Beagle Cross

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Susan

It was a lovely sunny day today with a nice crisp frost on the ground. The ideal day for a bit of Beagle-cross! What is Beagle-cross I hear you ask?

Enjoying a cross country romp…with a difference

We all know that the ideal sport for a Beagle is drag hunting – a pack of Beagles running across the countryside following an aniseed trail with humans following the hunt on foot. In the old days the pack would have been hot on the tail of a bunny, but that’s illegal now so an aniseed trail laid by a human is the next best thing.

There are two obvious drawbacks for the typical Beagle owner:

Finding a farmer that’s happy to let a pack of Beagles go careering across his land is not easy (Although it has to be said that the farmer next door to us has offered. In fact the fox hunt used to meet at the end of our road!).
How likely are you to get your Beagle back? Are you willing to take the risk that he’ll favour deer or sheep over aniseed?

The next best thing we could think of was to have our Beagles follow the trail whilst on lead. Sounds dull? Well actully it’s superb fun because you run with them! Here’s how it works:

The trail layer runs off dragging an aniseed rag behind them. Their objective is to loose the Beagles.
A little later the Beagles are set off to follow the trail. They’re attached to a runner via a harness, bungee line and belt. The Beagles will go full pelt and stick to the trail like glue. Through streams, mud, woodland, over walls and fences….the level of chaos depends entirely upon the imagination of the trail layer. For the humans it’s the ultimate cross country running experience! The game ends when the Beagles catch the trail layer.

We aim to make it last for about 2 kilometers. Of course a Beagle can run much further, but when attached to a human they’re pulling a heavy load. They won’t let you know they’re tired as they’re driven to hunt so for safety reasons we think it’s best to keep it short and sweet. In addition, you’ll run much faster over a shorter distance and that’s more satisfying for your Beagles!

The more Beagles in the ‘pack’ the better, but in our experience it’s best to let them hunt as a pack. That means everyone runs at pretty much the same speed. It’s not fair on a little Beagle to be left behind the pack just because he’s attached to a slow hummie. Staying with the pack is very important to a Beagle!

Warming up with a 1k cross country run

Other tips are a good warmup first – we even do a little 1k cross country run before hand to really get their blood pumping. And a nice long cooldown walk afterwards. If you try Beagle Cross with your Beagle please send us a video of the fun!!

Chill !

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Susan

Beanie and Biggles each have two distinct little brains. There’s the normal doggy brain that knows how to behave well, do all sorts of sports and tricks and listen to mum and dad. Then there’s the hunting brain that knows how to track, chase and kill….and of course make lots and lots of noise in the process.

The doggy brains are easy to work with. But those hunting brains have us stumped and it’s restricting life for all of us. One by one, sports that we all enjoy so much fall by the wayside as they fall prey to those little hunting brains. Typically it’s a case of leaving before being asked to leave, or before the dogs do themselves an injury!

Over the years we’ve discovered that their hunting brain is oblivious to us. If during an onlead walk (is there any other kind?) they pick up a scent they both go into a frenzy of baying, lunging and pulling. Experts advise that we simply stand still and refuse to move until the dog calms down. The theory being that as going forward is the thing the dog wants most in all the world then it’s easy to very heavily reward the behaviour that you want – calmness. After spending a great deal of my life rooted to the spot with a little beagle that’s only getting louder and more frustrated by the minute I figured there must be a flaw in the theory. In actual fact they are capable of responding to us in this mode. We can get them to briefly sit in exchange for being allowed to move forward. But we haven’t managed to progress much further than that. Asking for calmness, quiet or even a minute reduction in excitement levels, seems to be a step to far for those little hunting brains.

The other day Paul wrote about the tuggy game that Heather Smith had prescribed to help teach the dogs self-control. Both Beanie and Biggles found it very easy to switch between calm and excitement and that got us wondering if the game was the route towards controlling those little hunting brains.

Yesterday we took the game forward a little by associating it with lure coursing – something guaranteed to switch off the doggy brains and put the hunting brains firmly in control. We had done this a little bit previously to get things warmed up, but this time the focus of the game was chasing the lure. We used a lunge whip with Mr Raccoon tied to the end of it. Boy was that fun – there was much yelping, baying and squealing:

Beanie is by far the fastest and most athletic chaser, but it was Biggles that always managed to catch the lure quickest. No matter how erratically I tried to move the lure he’d quickly figure out what route it was going to take and would lie in wait and pounce.

Every time they caught the lure we’d have a high energy game of tuggy

before telling them to release the toy and chill.

Both calmed down instantly and sat as good as gold waiting for the instruction to begin the chase again. In fact, in just one session we even got to the point where we could put them in a ‘sit-wait’ and start the lure moving. They were intently focused on the lure but didn’t give chase until told to.

We thought we’d cracked it. Lets fact it, it’s only a small step between this and being able to calm the dogs when they pick up a scent. We went to the park with Mr Racoon on a lunge line and the dogs in harness. Taking one dog at a time, the plan was for paul to slowly drag Mr Racoon across the ground. I’d let the dog, still attached to me, run after it. Then on command we’d stop and get them to ‘chill’. We took it in very tiny steps so that it progressed almost seamlessly from the game we’d played in the garden yesterday. It was a complete and utter disaster!!! They simply could not calm down no matter what we tried.

We certainly provided a superb spectacle though. Picture the scene: Biggles tied to a tree in the middle of the park baying his head off (and actually pruning branches of the tree with his teeth he was so frustrated) ; Paul running around the tree dragging a lunge whip with a toy racoon attached; Beanie in hot pursuit baying her head off followed by me getting increasingly more ratty with Paul as things descended further and further into chaos.

We did get a better insight into what was going on though. We discovered that if we let the dogs catch the lure and play a game of tuggy it was very easy to get them to sit nice and calmly waiting for the next chase. In fact, as in the garden yesterday we could even get them to wait for a release command even when the lure was moving. They can’t calm down if the ‘hunt’ isn’t allowed to go to conclusion.

We’ve thought long and hard about this. Tuggy is in fact a very calming activity for a Beagle. It might be fun, but it’s a release of pent up energy. Seeing a small fury thing flying past releases a whole bunch of ‘chase’ hormones and chemicals into their blood stream. A chase goes some way to blotting up those chemicals, but it takes either a very long chase or a ‘kill’ (tuggy) to get them out of the system thus allowing a calm, balanced state to resume.

I think the main thing we have to do is make sure that in all situations where we don’t want their hunting instincts kicking in we have to work very hard at keeping them calm and focused on us. So stop them going into hunt mode. They can do plenty of lure coursing and drag hunting to satisfy their instincts but it’ll be strictly under our control. For canicross I think we need to stay well away from parkruns and stimulating group runs (relaxed runs with calm dogs will be fine). We want them to learn that a run is a relaxed thing. Once they get that we can teach some commands and enter the odd race.

And for the situations where that fails we’ll work on the tuggy game so when the frenzied baying starts we can whip out a tuggy and use that to get them calmed down. I think we also need to work on getting them to respond to us when in a frenzy. We’ll never get them to calm down from this state but if we can get them to respond to a ‘wait’ command it gives us a chance to intervene.

A few more piccies of the fun in the garden yesterday.

Taming the Ferociraptor

Posted on February 27, 2011 by Susan

Pheeewwww….things are starting to ease down a bit!

For anyone that hasn’t been following the saga, out of the blue Beanie (aka Ferociraptor) started attacking her brother. Behaviorist Heather Smith prescribed a NILIF regime for a couple of weeks. The dogs seem to be loving it (not sure if they’re supposed to), but it’s hard work for us! So far so good though. And certainly lots of added benefits from a behavior point of view.

Heather also showed us a game to teach the dogs self-control. Basically a frenzied game of tuggy then take the toy away and put the dog into a sit until it’s calm. Once calm the game can start again. The idea is the dog learns how to rapidly switch from a highly aroused state. Over time the game will become more and more exciting so the dog gradually learns to calm down from an increasing level of excitement.

This game is just what we needed to solve other problems too. We do canicross with the dogs. The idea is that they wear a pulling harness and run attached to us via a bungee line. Beanie and Biggles are both wonderful at it but the problem is they’re a bit too keen. They’ve gradually got more and more excited by it and are desperate to pull. It’d be fine if they were Huskies but their canine physio advised us to keep it in moderation as Beagles aren’t bred to pull. It’s good for them to do a little bit so we don’t want to stop it altogether. We’re working on putting pulling on command so we can control exactly how much pulling effort they put in. But the first step is to teach them to quickly switch out of hunt mode when required. The game will not only help with self-control, but the tuggy will work the opposite muscle groups to those used in canicross helping to keep their joints balanced and healthy.

The above video shows Beanie playing the tuggy game. We start out with the toy attached to a lunge line to increase the excitement – chase, catch, kill. Eventually we hope the game will get them to the level of excitement that we get on a hunt (they go into ‘hunt mode’ during canicross runs) and then we can practice calming down from that. There’s also a clip of Biggles demonstrating his balance ball work – some little routines on a gym ball to work their core and stabiliser muscles. It might look easy but watch Biggles legs shaking after just a few moments. It’s really working the core. He’s mostly balancing the ball himself – I’m just helping a little. Great conditioning to keep them safe in their doggy sports!

You’ll notice the horses in the background. Heather advised us not to let Beanie and Biggles play together off-lead for a couple of weeks. They’re clearly missing their chases. When Beanie went out into the garden the horses were galloping around the field having a fabulous time. She ran around the garden turning when they turned and moving in perfect harmony with them.