An email I received recently:
Hi,
We have a 4ish year old male beagle who is unpredictable. He will seem fine and the next thing you know he is snapping at someone. We have to keep him separated when we have people over.
He also has separation anxiety.
We are at our wits end with him.
FYI, we do have a female beagle who is well behaved, and he is jealous of her.
Thank you for your time.
Brook and Jeremy
My reply may be a little long winded, but here you go, if you own a beagle I hope it helps!!
Hello Brook and Jeremy,
Sorry to hear you are having problems, but thanks for contacting me, I can help.
I will be glad to tell you what I think and some things you can try on your own, the average person should be able to do a lot of this and see immediate, positive results in the dogs' behavior.
If you still have problems in the future, we can talk about arranging a get together for some personal instruction.
Beagles certainly are unique dogs and can drive you crazy, I know exactly what you're talking about. The way their noses work and brains are wired can make it seem like they are just total psychopaths. It can seem like they live in a completely different universe than the rest of the world.
But they aren't, they're actually pretty wonderful little dogs if you learn and understand their true nature. The thing you have to remember is this: beagles are hunting dogs. It's what they have been bred to do over many, many years. It's their 'job' if you will, and it is hard wired into their brain. They need some form of outlet for this or they will be absolutely miserable, and they will make the lives of anyone/anything living near them miserable as well.
All you have to do is realize who they are and what they do, and then provide an acceptable outlet for these parts of their personality, and everything will improve. Especially the male you described. By not having an acceptable outlet for his energies, he finds his own way to do his job and that usually means that people become what he hunts and chases, or a cat or anything else that comes into range that he can treat as prey. What they really live to do is push rabbits around until the master can get off a clean shot.
My advice would be a walk every day to somewhere he can run through some wooded area ~ hopefully pick up the scent of a critter and run it for a while. Even just a small patch of trees, as small as an acre, will have plenty of critter scents and your dog will very happy to run around for a while and bark his head off.
You will notice when you get home a calmer, happier dog. He will seem satisfied and content.
That is because he is fulfilling his role in your pack.
If you hunt at all, if anyone in your family or any of your friends hunt, take your dogs rabbit hunting. Or let people you know take them rabbit hunting, it will be the best, fastest solution to all of your problems.
I assure you it will be worth it. If you don't hunt and are interested in trying it, I'd be glad to help.
If you don't hunt and are not at all interested, I would recommend to still go somewhere and let the dogs chase rabbits - no rabbits need to die in the process. But the dogs will be living life to their fullest.
I don't know where you live, but there are many places around, and even if you live in a heavily urban area, you can usually reach some woods in less than an hour's drive.
Heck, I live on a typical suburban street but see rabbits all over the place on my early morning walks.
In the interim, you need to set up situations where the dogs can do what they do. Provide an acceptable outlet for their need to track and hunt, set up a situation that you can control, and you will gain more control over them in other situations/environments. This is what I suggest if you don't hunt or if it is not hunting season:
When training beagles or other hunting, tracking dogs, I use rabbit pelts that I have gotten from previous hunts and put in the freezer.
I will also use pieces of deer hide if I have gotten a deer that year. It takes just a little planning and effort, but the payoff will be worth it. Pull out a pelt out of the freezer the night before you are going to do your training.
If you don't have anything like that, it's no problem. What I will do is go and buy a piece of pepperoni - you can use most of it, you just need a few inches of the end. But really you could use just about anything, a ham bone, etc.
You take whatever you are going to use, go to the spot where you are going to bring the dogs at a later time.
If it is at all possible (again, a little planning and forethought go a LONG way in this) use an area you can access from 2 different ways. In other words, find a piece of woods that you can take the dogs to where you can park and walk into from different areas - we will think of this as a front door and a back door. To lay the scent, we are going in through the 'back door' - so the dog doesn't smell your tracks on the way in. When you bring the dogs, use the front door, the area will be fresh and uncontaminated by your scent. If not, still try to enter through one side or edge, and leave through the other.
Put the item you are using on the end of some string or fishing line and drag it around in a path you will know. Use landmarks like a certain tree or shrub or rock or whatever and pass the item near them. This is important because we want to know where the scent is so we can observe exactly how the dog behaves while he is on a track. Over time, you will know exactly what your dog is doing the entire time in the woods, from casting about for a hot trail, to finding the scent to following it to successful completion. And believe me, watching 2 beagles work a hot track is really fun, they work together and their baying becomes almost musical when you know they are going to help put dinner on the table!
