"Getaway" the beagle

[doctork]

There is a new dog in our neighborhood, apparently a stray beagle, who has taken up residence in our yard for about the past 10 - 14 days. Howard has called her "Get Away" because he is always telling her to "Get away" when he is working out in the backyard, but she won't leave.

She howls a lot, and comes to the front door and butts her head on the glass panels and watches Johnny the Terrorist Cat, and won't leave. We do not let her in of course, and we do not feed her, but she seems to like Howard. We do not need or want a beagle dog. We had one while I was growing up, and though he was a nice enough dog, he was a lot of trouble.

What should we do with her? I hate to call the pound/dog catcher here in Winslow - she wouldn't last long there. Is it possible her owner has lost her? I haven't seen any signs or ads. I suggested that Howard take her to the no-kill shelter in Flagstaff but he just groans and won't do it. I am off today but I was up most of the night and don't feel like driving an hour to Flag with a dog howling in my car.

[joew]

She must be getting food somewhere.

[gailkate]

Oh, K, you know better than to tell me a beagle story! You even met our adored beagle, Nelly. They are wonderful dogs.  Please, please get someone to take this poor little stray to the no-kill shelter!  Tell Howard it is a great privilege to be pined for and stalked by a beagle. He isn't working, and you don't know that she'd howl all the way. She might just sit in his lap and let her long, silky ears float in the breeze.

[BoatBabe]

We're gonna need an update to this story pretty soon, Doc.

[doctork]

A pretty happy ending!

I thought I posted about the puppies, but maybe I didn't after all. Howard had been insistent that the stray was a "she" - he could tell by her prominent nipples. I asked "So where are the puppies?" Shrug.

Anyway, yesterday I went out in the back yard to inspect the situation. Howard had given the mother a plate of leftovers. I heard some squeaks and a little black and white puppy appeared, eyes barely open but crawling after mom. Than another puppy, and then a third puppy, maybe two weeks old. They were no doubt born under the shed in our yard.

Then I knew we HAD to get them to a no-kill shelter. This brave, smart mother beagle was going all out to care for her babies, jumping over the five foot fence, paying no attention to being told to "Get away," though I suspect Howard was not all that vigorous. I brought out some cat food - some crunchy and some soft canned food. That was all we had, no dog food. The puppies licked the juice on the paper plates, mom ate most of the food.

I called Second Chance, the no kill shelter, which had no space right then, but they referred me to the Coconino Humane Society which has a 75% successful adoption rate. Any adoptable pets that aren't adopted in their time frame then go to Second Chance or another no-kill shelter.

So today Howard took mom and puppies up to Flagstaff to the Humane Society. He said mom was clearly a well-trained and obedient pet, followed all his commands. He put a collar and leash on, she walked nicely, got in the car, and lay down next to the puppies, who were in a proper transport crate. He says the shelter was lovely, out in the country, and lots of very nice people there. They were thrilled by the cute little puppies and their mother.

The family of mom and pups will go to a foster home for proper care until the puppies are old enough for adoption, and they are really cute, will be snapped up immediately. I suspect that a lovely, well-behaved adult female beagle will also be readily adopted. I don't really know, but she looked to be pure-bred: tri-color with a black "saddle," white base and tan and white markings. The ears, the tail, the shape of the head and muzzle all looked pure beagle. The puppies were all black and white.

We're going to Florida tomorrow for the cruise which departs on Saturday, so we knew we couldn't leave the beagle and pups here to fend for themselves. I think they are in good hands, and good homes will be found.

[doctork]

Now here this!

When I first got home tonight, Howard told me he had taken the mom and puppies to the Humane Society and it as harder than he thought to give them up, especially "Getaway."

A few minutes ago he said he had thought about calling up to Flag and saying he would like to adopt the mother after the puppies are weaned! But he "wants to think about it." It will take us a while to get a Berner, and anyway, if you have one dog s/he needs a companion. After realizing how hard she worked to care for her puppies, and also learning she is a well-trained obedient dog, well I might be OK with a beagle too.

[gailkate]

I'm so happy I'm crying. This is just absolutely the best day of my life!
You two have a glorious, sun-filled, magical holiday.

