At first glance, beagles look like the perfect pets with their sad eyes and cute, floppy ears. However, when you start dealing with beagle issues, you’ll find that this dog breed is not at all cute and cuddly.
It’s not even the beagle’s fault, because they are hunters by instinct. Before they became pets, they were bred as hunting dogs and this is just a case of old habits dying hard. So what are the different issues you might have to deal with as a beagle owner? Read on to find out.
The biggest of all beagle issues seem to be its love for barking. Beagles love to bark, because that’s what they were bred for in the first place. A beagle’s bark used to have so many purposes: they bark to alert their masters that game is nearby, when they find a trail, or when predators are near. However, these things might be obsolete if the beagle’s owners live in a sleepy subdivision with high-tech security. You might even be annoyed about the beagle’s constant barking – specially when it’s in the middle of the night. Your beagle might bark if he spots cats, other dogs, rabbits and other critters. He may bark at shadows and rustling of trees. He may even just bark because he’s bored that he doesn’t have anything hunting-related to do. Although these beagle issues may be a big problem for you and your neighbors, you have to resist trying to get him to stop barking. You want your beagle to still bark whenever there’s an intruder or if you need to be alerted of danger. The best way is to train your beagle to bark only in certain situations.
So if we are dealing with beagle issues, what are they?
Beagle issues also include the beagle’s fondness for digging. Beagles dig for a lot of reasons and most of them are rooted deep in their instincts. Beagles may dig to store their food or to unearth something they smell beneath the soil, be it a critter or something else. This can be a big problem for people who spend a lot of time landscaping. Nothing looks worse on a manicured lawn than freshly turned dirt and holes. One way of stopping this behavior would be to change fertilizers or to stop using them. Some fertilizers have a distinct scent that attracts Beagles, causing them to dig up the soil so they can get a closer whiff. Like many beagle issues, your beagle might just be doing this because it is bored. If that’s the case, make sure your dog gets enough exercise or has enough room to run around. Beagles tend to dig around when they feel trapped or enclosed in a small space.
Lastly, because of their hunting instincts, beagles tend to be aggressive. Unlike other beagle issues, this one can’t be solved so easily, as the level of aggression is different for every beagle. It also takes a lot of patience and effort to finally get your beagle to stop being aggressive. There are a lot of books and internet sites which deal with this beagle issue and it’s just a case of trial and error to find which one works best for you.