In order for my daughter to gain some confidence back with the mad beagie I was thinking of letting her do obedience classes with her.  Does anyone think this might help?  Am I right in thinking that there is not much hands on from the trainers and it will mainly be a relationship between Charlotte and the beagie.   I have only ever tried the basics once with Purdy and we spent most of the time being humiliated by the other people who all progressed. 

She is doing a lot better now.  She did have a mad moment on Saturday as someone who knew her problems came and put his nose on hers and needless to say she tried to snap him.  He did the same again.  Once she realised there was no reaction she shut up and licked him to death.  There was only a small noise this time and that 'attack' for want of a better word was not bad and had she had the inclination she could have easily chomped his face off.  All she did was lunge. 

A lot depends on who you choose, a clicker class for example would be hands off a lot, no pushing into sit ect.

Lindsay
x

Depends on how old your daughter is.

Generally children trying to train a dog in class struggle as the dog often looks to mum or dad (who usually do more of the walk, feed, groom, train, play with at home things) and most children make jerky movements, have smaller voices and are even more reluctant than the adults to stand up in front of a group of strangers - which doesn't inspire confidence in most dogs.

In my experience some children over 12 can do well although some over 12 have been hopeless.

You have described your dog as "mad" and having "mad moments" and beagles can be very difficult to train (particularly as other handlers drop interesting things on the floor). I would say that it is better for you to take her to classes until she is settled and doing well and take your daughter along to watch so that she can practice at home (if you felt humiliated last time it is quite a tough position to put your daughter in). As your dog improves and if your daughter feels confident she could perhaps take over the training in classes.

From what I have seen in obedience classes, yes it is mainly the handler and dog who interact, the trainers are usually there to train you to train your dog rather than taking over.

I do agree with a lot of what Karen has said, this could well backfire completely if she struggles and things go wrong then her confidence will suffer even more and under the watchful gaze of several adult strangers too. Also, I used to see a few children training their dogs at the club I went to and TBH a lot of other handlers would be huffing and puffing with frustration as it often took the children longer to master things resulting in more 1:1 for them and more time lost for the adults. All of the trainers would sigh when a child came in, more hard work for them.

Have you considered ring craft? Sorry if this is wrong as I have never been to one, but would they not hold junior handling classes? Also it would probably be easier than obedience classes as (again I could be wrong) I would have thought it all on lead and a lot of obedience is off lead, not easy with, as you describe, a mad beagle.

HTH :)

I would say it depends on the training class.  There are quite a few children at my training class and to be honest alot of them are doing better than the adults, at our class we have one trainer per class and three or four helpers going round helping out those with difficult dogs so no one is left out and everyone gets the amount of help they need.  Obedience is one on one and I personally think it would build their relationship back up, the only problem I can think of is that if you think your beagle is being protective towards your daughter this could make things worse as the bond between them is made stronger.

Hmmm, tough one. If the problem is the bond with your daughter then I agree with ClaireyS - to make it stronger could make the situation worse. And as someone who has also been humiliated by the experience of taking a hound to Obedience Classes I am very wary of it.  What I didn't realise (and would have said if I had known) is that Rufus took a long time to grow up, so even sitting and lying down was a problem with so many distracting dogs and smells.  If it could nearly reduce me to tears to have a trainer point out how inadequate my dog was compared with the others then I hate to think what it could do to your daughter's confidence, especially as she is probably feeling a bit low at the moment.  Could she not try scent work with her? Probably a stupid idea, but although the bond would be there, they would be working at distance and she would get used to other people being around your daughter when she can't be there to protect her.  Best of luck - if I can think of anything more intelligent to suggest I willget back to you...

Charlotte and beagie have bonded too much.  She has had a very bad phantom which has made her lunge at people when they do eyeball contact.  She is/was a show dog and my daughter has done really well with showing her but because of this lunging buisiness she cant be shown and I thought if Charlotte felt more in control of her it would give her more confidence.  She has tried a few things at home and the beagle is quite plyable.  Everybody has assured me that the protection business will stop once her hormones get back to normal but I really want her to have confidence in her dog.  I know that I have read in a lot of places that when dogs are badly behaved that if you have one command then you can hopefully stop it.  She is nearly 12 and quite intelligent so I dont think it would be overstretching her.

She already does ringcraft but it is when she is on the table and people stare at her she flips out so I dont think this is a good idea to go back.  Charlotte handles her there.

And if anyone thinks its humiliating with a hound try going in with a dalmatian now that was humiliating.  Everybody else progressed apart from us ;)

It may help to look at a book specifically for children, see www.dogtraining.co.uk for Sarah Whitehead's book on dog training for children :)

If by any chance you are near Hants, I know of a very good beagle trainer who does all sorts with her dogs, who could possibly be of great help.

Lindsay
x

Just to let you know a 7 year old handler won her first Beginners(obedience of course) on Saturday-yes the handler is 7 ! So age is not always a barrier in fact it's a bonus sometimes

"And if anyone thinks its humiliating with a hound try going in with a dalmatian now that was humiliating.  Everybody else progressed apart from us"

Did you get the pitying stares and the "Oh well, never mind, just keep trying your best"? I didn't mind that so much, it was when (the week after that) I asked her for help, asking what I could do as he still got too over-excited around other dogs and 'forgot' all his training, and she replied by asking me how long I thought I could carry on using that excuse! Well, my puppy is now a year old, is brilliantly trained in the house and still gets over-excited around other dogs, so I guess I can keep using it. He was 17 weeks old at the time and no, she never gave me any advice other than to point to the Advanced Class dogs and say "How do you think he'll manage against them?" Strangely he never had to, as we didn't go back...  

We were kind of relegated to the naughty corner.  I wanted two things from dog training to get her to come back when I called and to get her to walk to heel.  Anyway having spent a fortune on a 6 week training course this was the conclusion.  She doesnt come back because she doesnt have to so buy her a lunge reign and also get her a gentle leader as she cant be trained to walk to heel.  Apparantly dalmatians are untrainable!!!!! 

Not as bad as one of her daughters apparantly they had a nuaghty corner and her daughter and new owner spent all their time in there.

I did ring up to book beagie into some lessons and couldnt believe it is the same lot again.  They have moved. So now am looking for a new class. 

I don't blame you. We have been lucky with the recall as ours will come running back to us (as long as we call him before he sees the dog or person that we are trying to keep him away from!), but the walking to heel is still a big problem. I didn't want to give up and relegate him to a harness for the rest of his life, but I did end up buying a harness that stops him pulling, which we use when we just want a walk without the time to train him perfectly. And it is beginning to work, as he is now much better on the lead. Funnily enough, I have always trained our recue Spaniels since I was about 5 and they were always very well behaved - this was the first time I had the chance to go to Obedience Classes and I was so excited about it. But from now on I will stick to doing things my way. It may not be perfect, but it works fine and I don't get humiliated, which has got to be good.  Surely it is wrong for people to get away with being horrible when you pay for the privilege of their advice. Unfortunately, I know I was not the only person who stopped going to these classes as a friend of a friend actually ended up in tears in the class as she was made to feel so inadequate.  It has made me feel that Obedience Classes are fine for the Joe Average dogs but it seems that some trainers are reluctant to actually help deal with the more challenging dogs.  Maybe that's why so many obedience dogs are the same type - all the others have been told their dogs are untrainable!
p.s. Apologies to any trainers who have taken offence at this - deep down I know there are some fantastic kind, helpful and caring trainers around: it's just that I haven't met them yet!

i have pm'd you tts.