Beagle Rant

[yannao]

Our neighbors/friends have a 8 month old beagle puppy. He is stinkin' cute, but a huge rascal. Since they are over very frequently, the beagle and my 2.5 year old sheltie baby meet quite often. The trouble is, the beagle seems to think everything and every dog exists for the sole purpose of playing with him. He instigates my sheltie, by going for the legs, body slamming him, and baying at him, all in an effort for him to chase him around. On the flip side, my sheltie would much prefer playing fetch with humans, or once in a while, play with a calmer dog. I swear I have never heard my sheltie bark so much while playing with any other dog, the combination of beagle baying and sheltie barking really echoes through your head and lingers! Being the older dog, our sheltie has snapped at him a couple times, in an effort to get the puppy to back down, but rather than stopping, it actually seems to enjoy it and more and more tries to test our sheltie's patience.

I mostly just wanted to rant about this beagle, as I find its antics quite annoying, and I'm started to feel a bit resentful of how it seems to get away with antagonizing my sheltie, because people think "aw its just a puppy"...even if my husband doesn't share my frustration. But, by chance, does anyone know, is this type of rough play a common beagle thing? or just a beagle puppy thing? Will the little dude eventually grow out of the really physical type of play and settle for some quite wrestling? Or is this particular puppy just really dense and stubborn.

Btw. As I said, he is 8 months, and still for some reason pees at least twice in our house while he's over...even though he's just gone for a walk an hour before. Like, really? It can't hold it for more than two hours at that age? This really drives our sheltie crazy as well, since each time, we would have to clean up, and you know how sheltie's are with cleaning tools.

I love any and all dogs, but to be completely honest, I have twice googled this week, "why are beagles so annoying." But I don't even think my issue is with beagles as a breed, its this particular beagle puppy! I love my friends, and I care a lot for this beagle, I even take care of him at their place sometimes, during which time he is much less annoying without another dog around. I just can't stand what he does to my dog!

 

[corbinam]

I have been in your situation before. I will say that I think you owe it to your dog to step in when the beagle isn't listening to your dog's cues. If your dog needs a break, please feel like you can tell your friends that your pup needs a break, and if they don't help, I'd take whatever steps you need to to ensure that happens. Could be you just go inside for a bit, or you leave the park, or go to another part of the yard, etc. to play with your pup.

I don't know if it's a beagle thing, a puppy thing, or just a dog that hasn't learned good dog manners thing...but until he does (and maybe he won't, especially if his owners don't enforce it) you need to stand up for your dog.

I would also be inclined to share housebreaking tips with his owners. A dog at 8 months should be able to hold it for a couple hours. Seems to me that he hasn't learned appropriate potty training and for him to go in your house on a regular basis is not okay. And if they don't take action (what do they do when he does go? Is he taken outside? Do they try to stop him mid-stream?) I would likely not allow him in the house un-crated or at least untethered until he has proven he can be trusted. If he were my dog, he'd go back to potty training 101.

 

[yannao]

Thanks corbinam, that is how I feel as well, on both the play break and potty training points. To their credit, our friends do recognize the need to intervene when it seems the dogs are getting too riled up. Either they pick up the puppy, we pick up our sheltie, or we both pick up our dogs and physically separate them for a bit to calm down, and they do which is great. For a about 5 minutes, until the puppy decides it wants "real" play again. The trouble is, the large majority of our neighbors, we live in an apt complex, have puppies under the age of 8 months, with whom the beagle has no problem riling up to play rough with him in the manner he likes, and so he believes all dogs naturally play the same way. Our sheltie has had no trouble with these other ones, a couple growls and the others are much well behaved, but the beagle thinks its all play.

The potty training situation is just ridiculous. I think they started with pee pads from the very beginning, but they are still using them at their place even though it gets walked every 5 hours, at most. They've brought some to our place as well, because well, its better it pees on the pad than straight on the floor I guess. I've see it pee less than 30 seconds after it drank water, even though it peed less than 1 hour before that. We've passed along some tips about crating and bells, which is how we trained our sheltie, but the beagle apparently screams bloody murder if its crated and doesn't do anything with the bell. They are trying the pen thing when they are not at home, which works, but only when he's in it, once he is let out again, he feels free to pee whenever and wherever it pleases. At this point the pee thing doesn't really even phase me anymore, we've gotten very quick and effective at cleaning up when it happens at our place. I figure, that's our friend's problem in the long run. I'm really just hoping he grows out of the rough play stage soon, because our dogs truly seem happy to see each other when they do, its just that after 10 minutes, my sheltie remembers the beagle is a crazy. Again, just ranting, but thanks for listening!