Oh, and that crate stuff supports my theory. He got what he wanted on the crate issue, which was to be let out. So who is controlling whom?
Every time he gets what he wants and you don’t get what you want, you are reinforcing his dominance over you. Every. Single. Time.
Oh, and of course, he’s a beagle.
What Stoid said. A great many people make the mistake of thinking that getting angry with their dog is asserting dominance. It’s the opposite. If you are angry, he has won.
Great points and I must say I love Cesar Milan!
I will admit fully that my frustration does come out in some of the things I do with him, and I think I may be interfering more than modeling alpha. ON the weekends I get a lot more time with him, and I am much more patient with his behaviors…luckily my SO is much more patiernt and has more of a quiet authority than I do. That being said, we train on “LEAVE IT” all the time and when he wants to he will, when he doesn’t he certainly won’t.
One thing he does that is a little amuzing in my opinion, is that he is not a fetching dog, but he will run after a ball pick it up and then run away with it. Our yard is on a hill, so I have been throwing the ball down the hill and he will run it back up to within a few feet of me. Then he’ll fake putting it down and keep his eyes glued to my feet, when my feet move he bolts. Or, he’ll bring the ball right to my hand and place it in it, only to instantaneously snatch it out and bolt. It’s amusing for the first few times, until I realize he’s not playing fetch he’s playing keep away from me!
A few more questions - Why not a Border Collie? There is a beautiful Border COllie\Blue Healer mix at the shelter right now, she’s only 12 weeks…
We are getting a second dog, and we are looking for a larger breed. Will this current dog teach the new one “bad” behaviors if we have not ironed them out yet?
For the rabbit thing - we have an enormous yard, several acres where a lot of the time we have no idea where he is…until I whistle and he comes bolting out of the meadow. Should we limit his time out there? Or only allow him supervised time to roam? But then it’s not roaming…
Also, on a practical matter, if he is hunting, finding, and half\consuming rabbits and voles…should we be worried about bones? I know when he’s been successful on the hunt because he doesn’t eat his dinner…I wonder about this, he’s a post city dog and I fear he does’t know hwo to regulate his eating of wild animals…
Why not a border collie? Because they are smart, need a job to do, and if you are having problems with the beagle mix, the Border will run circles around you.
Do not get another dog until you have this one more under control. Of course the new dog will learn behaviors from the beag…the beagle speaks dog way better than you and can teach the newbie all kinds of things in mere moments.
Do not let your dog roam your acreage until you have him on reliable recall. That may be never; beagles are completely scent driven and will frequently ignore everything if they are tracking.
I have a beagle, too. I did not want a beagle, but things happen. Charlie is sweet, and a very aggressive cuddler. He cannot be allowed outside off lead ever. He doesn’t recall at all…once that nose hits the ground, his ears shut off. The few times he did get free, I had to chase him over 10 acres and I got lucky that he found something to roll in that slowed him down.
All that crap he is eating is going to give him worms on a regular basis. Also, if anyone is your area is poisoning vermin, your dog may be in danger of ingesting a poisoned animal. Do not let him roam free.
Good luck!
You should never let him play keep away from you, EVER. With some dogs who know where the boundaries are you can switch roles, but letting him get you to be “it” is yet one more way he’s bossing you around. From now on, don’t ever chase him, whether he has the ball or not. The game must always be (and this is actually a safety issue) he chases you. Always.
That absolutely includes any incidents of him running away from you when you haven’t made anything a game. The best way to get a dog back that is running away is to get his attention so you know he sees you, then you run away. If you teach him that game and he always gets a wonderful reward for it, you will be protecting your dog because he will always run towards you. (Don’t let him learn to “trigger” the game by letting him run away from you too much, though. You have to watch yourself carefully with dogs, they pay very close attention to things you are not paying any attention to at all.)
Border Collies require enormous commitment, because they are far and away the most intelligent of dogs, as well as the most active. This means they need boatloads of stimulation, attention, and training, throughout their lives. They were bred to be alert, attentive, and physically active constantly during every waking hour: that’s why they are so spectacular with sheep. If they don’t have sheep, and they don’t have you, they will not help your current dog chill, they will both go batshit. You need a dog to mellow your dog, not jack him through the roof!
Of course, that doesn’t mean a couch potato, because they won’t bond. You need a moderately active dog that is very easily trained and bonds tightly with people.
A puppy will not teach him, he will teach the puppy, and then everything you don’t like in your current dog you will have X2. I strongly advise you to be a foster family for a rescue organization so you can “sample” dogs and see if one is a good fit for you. Absolutely the best way in the world to get a new dog, particularly with a dog already in the house.
Generally speaking, it sounds like you need to practice a lot more control over your dog in general. I don’t know what your lifestyle is, but any dog that’s being left alone to roam huge areas and eat wild animals for most of his day is not a dog I’d want to try and assert myself with.
You have to remember that dogs will do what feels good. Therefore you need to make sure that you represent the best stuff in the world. If I were a dog, you’d be a sorry second to days spent roaming acres of wildlife-packed land and doing as I please. No contest.
Especially if I was a beagle.
