Green Fingered Beagle

Posted on July 11, 2008 by Susan

A few weeks ago I spent an afternoon planting lots of tubs in our garden. It looked lovely, and helped to distract the eye away from all the holes and dead patches caused by Beanie’s caustic pee and bone burying. I knew I’d have to keep a close eye on her for a few days, but if the plants survived that long they’d be fine, right?

Two big tubs of heather bit the dust within an hour. But things were looking good with the rest. I planted a big pot of colorful daisy type flowers by the patio doors and Beanie was fascinated by it. Every time she went out I’d tell her “don’t you dare!” and she knew she wasn’t to touch. Sometime she couldn’t resist pressing her nose into the soil…or gently taking a flower head in her mouth. But I was definitely winning the battle and mostly she just looked. Longingly.

Yesterday I let Beanie into the garden telling her “don’t you dare!” as the daisy petals fluttered tantalizingly around her lips. She looked at me with her big sad eyes and trotted down to the end of the garden to bury a rawhide chew. I made Paul a coffee and checked that she was still at the bottom of the garden before taking it upstairs to the office. It couldn’t have taken more than 10 seconds, but here’s what I saw when I glanced down from the office window.

Naughty Beagle

“Don’t worry” said Paul. “If we’re quick we can probably replant it”.

“It wasn’t me – honest!”

Training for the big Race

Posted on July 9, 2008 by Susan

Beanie will be running a 5k for charity on 4th October in Bellahouston Park, Glasgow. (Find out more here).

At the moment it’s easy to keep Beanie fit and healthy. All we need to do is let her off lead in the park with other dogs. But I’ve noticed that once past the puppy stage the dogs tend not to play and run around so much. So we need to start getting Beanie involved in some activities that will keep her active for her whole life. Jogging seems promising. She enjoys it when just one of us take her. She’s in her element when the whole pack goes running together (me, Paul and Beanie). And running in a race with a whole bunch of people…well she can hardly contain her excitement. So I guess there are some parallels between that and running with a pack of hounds during a hunt (which she’s been bred to do).

She’s in pretty good shape and doesn’t need any special training. In fact she runs the equivalent of half a dozen races with her doggy pals each morning in the park! She did a 27 minute 5k at 8.5 months (Paul had planned on walking the course with her, but she had other ideas!) and will be a year old on the day of her next race. If her fitness keeps improving at the rate that it has in the last couple of months my guess is that she’ll be wanting to run at a pace that Paul & I will struggle to keep up with. So when we talk of Beanie’s training for the big race it’s really OUR training – but we plan to involve her as much as possible as this is all about the three of us spending time together.

Looking further ahead, if all goes well and she continues to enjoy running with us we’ll be increasing Beanie’s running distance when she’s older. And we want to make sure that she’s in very good condition so that she can do her preferred activities safely. She’s now 9 months old, so we’ve been introducing a bit of fun conditioning into her life. She has an occasional jogging session with us on grass just to get her used to running on lead, and a fortnightly swimming session at the pets physiotherapy pool to build lots of protective muscle around her joints. We had taken her hill walking a couple of times which she absolutely adored, but when we told the vet this she advised us to hold of on that for another couple of months. I had actually thought that hill walking should be introduced before jogging to build up muscle, but apparantly not! (Although I did describe it to the vet as climbing mountains so maybe she imagined it to be more strenuous than it really was).

Paul and I plan to integrate our training sessions with Beanie’s walks. Left to her own devices she does lots of flat out sprints interspersed with slow jogging or even rests. That would work well for us too, so we plan to get out into some hilly country side and just let her set the pace. And then simply do our best to keep up with her. We’re going to try incorporating some toys – perhaps some kind of fetch game where we’re racing her for the toy. But we’ve never had much success with getting her interested in toys in the past.

Fat Levels, Exercise and what makes a good Beagle

Posted on July 8, 2008 by Susan

At Sundays Beagle Club Barbeque several people said they thought Beanie was too thin (I started frantically asking everyone after someone looked at her as if she’d crawled out from under a stone and asked “what’s wrong with her – won’t she eat?” :) ). This was a bit of a shock to us as we think she’s in superb condition – something we’ve always been quite proud of! Now there’s certainly no disputing the fact that Beanie doesn’t look like the other Beagles – she’s much more leggy and finely built. At a previous Beagle club event someone mentioned that this thin, leggyness was because we exercised her too much. And of course you always bump into people in the park that tell you that you’re condemning your pup to life as a cripple by letting her play vigorously off-lead when she’s so young. Now all our instincts tell us Beanie is just fine, but when so many people tell you otherwise it’s only responsible to re-evaluate the situation. Beanie only has a very short time as a puppy and it’s important to get her off to the very best start in life.

