Everyone that knows Beanie is probably aware that her once perfect recall started taking a nose-dive at around 5 months old. For about a month we could hardly let her off-lead at all. She improved a little and for a couple of months we’ve been managing fine if we only let her off-lead when there are other dogs to play with.

I’m pleased to say that all this week Paul has been managing to let her off-lead the moment he enters the park. I joined them in their morning walk today and I have to agree she’s as good as gold! She mostly comes when she’s called, and always stays close.

It’s hard to say what has resulted in the improvement. It could be just her age, but there are one or two things that I think have played a part.

1. Paul has been doing the morning off-lead walks alone. He stays much calmer than me when Beanie plays up, and simply walks away from her when she doesn’t come when called. We both felt that she was playing up more when I was with them.
2. We’ve been working on the ‘Natural Training’ exercises that Paul described here
3. I’ve been taking her for long walks every evening on the lead. Part of the walk she has to walk nicely to heel, and the other part she gets to have a good sniff around on her extending lead. I’ve been working on recall then when I can enforce it.

Does my Bum Look Big in This ?

A couple of weeks ago we’d been to a Beagle Club event and all the Beagle owners we spoke to told us (nicely) that they thought Beanie was a bit too skinny. Our vet had always said she was in perfect shape, and we thought she looked good. We paid the vet a visit and the assured us things were fine. We hadn’t intended to feed her any more, but it’s been in the back of my mind and I’ve just been slipping a tiny bit of extra food in her dish at each meal. She’s definately fattened up a little bit and I think looks better for it.

I don’t doubt what the vet said about her being very healthy at the weight she was. From what I’ve read current thinking seems to be to keep pups nice and lean so that they develop slowly. Apparantly (according to some sources) this keeps them healthier as adults. It’s certainly true of kids, so it makes sense that it would apply to dogs too.

But I think the vet would be happy that Beanie is still nice and lean, but she’s got a little more flesh on her bones. So hopefully we’ve struck a happy medium :)

Recently we noticed Beanie scratching more frequently. Fearing that she’d become the target of fleas, we treated her with Frontline Spot-On, but it didn’t help appreciably. The itching escalated very gradually until early in the week, when we decided to give her a wash with some mild puppy shampoo. Her fur was a little matted due to her rolling in some unsavory items in the park, and we figured that a good wash might also get rid off anything else on her coat that might irritating her skin. During and after the wash I noticed excessively pink skin showing through her fur on her abdomen, chest, back legs and snout.

Over the next two days this worsened and I felt that her condition was causing her some distress. Her frequent scratching and licking had now created small lesions on her skin, so reluctantly we took Beanie back to her third favorite haunt in the world, the vet.

(In case you’re wondering, Beanie’s most favorite place is the cupboard that houses her food and treats. Favorite place #2 is the dishwasher when it’s full of dirty plates. Open either of those and a small, hungry Beagle will instantly appear. Guaranteed!)

The vet suspected an allergic reaction, though 9 months is unusually young for such problems. We wondered if the offending agent might be grass or pollen, since the flare up in her skin had coincided with the latest round of grass cutting at the parks she visits. While the vet didn’t discount this completely, she was more interested in the various cleaning agents we use on Beanie’s bedding, such as bio washing powder, fabric conditioner and so on. The treatment she recommended was antihistamines (more on this later) and antibiotics to clear any infection in Beanie’s skin. We weren’t keen on our pup getting yet another course of antibiotics and the lesions in her skin were quite mild, so the vet gave us a concentrated antibacterial wash to try instead.

By the time we got back home, we had a new suspect for the cause of Beanie’s allergic reaction. We’d recently used a spray-on fabric and carpet freshener in the house, and it was the very areas that contact the carpet when Beanie’s laying down that seemed worst hit. Needless to say the carpet freshener is now in the bin! We’ve also washed the carpets to get rid of any lingering traces of the freshener, and we’ve bought some non-bio washing powder to use on Beanie’s bedding.

Happily Beanie’s skin now seems to be calming down and she’s spending less time scratching, so it looks like the treatment’s working.

And so to the antihistamines Beanie was prescribed. It turns out there isn’t a dog-specific antihistamine, so she was given a human medicine instead: Piriton 4mg tablets. A lot of forums recommend including antihistamines in  your doggy emergency medical kit in case of bee stings and so on – at least now we know a brand and dosage that’s freely available and safe!