When you own Beagles a big part of your life tends to focus on how to keep your dogs safe and close whilst still getting the off-lead exercise that they need to thrive. With our two it really is a full time job!

We’re quite proud of the fact that we have a reliable emergency recall which is powerful enough to pull them off a scent. However, if we use it routinely to keep them close to us it looses it’s power as they begin to associate it with curtailing of fun adventures. This has happened in the past with more casual recall commands such as ‘come’. Trainers frequently advise not to use ‘come’ to do something unpleasant to your dog – that makes sense. But what’s the point in training a recall command if your dog stops responding if you expect him to break off doing something it likes more than once in a blue moon? Clearly we need to make our dogs want to stay close rather than relying on recall all the time. But earlier attempts at being more exciting than the environment often proved disastrous.

In agility classes Beanie’s teacher had given me a few excellent tips that really kept Beanie’s attention on me during classes. She has a Parsons Terrier (another tricky breed) that she’s trained to a high level in agility, so she’s no stranger to working with hard-to-train breeds. Her approach has some subtle variations from typical rewards-based training but these make all the difference with dogs that have been bred to work independently from their owners (read that as dogs that bugger off and do their own thing no matter how hard you work at keeping their attention). It’s astonishing how easily you can turn an apparently obstinate, stubborn, strong-willed, independent beagle into an eager to please velcro dog! So we asked her if she had any ideas that might help us whilst out in the park. She agreed to help and is confident that we can have excellent off-lead control of our dogs with a bit of work.

One exercise that she gave us was to go out into the garden with a few treats and just walk around ignoring the dog. Eventually the dog comes over to see what you’re doing and gets a treat. You keep ignoring, walking, changing direction frequently and rewarding the dog for staying close. Gradually you build up lots of tricks into the routine and make the dogs work harder for each treat – so a bit like a cross between a walk and a heelwork to music routine without the music! We also throw in some games of ‘fetch’ to help ensure that they’re getting enough exercise. The subtle but important difference is that you completely ignore the dog until it starts offering behaviors – and then you give it ‘work’ to do. I’m not sure why it works so well, but if we try and get our dogs’ attention they’ll invariably choose to ignore us. But if we ignore them then they are absolutely DESPARATE to do things for us!

As the dogs get more and more attentive the idea is to start taking the routine out to safe, quiet areas of the park. Over time we build in more distractions and field test it in lots of new places.

We’ve been doing this for a couple of weeks now and have progressed to the dog enclosure at one of our local parks. We also practice the drill pretty much everywhere we go, but with the dogs on a training line. Once we get started (which I have to admit can take a bit of effort with Biggles who’s going through a difficult stage!) we can spend a whole hour in the park enjoying our dogs undivided attention. About 20 minutes of that time is spent doing the drill described. First with the dogs working individually, then with the dogs off-lead together but each working with their own handler. Then we let both off-lead together for 10 minutes but still doing the drill with just one of us. Biggles would still quite like to play chases with Beanie and ignore us but she’s having none of it. With practice Biggles will be equally attentive. But in the meantime, without Beanie’s cooperation he settles for giving us his undivided attention. I guess we’re better than nothing! Finally we clip on the leads and take the dogs for a long walk around the park. They walk on a loose lead the whole time watching us constantly. We throw in the odd trick as we walk – which they thoroughly enjoy!

Here are some little clips showing some of the tricks that they’ve been practicing during our walks. They’re learning fast!

First Beanie:

Then Biggles:

If it’s dry tomorrow we’ll video our actual training session at the park so we can build up a record of their progress. For a chanage I’ll try and wear something that’s not full of holes!