We talked it over with a lady we meet up with in the park that used to breed Beagles. She’s always been fond of Beanie and says she reminds her of her very first Beagle – 40 years ago! She said that in her opinion Beanie was fine and perhaps a throwback to an earlier, more functional Beagle. Her first Beagle was only a generation or two away from a working beagle. Nowadays, chunky bodies and short legs are the order of the day. I found this picture of a Beagle on wikipedia and think that this is similar to what Beanie will develop into – and I’m VERY happy about that. A fit, lean, functional dog:

The example of the Beagle breed given in Wikipedia

Here are some photos we took of Beanie in the park today (still only 9 months old):

But even if we didn’t like Beanie’s build and appearance we couldn’t change her genetic make up. Our role is to make her the happiest, healthiest Beagle that she can be. She’s done her bit by being the perfect pet and companion so we plan to do our bit by finding ways to let her lead a life that is as close as possible to what a Beagle was bred for. So running, tracking, highly active, being with other dogs. When it comes to speed, stamina, agility and determination Beanie has bucket loads. Her tracking ability is coming along beautifully. A superb example of a functional Beagle. If she needs more food or less exercise to develop as a functional Beagle then so be it. But we don’t want to fatten her up or cut her exercise simply so that she appears to conform to the way people like Beagles to look. Fashion is fickle.

We took her into the vets yesterday to talk it over. According to the vet (in fact ALL of the vets and nurses in the practice), Beanie is in perfect condition. Her weight is ideal and the vets said this was lovely to see as most Beagles are far too fat. She listened to Beanie’s heart and just sighed and said “perfect”! She said by all means feed Beanie a little more if she has a growth spurt or increases her exercise levels, but we don’t want her fat levels to increase any. The muscle bulk will come in it’s own good time through exercise and healthy diet.

Apparently, the issue surrounding exercising of pups is connected with hip dysplasia. Hip dysplasia is entirely hereditary, and can’t be caused by excessive exercise. However, if your pup has it then the type of exercise that’s good for normal pups will worsen it’s condition. Avoiding the type of exercise that’s good for normal dogs won’t make the condition go away – it will simply lessen the damage to the joints.

Hip dysplasia is extremely common in certain large breed dogs. This, coupled with the fact that you can’t really screen for it until the pup is older, has lead most professionals to advise against letting these breeds exercise as much as they want. The risk is too high. In the natural world I guess the pups would run free and exercise to their hearts content. The ones with the genetic defect would be crippled at a young age and less likely to reproduce and the breed would be improved. The ones without the genetic defect would thrive on the exercise.

Hip dysplasia can occur in any breed of dog, but it is less common in small/medium breeds – although it does occur in Beagles. It’s possible that Beanie has this genetic disorder, but statistically unlikely. If she does have it then yes, her active lifestyle is making her condition worse, although her low weight, good muscle tone and healthy diet will give her some degree of protection. And you know, if she was unlucky enough to have the disorder she would never get the chance to run and play vigorously as an adult. And seeing how much she enjoys her active life I’d hate to deprive her of the experience.

Obesity and lack of fitness is a big problem in Beagles so on balance we feel that it’s better to let her run and play as much as she wants as it seems to us that she’s got a bigger chance of developing health and joint problems through obesity and lack of exercise. We are taking her for regular swimming lessons at the pets A&E with a view to burning up some of her energy with low impact exercise. This is great for dogs with hip dysplasia as it builds up protective muscsle around the hip joints without damaging them.

Beagles with hip dysplasia tend to live full and active lives and aren’t plagued with the severe symptoms suffered by large breed dogs. Apparantly hip dysplasia is almost non-existent in greyhounds and one theory is that it’s because of their huge muscle bulk around the hips in relation to slight bone structure. Beanie’s off to a head start with her light bone structure and low body weight, and her muscle around her hips is building up nicely.