Beagle – The Ultimate Chow Hound

According to Wikipedia, “beagles are scent hounds, developed primarily for tracking hare, rabbit, and other game.” In my experience, beagles are chow hounds, dedicated to eating anything they can get their little paws on. To illustrate this point, I need to introduce Valentine, the beagle mutt we lost last summer at the age of 15. I affectionately referred to Valentine as my “problem child”. She would eat anything that remotely resembled food, and that was usually at the core of whatever trouble she caused.

Valentine had to endure induced vomiting twice. We came home from work one day to find a kitchen cabinet door open and an empty bag of Nestle’s Toll House Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels on the floor. Valentine’s paw prints were all over this caper, but we couldn’t be sure that Tootsie had not partaken once the bag was open. So, both dogs were whisked off to the vet, where we subsequently learned that Tootsie was innocent of all charges, and Valentine had kept the feast to herself.

The second time Valentine was forced to undergo induced vomiting was when we thought she had ingested mouse poison. One of our neighbors had a fake rock in their yard which contained blocks of mouse poison (bad, bad idea). Somehow, this rock made its way into our yard and we found Valentine with her nose in a mouse hole in the rock. We didn’t see Tootsie near the rock, but since she was in the vicinity, both dogs were once again raced to the vet. The dogs were force fed some nasty charcoal-based product, which is designed to absorb the poison, and which they both promptly threw up in my car on the way home.

Then, there was the time that Valentine ate almost a whole loaf of bread. Living near conversation land, many of the neighbors will put out old food for the critters that reside near us. I looked out the window one day to see Valentine in stealth mode making her way toward the back of our neighbor’s garage. I rushed over, only to be greeted by Valentine with a slice of bread in her mouth, all that remained of the loaf. Since this occurred on a Sunday, we had to take her to the emergency vet ($$$), where they did several nasty things to get the bread to come out one way or the other. Valentine spent the night at their office and greeted us the next morning looking for her next meal.

Dogs of various breeds are prone to getting into different kinds of trouble all because they do what their instincts tell them to do. It’s almost hard to get mad at them for doing what comes naturally. As owners, we need to be aware of what drives our dogs and try to keep them out of peril as best we can.