[jspnrvr]

Yaaaaay!

[BoatBabe]

Great Story, Doc! Have a cruise to match!!

[doctork]

Thanks, y'all. I'm sure the cruise will be great.

And if Howard would like to adopt Getaway, I'm fine with that too. She is really a very nice dog. Smart and well-trained too, as Howard said she knew exactly what was going on when he loaded up the car, and was very cooperative. No trouble in the car either - no howling, just sat quietly.

I've heard beagles can be stubborn and hard to train, but Getaway is already housebroken and follows commands. And she was stubborn only because she needed to be close to her puppies. I thought she must be somebody's family pet, but Howard pointed out that if she had an owner, they didn't bother to get her spayed, and they certainly weren't/aren't out looking for her, and no implanted "chip" either. She and her pups are safe and well cared for in Flagstaff, which is what they need for now.

[joew]

Happy ending!

[BoatBabe]

Well, we will see if the Happy Ending is yet to come. Either way, good job, Doc and Howard!

[doctork]

Howard explained to me that Getaway actually only howled when another dog threatened to come on out property, as she was guarding her pups. And she is friendly and not skittish like most strays and rez dogs. Plus she knows "Sit," "Stay," Come," "Quiet" (she stopped howling when Howard told her to be quiet), and "Get in the car." She also didn't smell "doggy," and she was quite meticulous about keeping the puppies clean.

How high does your fence have to be for a beagle? Getaway jumped our fence when she needed to get to her puppies - remember at first we did not know there were puppies, and the backyard is Johnny's yard, and he usually hangs out there with his friends there every day. But I don't know if beagles jump fences and run away (tracking some interesting scent) all the time.

And what would Getaway think about the deer in our yard in NC? And the cows in the pasture next door?

[gailkate]

Pretty high when they want to.   We had a 4ft. fence, pretty standard, and Nelly never jumped it.  But when she was a puppy barricaded in the kitchen, she managed to get over what was probably a 6ft enclosure that Jerry had cobbled together once we realized the puppy gate was laughably inadequate.  The day she jumped the high enclosure, we had company, all sitting in the living room having a beer and snacks....she didn't love beer but she loved company and SNACKS! The enclosure was an obstacle to her getting to her favorite things, and didn't deter her long.

 What was interesting about her jumping was that she could do it with no running to get momentum - just straight up.  She couldn't see over the bottom half of our screened door, so if we were standing in the yard talking to neighbors or the mailman, we'd see her little head - boing, boing, boing - as she jumped for a fleeting glimpse of what was going on in the yard.

They are scent hounds - hence the long ears that supposedly cup the scent around their noses - but books say they are bred to get up and over brush or whatever might be in the way.  Thus, they have very powerful chest muscles.

This dog has probably been playing Frisbee in the water (isn't even a good pic of beagle adorableness) but you see the power.  Below that is a pic of what Getaway and a playful pup will look like.

Who wouldn't love this perfect mom?

  She will love the Blue Ridge freedom, and I think get along well with whatever livestock is about.  but I have no experience with cows or deer.

[BoatBabe]

Great pics, gk! You've convinced me. I think a herding dog would be more interested in the cows and deer.

[Jane]

My daughter's dog Sally is some kind of houndish beagley mix, and she's just lovely. She cries when people leave, but there is almost always someone home at her house (four kids and two parents) so she is never alone for long, and they all love her. She is very hard to control on a leash, but she is still really just a pup.

[doctork]

I decided to come back and re-read this thread now that Callie has been in our family for 17 days, being as how I adopted her on April 8. It seems like we've had her forever, and things have settled down too now that we have been at home in NC for a week. Though Callie has always "liked" us - we fed her, we provide her a nice home even though it has been a lot of car trips to unfamiliar hotel properties - now she seems to really love us. She is always glad to see us, very attached to us like a Velcro dog who follows us everywhere.

She hops on the bed with us and the cats, still loves to get under the covers. I have not seen any dogs do that before. Either her previous owners (if she had any) taught her, or she observed and taught herself. She knows how bedding works so she noses around until she finds the free edge of the comforter or sheet, then burrows under it until she is at the end of the bed and completely covered.

She and Small Black Cat are friends now. If Callie comes in from a walk with her short leash on, then Small loves to follow and "catch" the leash. Johnny thinks she is "Not bad - for a dog." Callie thinks Johnny is fine, just another companion, though not as friendly as Small. That means they are interested in each other and sniff a lot, but no fisticuffs or hissing or barking.

Though we have the crate, we're not using it. Are we "supposed" to crate train the dog? She has her own doggie bed in the spare bedroom, and sometimes she sleeps there, but she prefers to be on the sofa looking out the window most of the time. In the car she sits quietly & unrestrained in the shotgun seat.

When walking her, I can definitely see the meaning of "scent hound." She runs all over, nose to the ground, following interesting smells. Near the cattle fence, she found some small animal hole, stuck her nose in, then dug furiously until she hollowed out the hole and determined there was no animal inside. She found the cattle to be mildly and briefly interesting, but the cattle were more interested in her. The "head steer" followed Callie all along the fence but didn't make any noise or do anything.

In short, Callie is smart, obedient, friendly and very mellow. She diligent about doing her "jobs" though - taking care of her puppies, alerting us to the presence of potential invaders (telephone/internet guy on the premises, someone nearby feeding his cattle), and investigating the possible presence of any small animals that don't belong here. I feel lucky that she found us, and probably she feels the same.

[BoatBabe]

Sounds like everyone is quickly settling into comfortable. Good to hear.

[gailkate]

It really is quite a saga. Starting the thread from the beginning, I realized that Callie and your cats have known each other since March. I had thought it very lucky that they all moved in together so amicably when you brought her home, but they weren't quite strangers. They'd already done some of the orienting work that is always recommended when a new animal is introduced into a household.
This reads like a short story, beautifully crafted with suspense and foreshadowing. "Good homes will be found" turned out to be prophetic. I am so happy for you all.

[doctork]

Callie discovered some small critter, or at least its hole, on her walk this morning. She was relentlessly digging a big hole to unearth said critter so Howard brought her inside.

Now she is hanging around all the doors and windows, whining to get out and continue pursuit of the critter. What should we do?

[Jane]

When Sally sees a squirrel or rabbit, she fixates on it and shakes all over. She wants to kill it SO BAD!

[gailkate]

Oh, dear, I'm late to this problem and don't have really good advice anyway.  Presumably you've had to let Callie out by now.

This is reality. Dogs chase critters and beagles are diggers - I guess because they were bred to chase rabbits. You have a big, open property, right? If Callie is free to run around the property she's going to enjoy these adventures. Our small lot has more than its share of rabbits and chipmunks, which nearly always get away. (Tosca caught a rabbit that was too fat to get under the fence easily; we saw no blood and thought she might have broken its neck when grabbing for it.  Maybe it died of fright.)  Nature is "red in tooth and claw" no matter how many animals establish odd friendships. You're going to be upset by this sometimes.

We watch to see if there are rabbits in the yard when we let the dogs out (twilight and early evening are when rabbits often feed).  We also have various animal deterrents (purchased at Menard's or similar stores) that can smell quite powerful but are safe for dogs/critters/people. They're compounds of herbs that particular animals dislike, but they're not horrid.  Anything in the onion family will deter a lot of critters, so you could slowly start planting alliums around shrubs or thickets where burrows are common.  You could mash up some garlic and put it in this particular hole, which will drive the critters out.  Unfortunately, Callie will think the garlic smells grand (it's in a lot of dog food) so you'll have to holler and carry on whenever she starts digging. But sooner or later, she's likely to catch something. When I was a teenager, we had a cat that caught birds and once brought a rabbit back to place generously on the back steps.  My mother was horrified and wouldn't let the cat in for a few days - as if he knew what he was being punished for (eye-roll). She ate meat, but pretended it came from animals that died of old age.

How did it turn out today?  

[doctork]

For part of the time, she went under the covers to nap - then she couldn't see anything or hear much. Otherwise we just told her to stop when she whined. And she does stop when told to do so, for a while. What is it with her going under the covers to sleep?

We let her out on the back porch where she hopped up and down, whining and barking, until she busted through the screen door! Howard found her digging into a different hole.

So we'll just live with the whining, as most of the time Callie is fairly sedate. Right now we always walk her on a leash, but eventually we will fence in the property, or at least part of it, and then she can run around loose to her heart's content. We still plan on getting a Bernese Mountain Dog, and typically a five-foot fence is required for Berners.

We do have a large open property, about 2.5 acres, with a creek running diagonally through the middle; two sides are cattle pasture (fenced but wouldn't contain a dog), one side is the county road, and the fourth side is a gravel road to our house and that of our (two) neighbors. A portion of both sides of our property is "woodsy," with lots of leaves and twigs - Callie loves digging there. In short, there will always be lots of critters, so we won't even try to discourage them.

We don't mind her catching critters (she hasn't caught any yet) - it's her job, and anyway, we are used to that since we've had cats for years. Johnny no longer hunts and Small is an indoor cat, but in the past we've had an endless supply of gifts such as birds, mice and rabbits. Johnny once caught & killed a California Blue Jay that was bigger and heavier than Johnny - but that bird was asking for it, taunting Johnny every day. He should have known better...

[jspnrvr]

Sounds like common sense and the voice of experience are winning the day. Beagles are just naturally going to dig.

[gailkate]

I didn't realize it was the whining that bothered you. I thought you were unwilling to let her out where she could get the critter. Was Corky such a model dog that he never did this kind of thing? "NO" is the only thing I know that works for barking or whining, and that not particularly well. I've heard of lots of dogs getting under covers and supposed it was just cozy. I don't know because none of our dogs has ever been allowed on furniture. We are besotted with them but have always drawn the line at getting hair all over furniture or sleeping with us.  Jerry does allow laptime when watching TV, especially sports, which is a guy thing for him and Mozart.

[doctork]

Corky was also known as "Barky" because he barked all the time, and did NOT stop just because you told him to. Once we/he moved to NC, he was "self-walking." Howard opened the door and he ran out to play with his dog friends in the neighborhood, thus his barking didn't bother us. I do not approve of our pets running loose, but back then I was in Arizona, what did I know?

Most of our cats have been lap cats, so it never occurred to us that pets wouldn't be allowed on the furniture. They are allowed on the sofa chairs and beds but not on the kitchen counters. They do get fur all over, oh well, I've gotten good at fur removal. Really, no cat is going to stay off the furniture just because you tell him "NO." Beagles don't shed much, so Callie is OK, not much trouble with her fur.

To get a Bernese Mountain Dog, we will have to fill out a lot of applications. Berners shed a lot, so one of the questions on the app is always "How will you deal with shedding?" No problem, we know all about it. I have groomed Johnny the Terrorist cat, and the injuries weren't even bad enough to require the Emergency Room!

[doctork]

Now I just close the curtains if Callie is whining too much about some critter outside. Howard is visiting family down south, so I am getting used to her noises - hungry, has to go out to do her business, wants to go out and eat grass, scared of thunder, critter spotted... Howard got more used to her language earlier when I was away at MegaDO. So now we're mostly on the same wavelength.

This morning Callie found a small snake, really small, maybe 1/2 inch wide, 8 inches long - must be a baby snake, right? She wasn't much interested, other than the fact that the snake was near a scent she was investigating, so the snake slithered away.

While out walking, I noticed a small hole than Callie somehow missed. when I pointed it out, she began digging at it furiously, but no critter was found. I do not mind her digging holes, as long as they aren't in the lawn. Fortunately most of the critter holes are in the woods and leaves, or at the edge of the creek.

[doctork]

How does Callie tell the difference between deer and cattle?

She gets very upset and barks about deer but pays no attention to the cattle, and she loves the horses. Even if the deer are not in our yard, but rather beyond the fence with the cattle.

[gailkate]

Do they have antlers? and why are they mingling with the cattle? Maybe Callie thinks they're aliens.

[Jane]

My daughter's dog (some brand of fox hound) shakes all over when she sees a squirrel. She really, really wants to kill a squirrel. Or anything, really, smaller than a child.