Last Beagle bush "hunt" of the season...

We had a huge amount of people and at least 40 dogs pitch for the last scent trial of the season. This was a surprise to the organisers considering the number of avid ruby fans in the group who were itching to get back to watch South Africa play Wales in their first match of the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. We normally finish the "hunt" at 10.30am after five trials but the rugby game started at 10:20am! So we were given strict instructions that there would be no loitering or lounging about that morning...















It is bitter sweet when the season ends. I will not miss getting up at 5.00am in the freezing dark or the precarious pot hole ridden drive into the bush in my long slung city car. Jamie still gets car sick and still hates the car so the drive is just as hairy for him. But once we get there, Jamie and Jemma are in their element. They adore chasing the ever elusive scent of the mackerel fish trail through the bush veld and the camaraderie of their fellow beagles.

I love having a morning out of the city and seeing the sun rise outdoors (I'm usually fast asleep in bed at that time). It gives me a great sense of satisfaction to hear my dogs' names called out when they cross the finish line of each scent trail.

It has been wonderful to find an activity so vitally important to the welfare of my dogs who live in the boring suburbia of a city. I also worry about what I'm going to do with them in the summer months. Maybe I should look at agility work which I think Jemma will be very good at doing. But I don't think Jamie will take kindly to going through tunnels of any sort, something he refused to do even as a puppy.

Now the results are in and are being calculated. In two weeks time the top 10 beagles will be named (those with the highest points accumulated over the season). This is a huge achievement and a final race is held in September for these dogs to determine who is the overall winner.

Finally, in October, we will be holding a Beagle Ball. This is for the owners only where we all get dressed up to the nines for general prize giving. It is common occurrence that owners do not recognise each other as on "hunt" days we are usually bleary eyed, muffled in beanies, layers of our oldest clothing and covered in dust and soot from the bush veld fires that burn in the area where we "hunt".

There are awards for the best male or female team, the best mixed team, the most consistent dog of the season (not necessarily a winner), and a pret-a-porter prize for the beagle with the most pimped up race bib. Some owners go to extraordinary lengths to create unusual race bibs for their dogs. The only criteria is that it must show the dog's name and number clearly so it can be identified.

So now we wait anxiously to see if Jamie and Jemma have improved since last year and climbed the seeding ladder ...

Dogs and their Best Friends!

Bickering Beagles and Bedtime...

My dogs bicker and growl at each other every night over who has the right to sleep where in their bed. I know the warning signs when I hear a low whining growl from Jamie or a loud ear blasting bark from Jemma.

Usually one has hogged all the blankets leaving the other with nothing or one has settled down and gets very irritated by the late arrival of the other who messes up the sleeping arrangements. Otherwise one has taken over the whole bed and will not make room for the other.

Jemma loudly broadcasts her dissatisfaction by rushing around the garden barking madly and waking up all the neighbours. This is usually perfectly timed to coincide with the moment I have chosen to take a relaxing bath. Or she comes and scratches at the bath door disturbing my meditation. I nearly trip over her when I am finally forced to surrender my "me time" and leave the bathroom.

This means that instead of diving under the duvet, all warm and cosy from my hot bath, I have to venture into the cold and sort out the the bickering children. I have to remake the bedding which is often scattered all over the place during the altercation, allocate blankets fairly to each dog and tuck them into bed (literally). They usually settle down after this.

But sometimes someone decides to go for a pee and the bickering starts all over again. By this time I am usually on my way to dream land and my response is "Oh for goodness sake, let them sort it out!". I mean really, how spoilt is that - tucking my beagles into bed every night!
Next I'll be reading them bed time stories.

Wounded in the line of Dog Duty...

I remember our canine behaviour lecturer saying that if one wants to work with dogs, a tetanus vaccination is a prerequisite. I found out why this weekend.

I am now learning how to work with adolescent and adult dogs - a whole different ball game from puppies. In these adult classes one gets a real mix of dogs from different backgrounds. Some dogs are well socialised (often owners who attended puppy classes and want to continue keeping their dogs stimulated and challenged through training).
Then there are those dogs that have not been socialised and have now become troublesome teenagers, so their owners want to "fix" the dog's bad behaviour. (Why oh why doesn't everyone who gets a puppy go to puppy socialisation classes? It would save them and their dogs so many headaches.) And finally there are the adopted or rescue dogs who often have problems but little is know about their past. Betty was one such dog.

She was a small mixed breed (with a bit of Staffie) who barked madly and rushed furiously at every dog in the class with bared teeth. During training, my hand accidentally had an encounter with Betty's teeth. It was not deliberate on Betty's part. It was my body part that got in the way. The bite was minor and after applying a plaster, I decided to tackle Betty's problem again.

Betty was obviously in a state of stress. She was interpreting her environment especially the other dogs as a hazard and her natural reaction was to go into hazard avoidance mode. Dogs can choose either to flee, freeze, faint, fidget or fight. Well, Betty was on a leash in a situation she could not escape, so she chose to fight. What appeared as aggression towards other dogs was, in my opinion, Betty actually saying "Hey! I am afraid of you other dogs, so don't come near me or else!!".

Other physical signs of stress are tension in body posture, staring eyes, a tight muzzle, uneven fast panting, lip licking, whining, a very dry mouth or excessive salivating, cold paws and a sudden outbreak of dandruff on the dog's fur. Betty had many of these symptoms.

When a dog is stressed its ability to learn is considerably reduced. So both Betty and her owner were getting extremely frustrated because she was in fear mode and not able to learn anything.

We decided to try some of the basic touches from a method known as Tellington Touch. This works like magic when one wants to calm and build confidence in animals! We used long, gentle, calming strokes along Betty's body, around her hind quarters, tail and her ears where she held tension. We also used touch as a way of praising her because stress often causes a loss of appetite. As a result food no longer works as a motivator or a reward. Every time Betty stopped barking at the other dogs, she got praise the moment she made eye contact with her owner. Focusing on her owner and not the other dogs was the behaviour that was being reinforced.
We then repeated exercises she could easily do like sit, paw and spin and lavishly praised her each time she succeeded. This meant Betty experienced some sense of achievement during the class.

My personal feeling was that the fact that she'd become calmer towards the end of the class was the most important achievement of all. The fact that she was not learning more new tricks like the rest of dogs, was less important. Betty needs to become less stressed and more at ease when exposed to other dogs, people and different situations. Her owners will need a lot of patience to help her achieve this. Hopefully they will hang in there and not give up on Betty.

I was going to ignore the bite. After all it wasn't serious. But since I had never had a tetanus vaccination, one of the instructors advised me not to take any chances. Oh well, if I was going to be working with dogs, it had to be done. So at five o'clock on a Saturday afternoon I schlepped off to the Emergency room of the nearest hospital. Since my case was coded green ( not critical) I had a long wait ahead of me. Whilst sitting in my cubicle I heard some strange stories emanating from the other cubicles. A man fixing his car had dropped the engine on his thumb thoroughly mashing it in the process. In another cubicle a patient was complaining that his gonorrhea symptoms were getting worse...

One and a half hours later, the attending doctor scared the daylights out of me when he began talking about rabies shots ( a series of three) as well as a tetanus shot and antibiotics (A young girl had recently died of rabies and her palm had merely been grazed by the dog).
I assured him that the dog that bit me had been vaccinated and there was no rabies in the area. I would come back for antibiotics if the bite was showing any signs of infection. So we settled on a tetanus vaccination and dressing my hand with antibiotic cream.

The injection was painless, the bite out of my wallet hurt much more.
But hopefully it will be an insurance policy against any pain and aggravation later on.

Beagle in the Bag...