Dear Anita

You are doing a really good job taking care of little Anita. 🤍

Yes, an important realisation. How does it feel knowing that none of it was your fault? Has it started to sink into understanding from logic to belief or emotion yet? Whatever you are experiencing is okay. I find that these things evolve over time. 🤍

Well, the job of beagles on hunts is to go off lead and hunt rabbits. Of course bring the rabbit back. So it’s possible to train them to go off lead and recall even though they are a harder breed to train.

I wasn’t trying to suggest letting him off the lead now. Recall training starts on the lead. You pick the word you want to use. In the beginning, I usually start with just standing and waiting for some interest in me, saying the word then praising. Just pairing it. Later on you can give the lead attached to his collar a quick, firm, but gentle tug and say the word. It is like saying paying attention. Then you can just use the word without the tug. And when he recalls reliably on the regular lead some people get a very long training lead. So they can go further away and practice coming back from a larger distance safely.

Some people use treats. I don’t like to. I trained huskies before with treats and in my opinion it makes recall unreliable. It takes more time to do it without treats. I hear that beagles can be the same way. Difficult like huskies.

I read that for beagles they should practice self control exercises to help with training. Maybe co-pilot would have some suggestions?

I really like teaching another command in addition. Looking at you. This is another one you can teach on lead too or even in the house. When he looks at you naturally pair the command and praise. Once okay with recall on a lead you can practice in the house too. 😊

It makes your life a lot easier for recall if your dog is currently paying attention to you. Having them look at you makes them move a little closer to you and pay attention. It’s less threatening because they are not being told to come back on lead all the time.

Sorry for the information dump. I hope it’s helpful. 🤍 🤍 🤍