Oh Boy! Ok.
I swore at one point in my life that I would never get a beagle. Well, my SO came with one and she is not going anywhere so now we are both training him…I don’t think anyone is poisoning vermin but its a good thing to know.
I will say work with the clicker has had some success. And his being only half beagle has helped I think. It was the cuteness factor that got him adopted back in October, sans a few nights of regretting the decision, he’s a pretty good dog. If he’d just listen a little more.
And as a general rule for all dogs and establishing who the pack leader is: ALL games end with you winning. You always are the last one with the toy or ball or whatever, which you then remove until the next time. If you play tug and he gets it, you must get it back before the game is over. You don’t throw the ball “one last time” and walk away for him to get it, you remove it the last time he brings it to you.
You must be in control of all good things all the time. Another reason letting him eat wild animals is bad; if you aren’t the source of food, then you really have no power over him at all.
A simple but powerful way to establish pack leadership (and prevent aggression from ever developing) is to teach your dogs to wait for permission to eat every single time they do. I used to do this as a kind of parlor trick with my friends when I had my golden Maggie because she was so good I would put the food down in front of her and she would fix on my face, waiting for my signal. If I didn’t give it within about 30 seconds, the saliva would begin to drip to the ground while she started at me intently without blinking.
This is somewhat amusing but also dangerous. My golden retriever plays this shit with me too (yeah, she’s a retriever!) and there have been several times where she’s had something in her mouth that she really should not have in her mouth, and it’s a nightmare trying to get it away from her. Dogs don’t know the difference between “chase me, I have a ball!” and “chase me, I have a live grenade!” so you really need to think twice about the negative effects of playing fetch the way they want to play it.
I don’t have any advice about how to correct this behavior. I’m just lucky that my dog has reached an old age safely and now tires out quickly enough to stop being chased before she is harmed.
Stoid - Great post, thank you. This is a first for my SO and I living up in the Mountains, and we are just getting used to the altitude and the acreage. The dog does seem wild at times, but you are right with winning the game every time and with making him eat only with permission. Luckily we covered the compost as that was his favorite morning pre-breakfast snack…:mad:I was not happy when he came in with banana, pepper and tomatoe juice caked on his chest…
Has anyone mentioned that the problem is that he’s a beagle?
I have a beagle mix and he’s been impossible to train. And the superpower olfactory system is a nightmare. I have three acres and in the spring/summer when the windows are open, he goes nuts at least twice a night when he smells a critter. I have been completely unsuccessful with the “leave it” command as I think he just can’t help himself. But he sure is cute…
All beagle teasing aside, one thing you should internalize if you are going to spend your life with dogs: it’s pretty much YOU, not the dog, that is the problem.
Seriously. If you make a commitment to always looking in the mirror when your dogs aren’t doing what you want, you will be that much close that much faster to being an awesome pack leader. Truly obstinate dogs that cannot be controlled by a good dog person are very rare.
One key thing in figuring out what you’re doing wrong when you look in the mirror is to remember what I said about how much dogs pay attention. They are freakish sometimes - so you have to pay attention to yourself. What is he picking up on? What is he seeing that is leading him to ignore what you are trying to get him to do and doing the opposite? Something is giving him that information, pay attention to yourself, and to your SO, and to your environment.
My dog is probably part Border collie, along with Rottweiler (someone, I can’t remember who, made a great joke: Border + Rottie? Dangerous dog…he could kill me and make it look like an accident.) and other stuff, and he’s insanely observant. He takes in the 5 steps that precede the step I want him to focus on… or not focus on. He was having a very frustrating problem with being highly sensitive to certain noises. They would upset him and he would leave the room: coffee grinding, fly swatting, and strangest of all, stapling.
Now, I don’t bang hard on my stapler, not usually. I just… staple. In fact I usually pick it up in my hand to staple.
Well, Mr. Sensitivity got so hyper-sensitive to the stapler that he was getting tense and bailing when I picked up sheets of paper and tapped them on the table to arrange them in preparation for stapling! That was it, I couldn’t stand that, so we began an intensive program of reconditioning his mind.
Which has backfired in at least one way: I cannot stumble into the kitchen in the morning to make coffee unless I have some treats ready, because the second I even pour the beans, he’s right next to me, and when the grinding starts he’s beside himself: where’s my treat, mom? He’s so conditioned now that on days when I have pre-ground coffee he looks at me in utter confusion: I can see you are playing with the water and the coffemaker and I smell coffee…but no grinding??? Hey, that’s a gyp!
Oh man you just reminded me of something that happened with my other golden Tucker… I put in compost bins, but I never thought about whether my dogs would dig under the little door to get to what was inside.
Until tucker came in the house looking pregnant!
He had dug under the side of the compost and evidently eaten as much as his body could hold! I have never in my life seen such a thing… I always wondered if dogs had limits. He was stuffed to the gills, I’m probably very fortunate that he didn’t do some kind of serious harm to himself.
Thank you! I agree I need to pay more attention and be more mindful about him. I am generally a very present individual, however, sometimes when I get home I am a little less observant of his behaviors until it’s too late and he’s neck deep in a vole hole. I am going to talk to my SO this weekend about this, have her read the post, and we can decide on some pack rituals that work well for the little guy.
