Obedience
Our suggestions for welcoming a beagle into your home.
While waiting for your new beagle baby to come home. I ask you to read your own copy of “The Art of Raising a Puppy” it’s an invaluable resource, and the training methods that we follow with our beagles.
Decide with the family how the puppy is to be managed. Set up some basic understandings: Who and when will the puppy be fed, walked, and played with. Where will the potty place be? Where in the house will the puppy be allowed unsupervised and where will your baby take her naps and spend the night?
Feel free to contact us at any time, we will share any experience or reference and we love to hear from our beagle people. If you’re out there, send a new picture, we’ll post it with their litter
House breaking is easier with crate training, When you bring your puppy home continue with crate training and house breaking. A simple routine works well. A puppy will naturally have to go potty after sleeping, eating, chewing hard, and after physical activity. As soon as the puppy slows down, take the puppy out side to your chosen potty place. Wait out the puppy until it goes, gentle praise the baby and take it inside. When you first bring the puppy home it’s not ready for full run of the house except right after it’s gone potty. It has earned freedom. As soon as you feel unsure of the puppies behavior limit it’s freedom. Pick a place out of the way and easy to block off and a washable floor for the crate and some newspaper. This will be the babies place when your not going to be right there watching it’s every move for a cue it needs to go potty.
Think of a safe place for the puppy to play by itself and relax. We sometimes use our kitchen, I’ve remove the rugs and the table and added lots of appropriate things to chew. The beagles have lots of room for the crate and some newspaper off to the side.
Teach it to follow/come. Start by being very close, say your dogs name to get its attention, when the puppy looks at you or moves toward you give it lots of praise and attention and a treat. Repeat the same difficulty for the entire day before increasing the distance/difficulty.
Occasionally when you are cuddling the puppy, whisper their name to them. At this stage, do not say their name when the dog is busy to get it’s attention. It hasn’t figured things out yet and you could easily train it to ignore it’s name, similarly do not ruin other training words (stop, come, etc). Only call them when the dog is close by and already on it’s way to you and you are sure it will come close to be praised. In these circumstances say the word over and over as the dog approaches with enthusiastic praise when it arrives.
Never give the puppy positive attention for a behavior you do not want to reinforce. Beagles have a long history of working together and will pay attention to your training even if you are not. Do not praise, or coddle a shy response, this would teach the puppy that is the behavior you reward. Be gentle and firm and insist the puppy remain composed, when it does immediately praise and reward this better behavior. A puppy builds on previous experience.
Take your puppy to as many safe places as you can. They must be exposed to a wide range of safe experiences. Take the puppy to all different surfaces to walk on. Meet friendly people and extremely gentle pets, gradually building it’s exposure, so your adult dog will be a comfortable pet. Puppies are in a natural fright stage from 7 to 10 weeks, they will follow you around and not want to investigate. Puppies at this in-between stage, that overcome slight stresses are more well adjusted later in life too. At 15 weeks they will be feeling much braver and then you could start exposing them to the louder noises.
Puppy school at 4-6 months. Not only will you learn what to do, but what not to do as well. It’s a wonderful experience and the results will last a lifetime. Obedience can start as soon as 9 months, and agility at 1 year. These are all very fun ways to form an everlasting bond. Your dog will become trained, and you will both meet other friendly people and their pets.
Penny was so happy as a youngster we decided to pull her out of obedience class twice. She couldn’t sit/stay, her tail was always wagging so hard her butt would rotate around. Rather than being disappointed, we were proud of her Merry hound attitude, she did eventually graduate. Now you could ask Penny to stay and place treats all around her, she’ll wait for the “OK” to enjoy them.
'The best advice I have ever given puppy owners is to get a newspaper and roll it up very tight.. Secure it with a rubber band and leave it on the coffee table. Then, When the puppy piddles in the house, chews up a slipper or does anything he’s not supposed to do, simply take the newspaper and bang it on top of your head very hard while repeating... I should have been watching the puppy! I should have been watching the puppy!'' - From the Gulf-Coast Sheltie Rescue, Pensacola, FL.