Patience and Perserverance

Not quite the words that come to mind when describing me, but those are the terms I found when I googled "training beagles for agility." During a particularly disappointing agility weekend, I remembered that Maggie's DNA report came back with Beagle as the dominate breed in her genetic makeup. I have not seen any beagles doing agility in my area.

I have been attributing Maggie's sniffing to stress, but apparently that is the primary issue with training Beagles for agility. If they latch onto a scent, you have lost them. How did I end up with a scent hound after 3 herding dogs? They are also stubborn and have their own agenda. Food appears to be the lure for them, which totally matches up with Maggie. A wise blogger said that fun is the main focus when training Beagles and accepting that your dog is not a Border Collie. You need patience and perseverance to achieve success.

After spending the last 4 years reading everything I could find on reactivity, jumping issues, and now blindness, I cannot believe I have another issue to research - How to be more fun than a following a stinky scent. Someday I hope to get an agility partner who allows me to work on handling rather than behavior. Does such a thing even exist?

This weekend, we did manage a qualifying score in Jumpers with Weaves - our first Q in Excellent B. We are still pokey and missing some obstacles, but we had a good time. Now that I know fun is the focus and training a Beagle is a journey in itself, I will relax and just enjoy Maggie. We will never be any type of champion, but we will perservere to become the best we can be.