One thing I am trying to work on, and I ought to prefice this by saying I have my own way with dogs and my SO has hers, is that I do not like it when a dog jumps up on the couch onto a lap. Ticks me off to no end. Now my SO likes to cuddle and I have no problem with that, so I asked her to make him sit before jumping up on the couch. She does this and it has helped somewhat. However, if we are watching a movie and he sits then is invited on the couch to snuggle for two hours, it completely wipes his training and then when we go to sit down on the couch after that movie he jumps right up again.
I’m guessing more discipline and more pack leading on both our parts.
How generous of you. This is your SO’s dog. If the dog’s not growling and not showing aggressive behaviors, why don’t you let your SO worry about the dog? I’ll grant you that I could be reading too much into this. I had an ex who sounded a lot like you. Dumped him and judging from the stories I heard from an ex he dated after me, I (and my dog) was much better off. What can I say, I’m just not a fan of people with control freak tendencies.
Whoa, read the whole thread, Valley. I’m the least controling man on the planet. My SO and I are trying to train a dog who is hard to train and if it is better to make him get permission to do things [like jump on the couch, bed, etc.] so he will listen at other times then we’ll do it. I mean, I’m not saying [at all] that my SO and he can’t cuddle or whatever.
Too many drinks have been spilled off the coffee table and too many people who don’t want a dog jumping on their laps have been smothered by the dog for anyone in the house to allow that kind of behavior. My niece was over a few weeks ago and was near drown by the dog jumping on her on the couch [she’s 3] … it’s simply not acceptable.
FIrst, you’re welcome.
Second… tough one. I’m with your camp. I used to have cocker spaniels when I was young (and really ignorant about dogs, but I loved them always) and they had pretty much free run of everything, including the furniture. It took me years to finally realize that I hated having dog hair all over every available surface, and particularly in my bed. So they had to get over it and no dog I’ve had since has had that permission.
However, very occasionally, maybe 3-4 times per month, I will specifically invite Preston up - not to take up a spot on the couch itself, but I will sort of drag all 65 pounds of him on to my lap, where he will insist on being on his back for belly rubs while I insist on smooching his face. We cuddle like that, him on my lap much more than the couch, for as long as 30 minutes. Then I put him down and say “off” very clearly as I do.
He occasionally tries to cute me into letting him up, but generally doesn’t even give it a thought. I keep total control over when, how and how much.
(Although I know that he sneaks up when I’m not home. I’ve occasionally found the couch to be unusually warm… but I don’t really know how to combat that and I don’t care enough to focus on it.)
Fair enough, I admit I could be reading far too much into your posts. That said, you’ve said the training you’ve done has been “half-assed” and that the dog is still “arrogant.” This is just a weird way to think. Of course a dog like a beagle isn’t going to listen to you if you’re not consistent in your training. Nor is he being arrogant in doing so. He just hasn’t been trained. Conflating human emotions with normal (untrained) dog behavior is putting the onus on the dog when what you’ve got is a people problem. It also has nothing to do with dominance. People throw that word out (along with alpha) when what they really mean (but don’t admit) is that they’ve haven’t trained their dog properly. You can have the most submissive dog on the planet but if the owner isn’t consistent in their behavior and in the commands given to the dog, the dog still is not going to behave. Being alpha or dominant or whatever catchphrase is popular is simply not a substitute for properly training and socializing your dog.
It’s your SO’s dog so it’s really up to her to decide what kind of behaviors are allowable. At the very least, if you two aren’t in agreement about what kind of limits the dog should have, then you’re just going to wind up with a confused dog who doesn’t know the right way to behave.
Beagles were bred to go through underbrush and rough terrain so they aren’t as touch sensitive as you might expect. What seems like bull in the china shop behavior to you is pretty much what he’s been bred to do.
He sounds like an energetic and extremely social dog. So how much exercise does he get and how much socializing does he get? These things are extremely important for a dog to have good manners. When you do train the dog, do you make it fun? Dogs will pay more attention and learn more if they’re actively engaged in what you’re teaching rather than just waiting for you to correct him.
I’ll also say this, what has always worked for me in terms of teaching a dog not to jump up on people is teaching “jump” as a command. Don’t know why it works but it does (at least for me). I imagine it could work with furniture as well.
Good points Valley I never thought of the being bred for underbrush thing, but it makes sense. He gets all the active time he wants during the day and in the evening we play with him alot! Socializing with other dogs is something that he probably needs more of, and as we have such a huge yard we have friends over all the time to visit the “dog park” 
As for my SO, I think I have portrayed my role as little more intense than hers, and it may be in terms of my voice. But she is the primary alpha and does a great job on her own in training the little man. The cuddling part is something she admits may not be beneficial all the time, but it’s up to her when she wants to have him on the couch or not.
I keep forgetting to tell you how cute he is. And he’s got s a lot of something else going on besides beagle. In the photo his legs look to me like very long/tall versions of a basset hound’s - muscular, turned out.
He’s an interesting mix.