While my husband and I both love our beagle, when someone asks us if they should get one we both immediately respond with a resounding NO! He's loud, hyperactive, sheds like a grizzly bear in the springtime, and has resolved to destroy everything in his path. For every 3 minutes we spend loving him, there's about 30 minutes we spend chasing him around with a broom or forcefully extracting him from under the bed.
There are many ironies that come with owning a beagle. Let me give you a few examples.
1. If we're on a run or walk, he ABSOLUTELY MUST stop and pee on every single mailbox, trashcan, political sign, stick, groove in the sidewalk, and trunk. It doesn't matter if there's no more pee coming out. He'll still stand there with his leg pointed towards the sun for a few seconds. It makes exercising somewhat...difficult. But when I take him out at 5:30 in the morning because he's been whining since 5 and it's 45 degrees outside and raining, he must exhaustively smell out each bush and tree until he finds the perfect one. How dare I expect him to urinate on the first greenish object we come across??
2. Nick and I spend money on extremely solid and bright rubber toys. (Anything less than an inch thick won't make it through the next hour, which also rules out all cloth toys. Not only do they not last more than 20 minutes, but the pieces end up all over the carpet.) Toys that bounce, toys that squeek, toys with special handles for tug-of-war, toys that are supposed to make his breath smell better. There's a pile in our living room right now. But no matter how bouncy or squeaky the toy is, he would much rather play with a wine bottle cork, my film containers, or the pen left under the couch. There are two things in particular that we cannot leave on the floor, because he will destroy them. The first is my underwear. Not anyone else's underwear, not my sister's or old roommate's or Nick's, only mine. And the only part he tears out is the crotch. (I was going to make some dirty joke relating him and Nick here, but I though my poor mother would have a heart attack.) The second item is water bottles. His fascination with water bottles in unexplainable. If he hears one of us drinking from a bottle he will race over and sit underneath you with a light in his eye and his tail wagging so fast you think he's going to start to fly.
3. Like any other beagle or hound, his nose is the most important thing to him. When he is in your car he expects you to have the windows down so he can stuff as much as his body out of it. If you leave the window up, he cries and howls. When you put the window down, he cries and howls because of all the things I'm not letting him smell. We terribly scared a nice old couple walking their nice old dog at the beach one day. Let's just say Rudy really wanted to play.
4. He will only poop if you take him on a walk. If you're just walking outside our apartment building, he will pee, but never ever poop. If you don't take him on a walk he poops right next to our bookcase. When we do take him out on 'adventure' he'll poop three to four times, because he's just been holding it in for the last few days. We always prepare appropriately and bring many many bags.
5. On the thought of walks, when you're outside with him he's trying to be the full length of the leash away from you. I walked half a mile once with him only on his back feet because I was trying to get him to walk next to me. But when Nick and I go to bed at night and we leave him in the hallway, he'll whine and bark and scratch at the door until we let him in. He would rather be in his cage in our room that free in the rest of the apartment.
And I could go on much longer! He's a puppy that doesn't make any sense, which may be one of the reasons he'll always have a special place in my heart.
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