So we are going to create an artificial track by using an item with scent on the end of some string or fishing line. At the end of the scent trail you create, flip the piece of pepperoni or rabbit pelt somewhere into nearby bushes or trees.
We want the dogs to be able to find it, but we want them to have to look around for it, a few feet off the 'hot trail'. I suggest using something to get the item away from your body, like maybe a yardstick or long stick or fishing pole, tie the string on the end and keep the thing away from your body, out to the side, as you drag, you do not want the dogs tracking YOU so try not to ever walk over the scent trail you are creating.
What I did last time I trained one of these dogs, I thought about it beforehand and got creative, I went to Stoney Creek with a fishing pole and rabbit pelt, I tied the pelt to the end of the line and cast it as far as I could, reeled it and dragged it around, cast it again, etc, and made all kinds of crazy shapes, up hills, down into ravines, etc, and then flipped it into the woods. I made sure to pass it directly near several distinctive trees that I would remember when I returned, from another direction, with the dogs.
I had the dog owner arrive with the dogs from a completely diffent parking area and we turned the dogs loose and headed over a hill to the area where I created the scent trails.
Watching the dogs track was a thing of beauty. Watching them find it, and the feeling of success and accomplishment that over came the dogs, and then their owner, is why I do what I do. It's just a great feeling.
Make a really big deal out of it when they find whatever you have left. Jump up and down and get excited and all that, really put on a show for your dogs - in reward for the show they have just put on for you and the work they have done ~ remember, in their brains they are helping to put food on the table for the entire pack. And a successful hunt is a cause for celebration. Even if it is not a hunt or anything else but a game and way to spend some time in the woods with your dogs, still get excited and pretend that it is and that your very survival depends on the rabbits (or piece of pepperoni) that they rustled up for you.
Have treats with you, make them give you the pelt in return for treats and affection. Do not let them just run around the tear it up, make them drop it and let you have it.
If it is pepperoni or something else edible, or a big bone, let them eat it or chew on it and give them treats and affection when they are done.
Let them have a few minutes to burn off the adrenaline rush they are going to have and then pack them up and go home.
They will sleep like rocks.
Your dogs will be calmer and happier at home if you do this - you don't even have to do it a lot, I would suggest once a week, make it a routine on early Saturday mornings or something. But I know that can get to feel overwhelming, or like 'work' - if you can't do it that often, doing it even as little as once a month will help a lot and be worth the time.
Even doing small variations of this around the house and yard will be useful, it will be fun exercise for the dogs. Drag a favorite treat all around the house and flip is somewhere, in the back of a closet, under a bed, in the bathtub, etc, and let them track it and find it.
Be creative and make it fun ~ all you need to do is engage the dog's brain and let him use his prey drive a little bit every day or every few days. When the exercise is done - when YOU decide it's done - make the hunting behaviors stop and the dog calm down. If need be, put the dog into a cage or kennel for a while until he calms down then you can let him out.
The aggression and separation anxiety and all that will be much less and much easier to handle until it goes away completely. The dogs will have a reason to live and feel like a useful part of the family and that's all they really need or want. You will be able to teach them there is a difference between being outside and going hunting as to being inside and meeting new people and such - the dogs will have better manners because they will feel like they have a greater role in the pack order. The dogs trust and respect for the humans in the pack will skyrocket.
Feel free to call me, again I'd be glad to talk to you about it for free. Try some of these things a few times and see if you have some success, if it doesn't work out, or you just think it might be beyond your abilities at this point, we can talk about getting together for some personal instruction.
I know it might seem like too much work or time, but it really isn't, the dogs are worth it and it will be good for you as well, particularly if you have children, it can be a fun activity for everyone and everyone will take pride in seeing a positive change in the dogs' behavior instead of just quitting on the dogs.
Good luck and thanks again for contacting me,
Brian
586-339-5276
PS. They did call and we talked for a while. The male beagle was attempting to bite, so I suggested using a muzzle and increasing his level of discipline and enforcement of rules, boundaries and limitations on his behavior. I explained in detail what to do if he should try to bite. I also said that if they cannot get a handle on this themselves, I would be glad to come and help.
I will update if I hear from them again................
MORE INFORMATION:
Here is a good site with lots of useful info: