Dear Goddamned Beagle,
It has been a minute, as they say. This is for many reasons, the primary of which is that most of my waking hours for the five months you’ve been here have been spent trying to maintain my sanity.
Friends have pointed out that there is no sanity evident in someone willing to get a beagle puppy, but that’s beside the point.
For one thing, of the hundreds, possibly thousands of dogs I’ve helped to house train, either as clients, fosters, or my own dogs, you are in the top three of the most difficult creatures ever to convince to toilet outside. That’s in nearly fifty years of doing this.
The battle is not won, but with endless midnight and 3:00 am trips to the backyard all winter long, with hourly excursions throughout the day, with two daily walks, with crating, confinement, tethering you to me when moving about the house, with baby gates and several X-pens cordoning off rooms and stairways, and with many frantic calls to trainer friends as I wailed in desperation, I can now say you’re not remotely reliable. But you’re better than you were. Oh, and you’re going to be on Flagyl for the rest of your life, or until this is done, because your loose gut seems to confuse you “down there” and that has helped, too.
Against my better judgement I even trained you to ring a bell at the back door for when you want to go out. You do ring it. Then, often, you pee, right before I open the door to let you out. Then you stare at me like I’m the problem when I say, ‘What the HELL?”
You also ring the bell when you just want to see what’s going on outside, and to summon me when you feel like training.
I say summon me because you’ve frequently broken out of whatever jail I’ve put you in, and then you seem annoyed that I haven’t noticed.
You really do love training.
This is a good thing, because believe it or not, you are going to be a service dog. Those that know your kind will right now be trying to collect themselves, but for all your hell-bent-ness in finding trouble, you’re actually weirdly chill for a beagle, and I need help.
My hands aren’t working like they used to. At this point I have the manual dexterity of a harbor seal, and it’s only getting worse. Between cortisone shots, as the stuff wears off but it’s too soon for the next one, I drop everything. Glasses, pens, lids, you name it—they all hit the floor, and they’re all hard for me to pick up.
But you, it turns out, are happy to get them for me.
Except for chopsticks. Those, you’ve explained, are sticks. It’s right in the name. So when I drop one, you take off with it, running to your bed, eventually coming back with it, grudgingly, slightly chewed, but returning it nonetheless.
You also went into heat recently, which you did with typical Southern drama. Moods, the vapors, messes, weeping, and sudden refusal of food and games you’d loved before meant upping my efforts. It also meant training a moody adolescent who was wearing a pink diaper.
This is not something I’d ever pictured myself doing in life, beagle.
In our early lessons we practiced with spoons and pens and dumb bells, but now we practice with all sorts of objects. So far, the only thing you’ve refused to bring back is a dummy pair of glasses. Those, like my real pair you got off the bedside table when I was sleeping, you chewed and destroyed.
Still, we now have civilized moments interspersed throughout the day. Not many, but some. Why, just a minute ago you were lying by the fire, quietly chewing on your bully stick while I typed this very note.
Just before you broke through the x-pen gating the living room, ran into the kitchen, grabbed the sneaker I had in the back hall, and brought it back to chew in front of me.
Were you bringing it to share, Beagle? How very thoughtful.
Love,
Your Person