smarter than goldfish? I’m starting to doubt it.

Now we’re still not playing fetch tug as described by Neil (we should be playing tug during the game, which isn’t too easy with balls, and we should be throwing the objects in opposite directions, so that Beanie crosses our location each time) but it’s progress, and we’ve got a new game that Beanie really enjoys.

Impressions so far

I’m really pleased with the improved atmosphere at mealtimes. That alone makes this experiment worthwhile. But more than that, we’re both starting to feel that Beanie is finding our company more stimulating. She’s walking to heel much better, and even when playing with other dogs off lead she seems to like running back to us every so often. Her recall is still bad, but I’d say it’s improved a little.

Now there are many other variables that could be contributing to these changes, not the least of which is the obedience class we attend each week, but we both feel that it’s worth continuing with the natural training exercises. At the very least, it’s fun for all concerned.

Despite all our recent efforts, Beanie’s recall hit a new low in the park today, and when we got home Susan started hunting around for new training ideas. She found this article on a so-called “natural” dog training blog. It’s all about tapping into a dog’s prey instinct to make owners more interesting than other dogs, squirrels etc. and advocates games and training exercises that seem to go completely against the “humans as leaders of the pack” theories. For example, it encourages you to play tug of war games in which the dog always wins. It makes for very interesting reading and might be particularly applicable to dogs with a strong hunting drive like Beagles. We’re going to give it a shot, and I’ll record how it goes in future posts.

Another Internet resource that’s proving useful is the Dogsey site: http://www.dogsey.com/.
It’s got a really active, friendly forum that’s a great place to bounce ideas off other dog owners.

And talking of dog owners, I was contacted yesterday by a fellow Beagle owner who lives near Edinburgh. She’s got a lovely Norcis pup called Chester, and was kind enough to send in some piccies:

He’s slightly older than Beanie, and apparently has just perfected his technique for nicking food out of the kitchen bin. He seems to be pretty good at putting Bagpuss in his place too!

We regularly work on “core” obedience with Beanie: sit, down, wait, walking to heel etc, but the biggest chunk of training time is always devoted to recall. Up to a few weeks ago, it was pretty much 100%. We could impress even seasoned dog owners by calling her back from any situation. Even if she’d got out of sight round a corner or over the brow of a hill, a loud assertive “Beanie! Come” would always result in a little furry bullet shooting towards us.

Lately though Beanie’s recall has become much less reliable, probably due to her growing confidence and increasing sniffing abilities. She doesn’t run as fast when we call her, and sometimes she seems to deliberately ignore the command - especially if she’s playing with other dogs.

To combat this we’ve been trying a range of different exercises/games to make being returning to us more fun and interesting:

1) Beagle Tennis. Susan and I position ourselves at different ends of the house, each armed with a toy and plenty of treats. One of us engages Beanie in vigorous play, then after a few seconds the other summons her, gives her a big treat and gets her playing again. We keep swapping roles, getting her to dash between us over and over again. Of course even in her excited state Beanie eventually realizes what’s happening and tries to eliminate the parts of the exercise that doesn’t involve food. She snatches the treat from the current caller then immediately sprints back to the other for another serving.

2) Hide and seek. This is one for the park. One of us hides behind a tree while the other encourages Beanie to find them and get a really tasty treat as reward. To help her succeed, the hider makes a noise or waves an arm. On a good day this works great - after a few repetitions it’s obvious that she’s watching both of us like a hawk, and pretty soon you can’t make it to your chosen hiding place without having to step over a hungry, expectant Beagle. Sometimes though it doesn’t go quite as planned. More than once I’ve been left standing behind a tree with a stupid grin on my face while Beanie decides that she’s had enough of playing with us and would rather get some wrestling practice with a nearby terrier.

3) Tracking foundations. This is kind of like hide and seek except that one of us holds on to Beanie, while the “hider” dangles the treat in front of her to get her attention. The hider then runs off making sure that Beanie can see roughly where they’re going. Ideally, Beanie will get some of the way there on memory, and then have to engage her tracking ability to find the exact hiding place and get her treat. Currently Beanie’s not too good at this one, and I’m becoming convinced that Beanie’s nose is faulty. Sure, she uses it a lot, running around sniffing with her head to the ground, but I think it’s all show. Quite often I can drop a treat on the floor right in front of her and she’ll take a good thirty seconds to find the damn thing. What’s more, if her nose is so good, how come she has to stick it right up another dog’s bum in order to get a good whiff of Channel Number Two?

On top of this, we’ve been getting lots of great recall exercises at Beanie’s training classes, Dalmeny Dog Training run by Jacquie Clark. Although quite a few people attend the classes, Jacquie still manages to address each dog’s own set of problem areas, and last time she helped us out by getting us to call Beanie while she was playing with her favorite sparring partner, Toby the Border Terrier. As soon as I issued the command, our little rascal shot off in the direction of Toby’s owners. Didn’t even spare me a glance! Toby subsequently returned the favor by running over to us. Clearly those two pups are conspiring against us.

Other than that, Beanie’s obedience is generally improving. She’ll often respond to “leave”, and we can now get her walking to heel reasonably well with the “close” command, so long as we’ve got plenty of treats. There are still times when extreme measures are required to restore order though. A drinks bottle filled with noisy coins sometimes does the job, although increasingly she just tries to play with it, no matter how loudly I thump it on the floor. Right now, a quick spray of water is our weapon of last resort, and generally it’s used to protect what’s left of the baby gate we’ve got to seal off our stairs. This is what a few minutes of determined Beagle chewing can do:

And I should also confess that we’re not too good at keeping Beanie off the bed. I try to be strict but, well, she’s just too cute:

After her bitter defeat in the boxing ring, Beanie has switched to professional wrestling. Her first bout - against Mowgli, a 4 month old St. Bernard with a huge weight advantage - could not have gone better: