Big Update

Wow where do I begin? Well.......we have added another set of paws to our beagle household by the name of  Mooky our little cornish beagle.
He is from Beagle Welfare and is 4 and a half years old and an absolute sweet heart. He has had a very unsettled life in his short years.
He has had no less than 5 homes (not including ours) and was incredibly over weight when we brought him home. Beagle males should ideally be about the 18kg mark, he was over 22kg. This meant he was unfit and wasnt use to exercise. However after putting him on a better diet and the correct amount of food daily we built up his walks and in the 11 weeks we have had him home with us he has lost just under a STONE and is just over 19kg. He is also running about with a new zest for life and loves the wind flapping his ears in the breeze whilst he chases Bella.

Bringing Mooky home has made me realise just how many beagles are not so lucky and really ignited my passion for getting more involved with Beagle Welfare. Why as a nation have we become a throw away generation?? Dogs (and other pets) are cast aside without any thought and deemed impossible/in the way the list is endless. The number of beagles I see on the rehoming list down to "a new baby is on the way!!!!" GRRR anyway its too late at night fo rme to debate!

So yes we have our little pack and they are the very best of friends :O) Bella has been very good at accepting another dog in 'her house' and its as if he has always been here. We do however have food issues and for this reason no chews are given unless the dogs are seperated and they are fed seperately. The problem is mooky eats his food in seconds and then heads to bell to snatch hers and she will fight for her food and twice Ive had a fight to break up-luckily its only been a mild fight with little nicks in the ears and nose. But even so its scary enough.

Mooky is taking part in a training class with our trainer and he is doing so well. He is another who is so eager to learn (he will do anything for food lol!!) his recall has improved no end. When he first came he didnt respond to his name when we called him.

In other news Bella turned 2 this week. I cant believe she is 2!!!!! She is still a cracking little girl and everyone who meets her falls in love with her. Mooky has given her a real spark and they are always following one another and snuggle up together which is so cute to see.

I will add some more blog tomorrow as I am so tired today from our long walk so ill just do photos now and catch up tomorow x

Bella (left) Mooky (right)

Training videos

Bella loose lead walking

We had a real break through with bellapants this week with lead work. Today Keith filmed us walking home on a nice loose lead with lots of focus on me as we walked along.

We also practised in my mums garden lots of commands today and bella was so funny and did really really well.

Training classes are going really well also and we both are just loving so much doing everything we do with beagle chops. She really is a cracking dog.

This week we both have a week off from work and have been doing so much with her, days out and we spent the weekend with my dad and step mum and their new 8 week old black lab girl. The girls got on fantastically but it really has shown us neither of us are ready yet for another pup lol!! I forgot how much hard work they are!!!

In May little Liily (the black lab) is coming to stay with us for a long weekend so we shall really get to see what it is like lol. I cant wait as she will be old enough to go out and about too.

Madam beagle chops has put her head on my lap making typing on the laptop nigh impossible so I shall have to leave this here tonight. But I will upload more things soon.

Also bell is now 19 months old!!! OMG!!!!

Ice creams in the sun

Ready for training

 Yes it has been a lovely spring day again today, well it has been all week really. Today BST swung into action and the clocks went forward an hour-Yes the bad one lol!!

We have had a really good training session today-recall class and Bella continues to do really well and the improvement with each week is really showing now and she is much more reliable to come on command.

chillaxing after walkies, watching daddy in the cafe!!

After our training we went on the social walk and this time we have changed venues and the walk is along the Basingstoke Canal so a great oppertunity  for the dogs to cool off in the water. Madam reagle pants had none of it though and still only went out to her ankles!!

We noticed today just how much Bell has calmed down in the company of other dogs.
Where as once upon a time it was a baying howling bouncing beagle hell bent on getting to the dog in the distance and on getting near by she would go very submissive and often wet herself.

Now she spots another dog and its like "yeah theres another dog, i'll wander over maybe" and on meeting them she sits or greets them but no more submissive behaviour. We also said she gets on with either sex of dog. She def has a soft spot for Hades at training as she is always beside him on the walks and she gets on really well with other bitches too. All in all she is a laid back pupster who likes anyone.

Once the walk was over we stopped at the cafe in the park and got an ice cream each, this is Bella's first encounter with an ice cream and omg did she love it!! First of all she was like, mm whats this, tastes nice, but its cold (I swear she got brain freeze!!) and got it all over her chops :O)

Ice cream bell

BRAIN FREEZE!!!

Recalling from distractions

We were out the house for 4 hours today and bell is now sparko in bed, me and Keith are struggling to stay awake too lol!! Fresh air and sunshine = worn out peeps. But it was a really nice day. x

Spring time fun

We have had a lovely day today out and about in the beautiful sunshine. For a change we went along the river, a walk we havent done for some months and I think I now know why!! Every 2 minutes you bump into someone along the tow path and it can be very frustrating letting her out on the long line only to reel her back in again shortly after to let the joggers and cyclist past. Mind you its all good recall work for her but not much fun for us.

Spring is definatley here as we saw an abundance of daffiodils and various catkins and buds as well as greenery popping up. There is also lots of song birds singing away in every single bush we went passed. Bird watching has become a little hobby of ours as we often see lots of varied birds whilst out and about. We are very lucky in the fact we have so much on our door step practically and often see something exciting. Today we saw several buzzards, mostly being chased by crows with their distinct call echoing around the valley. As well as numerous great tits, blue tits, coal tits, robins, black birds, thrushes and geese.
So to avoid the constant meeting people we turned off from the river and up along the woodland and fields and this was much more fun. We did come across a very excitable black Lab who suffers from the same deaf condition bella has, but both dogs were having far too much fun chasing and playing that we let them for a few minutes and then carried on our ways.

On reaching this part of the walk, we decided to carry out some more training. Keith carried on walking with Bella in the attention exercise (below right) and as you can see she is nicely beside him on the loose line. After he got so far ahead-almost out the picture he let her recall to me and I managed to snap the pic I have been dying to snap for months. A action shot with her in focus :) very impressed.

 Heading home we had a worn out Beagle and for the first time Ive managed to catch her panting, she neevr normally runs about enough to pant but today she has been on the go non stop and in this pic she is almost smiling :O)

Since getting home she has made herself nice and comfy on the sofa and apart from getting up for a little roast dinner, she has been asleep for the last 5 hours :O) what a end to a lovely sunday afternoon. xx

Adolescent Dogs - Group Dog Training Classes. Heelwork, Recall, Jumping ...

Social weekend Pt 2

I totally ran out of time last weekend to sit down and write this so I am attempting tonight!!

Sunday
Recall workshop.

This was a great class and I think the one we have come away from feeling very impressed in Bella and if I'm honest, ourselves too.

How can you ignore this face :O)

Our first task was to let Bella off on a loose lead (long line) and wait for her to loose interest in us and start sniffing about. We then had to call her and if she didn't come straight away, we had to "reel" her in and praise her for coming back so that us = treats. Now I say all this as if it happened the way its meant to but Bella being Bella decided she knew something was up and wouldn't leave my side!! In the end I had to get Keith to recall her to him so I could then recall her back to me to do the task lol!!

Our next task was recall from a distance. I went and stood about 20 foot away from Bella, and called her. She came running, ears flapping and got her reward. The other trainer who was with our regular trainer pointed out something quite important on the recall. As I called her, "Bella hereeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" as soon as she started to get near me I started saying good girl. This indicates to her that she has completed the command already as shes been given the good girl signal and so to her coming back means come half way and that's job done. So we make sure we now only say Hereeeeeeeeee and as soon as she starts coming towards us really hype up the excitement and basically make ourselves THE most exciting thing on the planet that she really has to return to so we start saying yeahhaaaaaaaaa woooooooo and clap and bingo every time she comes and once she is at our feet the good girl is given and its like she has got the jack pot treat wise.

To make her more inclined to return to us we call her and run in the opposite direction making sure we keep an eye on her to see the moment she starts towards us which is when we drop and go OTT on the calling. Yes we did feel like ***s lol!! We also got Bella to recall from having a sniff about in the bushes and again this worked very well. I am going to do some separate posts after this one with videos which have been uploaded by our trainer and include footage from classes over recent weeks. I really recommend having a looksie.

We then went on a walk, similar to the social walks we have on the Saturday but this time all dogs remained on the long lines and we practiced recalling a lot. Recalling from playing with another dog, recall from sniffing about, rewarding when the dog returned without calling-just checking in, and we also did some tasks out in the fields so to speak.

We all lined up facing one another about 5ft apart and dogs facing inwards. We then handed our dog over one by one to Jenny and walked to the other end of the "tunnel" and would call for the dog to come through the distractions of the dogs and owners. Bella being Bella decided to do it her way!!. She ran AROUND the tunnel of owners and dogs and came to us LOL!!!! She did however do it properly too and with ease too :)

To make it harder, the owners then dotted themselves around the tunnel with some dogs blocking the view of the owner to recall, the dogs then had to act excited as a distraction to the recalling dog but each and every dog ran through the distractions to their owners. Very well done by all.

OOOOO and before I forget Bella saw a horse walking through the common but didn't howl this time!!!! HUGE improvement on her previous horse spotting's.

We then walked the last part of the walk towards the car park letting the dogs play and continuing the recalling. If we called our dog but ended up with an extra nose and tail at our feet we praised them for returning to command even if it wasn't them we called lol and it soon became a free for all on who could get to the owners first for the best treats!! Bella was really really good and we felt we had much more control with her. She still tried to be lady like (as pic below shows) when it came to the puddles unlike Barry the choc lab who just literally dives face first in and starts snorkeling!

 We all passed the work shop and as its run on a monthly basis we will keep up the lessons to just make sure it all stays fresh in both ours and bells minds. I used the techniques learnt the other day on a walk with her and her recalling was spot on and each and every time.

Another thing we have noticed is bell is much more interested in toys now suddenly. We have managed to have games of fetch both indoors and out in the field!!

Buggle has been chewing on a rawhide chew for the last 90 Min's beside me and she hasn't really got anywhere with it LOL!! I am beginning to get a headache so will leave this here for today. I haven't even begun to talk about today's training session or meeting my friends new little puppy but I shall leave that for next time. xx

Social weekend

We are currently the proud owners of one very sleepy beagle who has had the best weekend of her life I think! As owners we too have had a really nice weekend working and playing alongside her.

Saturday

Today's class was 'life skills' and featured a range of different commands and scenarios to test the dogs

• Attention 
• Sit stay whilst greeting people and other dogs
• Recall 

The attention exercise is an extension of what we've been learning in our indoor classes but this time outside with distractions. It also involved walking on a loose lead which isn't one of Bella's specialities. Needless to say this is an area that we are going to have to work on a lot lol!! But as you can see in the picture she does focus very nicely on you.

Sit and stay whilst greeting another dog and owner was actually bells best part of the class. She sat and she waited without moving 99% of the time and did really really well. Here are some pics of her doing this command.

preparing her to sit and stay opposite the owner we are to greet

Owners move forward without the dogs getting up.

Recall was both a test of coming on command as well as sitting in line and waiting until our turn which proved the harder of the 2 for Bella. All dogs lined up alongside one another and one by one we went up and hubby was nominated to hold on to the dog and long line whilst the owners ran a short distance away and called their dog.

After the class we went on the social walk and this time we had the long line and Bella definately benefited from doing this. She was able to join in much more and had a whale of a time running about and being chased about by the other dogs. It really was nice to see her socialising with the other dogs as Im sure ive mentioned in here before just how few dogs we meet on local walks which is ridiculous considering how many live on our estate alone!!  Her reaction on meeting other dogs has also improved massively.

Bella starting a game of chase (top centre under the black lab)

come and chase me guys (infront of dog in coat left hand side)

I will write more later on tonight (I always sign off this way I know!!) but tea is ready ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pics

The snow of winter 2010. Just shows how deep it was on her!! 

She totally loves winter the best and the snow provides hours of fun.Her best game was catching snowballs.

My dad and step mums dog Poppy at xmas. These 2 are great friends :O)

We passed!!!

As the title suggest we have only gone and passed our improvers class :) I am SO proud and dead impressed with Bellaroo. I also feel like its 2 fingers up at all those people who view beagles as dumb and untrainable. Now I dont for one minute think Ive got the the worlds best behaved or trained dog but she is a well mannered girl and loves to learn new commands, and picks things up so quickly. Which to me just proves that beagles are stubborn NOT Thick. We also came joint 1st in the competitions WOOOOO. Me and Hubby took it in turns to take part so not only does she learn to take commands from both of us but so that both of us play a part in the training.

It feels weird now knowing we arent going to training on a monday night-wow I wont have a major rush on that night anymore as I had literally 20 mins between end of training until I started work again.It also felt quite sad as we had built up a nice relationship with the other dogs and owners. We are however continuing with the saturday improvers 2 classes which are a "pay as you go" long term class running weekly that you can drop in and out of as you see fit and this is followed by the social walk which we are going to attempt to do often. I really wish we had gone back to these classes much sooner, as we very rarely meet other dogs on walks and this has led to bell being very hit and miss with the dogs we do meet out and about.

I must add though her recall away from dogs she meets is improving with each walk :D Today we met 2 black labs out walking and after the quick initial sniff of each other she came running straight over to me and sat down and these 2 labs followed and started sniffing me out for treats (I carry loads LOL) and bell was like hey im sat down im not missing out on a treat and did her best mummy look at me sitting down face and whine!!

We are also having phenominal success with the long lines on walks. She is much more relaxed and not trying to drag along on the lead and spends her time running along side us and around us rather than off ahead in front and definately comes home more worn out afterwards as she actually gets to run about and we play fetch now too!!

Today we went over Thursley Common once again as the sun was shining and spring was definately in the air, Bell decided to cool off in the peat bogs and came out looking a funny shade of WAG orange!! She also smelt really bad lol!! But hey she was having fun and I managed to get her to try going for a dip in the small lake and she went out to her belly with me in my wellies which is a big improvement. It really was a great walk and she has been fast asleep pretty much the rest of the afternoon and evening and is currently curled up in my dressing gown with me snoring away and dreaming =D

Not sure about water mum!!

This weekend Bella has a very busy social diary Saturday we are off to check out an agility place followed by the training class and social walk on puttenham common and Sunday she/we have recall training for 2.5 hours. EEKK. Ive bought lots of hot dogs and yummy treats ready.
Once again I shall update after the weekend with our latest adventures. xx

Highs and lows of the weekend

As the title suggests this weekend was a mixture of both highs and lows. Yep the dreaded outdoor trainging class was as hard as I imagined it to be and more!! First off on arriving to the common and on seeing the previous class just finishing off Bells went mental howling and pulling like mad to go join in and ended up making a wretched noise as id chosen to use her lead on collar for more control so the more she pulled and howled the weirder her voice became and people looked quite shocked at this bouncy dog making this racket like a hound of hell!! It got worse from there on in lol!!

We had to form a circle and get our dogs to sit and stay whilst we circled them without them moving-fine bell did this quite well. We on the other hand got really dizzy lol!! We then had to drop the lead and circle her a little further out, again super good girl all done. Then we had to each take it in turn to leave our dogs in the stay position and walk round the entire circle of dogs and get back to your dog without them moving. Now, bella wasnt the only dog to fail this but she was the only one to fail quite spectacularly!! We got half way round the circle with her focusing on us, and then a leaf blew across in front of her and bang lol the leaf was FAR more interesting than sitting and waiting for us 2 to come back to her so she started running round like a lunatic after leaves and round all the other dogs and generally being a real PITA!! We got her back under control and carried on the training but there was just too many distractions and she was getting fed up of doing command after command and kept losing her interest and wanted to chase the leaves/eat the rabbit droppings/chew on a stick/sniff the grumpy dog next to her *rolls eyes*

After what seemed an eternity, the class was over-it was an hour, and we had the option of doing a after class social walk with some of the dog owners and trainer. Im glad we agreed as was so good for bell to have other canine company and we got to meet some lovely owners and chat with the trainer a little more in depth about bell. I really wish we had done this sooner with her and maybe we wouldn't have such an issue with her over meeting other dogs :( I was however sad that all the other dogs were allowed off lead but bell was kept on, although saying that most all the dogs but 2 (1 being a 14 week old spaniel who was omg SO cute!!) were actually off lead the rest were on long lines (10-20ft leads which trail behind them so if needed you can grab the line quickly and you have control again) so on suggestion from the trainer we went and bought bell 2 on sunday (20ft) and will try that on the next social walk on saturday. We used to have a long line but we found on meeting other dogs she got too tangled up and the other owners were quite bothered by it so we switched to a flexi lead which meant we could shorten the lead up quickly. Another thing I wish we had stuck with.....o hind sight such a wonderful thing!

So on the whole it wasn't THAT bad but I did feel like she showed us up lol!

Sunday however was a much better day, we took beaglechops for a lovely long walk over the common and as the weather was pretty awful we were the only people for miles!! The day before when we got the leads we bought her a new toy to use only for training-shes a real fussy madame and has zero interest in toys so we usually have to use food as a motive to do things, but she loves realistic toys so we got a stuffed pheasant and saved it for this walk and boy did she love it :) also putting her on the long leads meant she could run and run yet not go too far from us and in her defence she only went about 25ft ahead max before stopping and waiting for us. She was a million % perfect on her recalls and we played lots of changing directions ot keep her on her toes and she loved partaking in her fave hobby again of bog diving! At one point though she did get herself in a tizz as we had walked over a log nd she had jumped over the bog yet further up it got too deep and she was getting anxious so I waded over in my wellies and carried her across-god forbid she get wet!!
All in all we were out for nearly 3 hours thanks to a wrong turn by me! but the whole time she just ran about and stayed with us and I didnt come home with a wrenched arm or aching and stressed from having her pull like a bull. If only ALL our walks could be like this?? Next social walk im letting her on the long line and I may even let go of it too.......

Today Bella has also been a star by staying out of her crate all morning until lunch time when I returned from work so thats another well done bell. We have training tonight so I best go practice our homework before tonight xx will update more tomorrow xx

Big sister Bella.

Yesterday Bella became a big sister to 3 little girls. Seeing new beagle pups makes me think wow when was she ever that small! and how on earth did she get to 17 months old? It seems not long ago she was all needle sharp teeth and huge floppy ears that she tripped over.
Im insanely broody for another pup but right now is not the right time to venture there.

This weeks puppy class was a huge success. Aside from the initial excitement on meeting the other dogs and pups she settled in and once again focused on us and our commands. Also would you believe it we had a section on greeting other dogs and recalling them and for the first time EVER she didn't want to go meet the 2nd dog!! *rolls eyes* but hey least she recalled when asked. Shes also got the emergency stop and drop down to a fine art and the impulse wait too. Good girlie.
The biggest trouble im having is that she has zero interest in toys unless it involves gutting them and destroying them so where as all the dogs in the class are happy to use a ball in the class bell wont, she looks at the ball as if to say "I am NOT putting THAT in my mouth!" However the trainer suggested using a kong in class so I will freeze a tasty kong sunday and take it with us monday, and Ive also found her kong toy she does like playing with (for v short periods) and Ive been using that today with good success. Throwing the treat/toy and telling her "wait" before letting her go collect it. This is working on her impulse to go get something.

Im also making sure I spend 5 minutes during her walks to practice these commands and she is doing grand. I still get the odd howl back at me when I ask her to do something but thats just our bell. Gobby dog!!

This weekend we are off to an extra training class out in the common with real distractions and other dogs :O Im also hoping we can have some more off lead play as she was SO good last time. Plus having the trainer handy will be a huge boost for me as Im just so scared she will vanish and not come back :( I shall update on the success of that at the weekend.

As Im on the ipad today I cant add piccys but I will do as have taken some lovely pics of her highness lately, I also have a wriggly beagle trying to stretch out so best end this here before it ends up on the floor!! xx

Catch up

I attempted to do a huge blog update over the weekend and it ended up crashing and although it had saved I had no way to retrieve the saved post!! so here we go again......

So anyways. Bella is now almost 17 months old!!! Where does the time go? She defiantly has calmed down in the last 3 months and is now a very contented puppy, when do you stop calling them a puppy and start calling them a dog? She happily sleeps away the day and Ive started leaving her out of her crate during the day and all she does is just stretch out on the sofa and sleep. Ive yet to leave her out over night but this is purely down to her routine as she knows when we are all heading up to bed and gets herself off to bed too and I'm thinking why spoil a good thing? I know she wouldn't get up to anything naughty if left out, the chewing phase has definitely ended and she is happy to find a spot on the sofa with her blanket and have a quick dig of the blanket and curl up and fall asleep. However she is soon stretched out and claiming the entire sofa as her own!

What have we been up to? Every weekend we take her out on longer walks further afield from home and try and plan it to be a fun walk, changing routes and places we go each time so its always different which she seems to love. Always lots to explore. This weekend we had her off lead for some time and she was an angel. She didn't go far ahead and just spent ages running back and forth and playing fetch with a chunk of wood she found. I will try and upload the video we took of her being a loon.

Bell has recently started back at training classes. We felt she needed the challenge of learning new commands and also the extra socialisation is a huge bonus. We meet practically no walkers and dogs on our walks and this is meaning when bell does see another dog she gets hyper and being a beagle howls!! which to someone else sounds scary lol but its all noise and excitement. Plus its supportive for us as owners to ensure we are doing whats right and gain tips and expertise. The trainer runs a variety of classes and we would do them all given the time but currently doing 2 classes a week, a Monday and weekend for an hour. The Monday is inside a village hall and the weekend is out in the public (eek) on a huge common and also in Guildford high street (omg!) so we can practise with real every day scenarios and distractions. 

Now last weeks class-first in almost a year! was umm well disastrous if I'm honest LOL!! Firstly Bells howled at every dog in the class and every time the trainer started to talk us through the commands bell began to bay. If another dog howled back it became a competition between the 2 of them :s She then went on to TOTALLY forget every single command she has ever learnt. Even Sit the most basic and easiest command of all, nope she just stood there, barked at us and looked all round the room as if to say you're boring me now.
We walked out the class feeling deflated, me more then hubby he thinks she was still good. Once we got home I gave her the command she decided I was asking her to do in gibberish judging by her face! and bingo straight away she did it!!! Oh the joys of owning a beagle lol.


All week we have been practising the command and hand signals and she gets it every time, we can even do them from a distance and with just the hand signals alone. SO I went in to last nights class a little apprehensive but aside from howling at the dogs on meeting them she settled straight down and focused 100% on us :O) we even dropped her lead to do the commands and she didn't run off, she didn't wander over to the other dogs or their treats she just listened to the commands did them, albeit with a bark each time!! and the trainer was impressed. Not as impressed as we were with her. She was a super star.

Me and Bella in the snow Dec '10

Reindeer Bell snow 2010.

I will add another post later- Im off to work now but I have so many pics and things left to write. x

Catch up

Apologies once again for leaving it so long between posts! Even my husband complains it's been too long.

So how's things? Bella is now almost 17 months old :0 she's calmed down ALOT in the last 3 months. She will happily sleep the day away and lay down and just relax without the need to get up and chew anything or climb anywhere or nick anything!

I've started leaving her out the crate during parts of the day and so far so good. I've come home to find her fast asleep on the sofa or back in her crate. She still goes out with the dog walker 3 times a day and last week we started back up with training classes! I will make sure I write in here weekly to keep a track of our progress or lack of if last weeks anything to go by!!

Last weeks session was our first in a year and boy does it notice! Our first command to learn was down with a hand signal-hand up