Beagles!!!
I've got two--
10 year old Scout (13" tri-color) and
2 year old Digory (15" tri). Welcome to life with a merry little hound who loves to sniff, snack, and snooze
.
Beagles are great dogs--cute, friendly, good with kids, outgoing, a manageable size, and just all-around fun. Like every breed, beagles have particular characteristics that can make them challenging at times. Again, like every breed, the more you get trained now the better off you'll be later.
There's nothing I hate more than people who give completely unsolicited advice--and lots of it--so I'll keep it short and address the three biggest issues you'll face right now: house training, chewing, and barking.
The easiest way to house train is to use crate training. If you're not familiar with crate training, I'll start by saying that it's not inhumane
. How it works is that you get a crate (cage, wire is usually best) and when you're not watching, the pup lives in there. By instinct, dogs will not soil their beds, so even the youngest puppies will hold it while they are in their crates. Obviously you have to be vigilant about what can be expected of a small puppy as far as time-wise goes. When it's time for the pup to go outside, take him on a leash (even if you have a fenced yard, go ahead and accompany him) and when he does his thing, praise him extravagantly (a tiny treat is always a nice reward). This teaches him that when he goes outside, that's a great thing. As you're standing around waiting for him to go, pick a phrase and repeat it while the deed is done. I picked, "go potty" (which was a mistake--will explain in a sec) so while the dog is sniffing around I'm saying, "go potty! go potty! go potty!" until it happens, and then, "good potty!" This has the added bonus of training your dog to pee on command. I can't tell you how handy that is. As far as the phrase to pick--it doesn't matter what it is, but I'd recommend against, "go potty" because you look kind of stupid walking around the block or at a park or wherever saying, "go potty! go potty!" My friend used the phrase, "hurry up!" and boy,
that was a good idea.
Issue #2 is chewing.
Chewing is always going to be a problem. The key to curbing chewing is to prevent, distract, and deter. Prevention is obvious. Like you said, moving your books to higher levels was a very good idea. Distraction involves lots of appropriate things for the dog to chew--rawhide, Booda bones, regular bones, Nylabones, stuffed animals (don't bother with rubber squeaky toys--beagles will gleefully shred them and then run around while you're trying to get the pieces out of their mouths), rope toys, etc. Not all dogs like the same thing, so you'll need to get a variety of delicious chewing items and see how they work. Be careful with rawhide because large chunks can break off and be swallowed. Scout, Digory and I prefer Booda chewies because they're made of corn starch and just pass through the digestion system. Once you've got a chewie, then whenever you see the dog chewing something you don't want him to, distract and redirect him toward the chewie. To deter, you can never go wrong with
Bitter Apple Spray. It's harmless but it tastes disgusting and they won't want to chew on the contaminated surface anymore.
#3 is barking. There are lots of barking issues and solutions, but the easiest to start out with is a squirt bottle. Beagles by nature don't like being wet all that much (there are exceptions, but in general, they don't--just wait until bath time) so a squirt bottle is usually effective for them. When the barking starts, give a command (like "quiet"--every command should have only one meaning so don't use "no" for everything) and if the barking continues (and it will) give him a squirt. Try not to shoot for his face--anywhere will usually do. They're not real fond of that. Then praise like crazy.
And I said I'd only give 3 pieces of advice but I'll add one more. Beagles in general (not all, of course) don't like their paws to be handled, so nail trims can be extremely difficult. Ideally you'll want to trim his nails at home, so start now by handling his paws a lot and touching his nails a lot. I wish I'd done a better job of this with Scout, who I got as a puppy, because we can't do it at home now and have to go to the groomer at PetSmart. But Digory--whoa boy. We got him from a rescue at age 1 and man oh man--we actually have to take him to the vet to be anesthetized for a nail trim
.
All right, I'll shut up now
. If you have any questions about the cuddly beag, let me know. Like I said, beagles have some unique characteristics that make them a little different to deal with sometimes. Have fun!
Wheeee! Snoopy!