Dog Circled First Rabbit

[rmassella]

My 8 month old female (Millie) opened for the first time on September 28th, it was so cool to hear her open up for the first time. Today she ran two rabbits. The first rabbit she ran was in a really swampy area of the club. She ran the rabbit for about 15 minutes but it holed up. The second rabbit was the rabbit that she ran back to me; it was about a 20 minute run. It was neat to hear her make that big circle, stop and check, and then continue to run the rabbit back to me. I have been taking Millie out to the club 3-4 times a week for the last two and a half weeks. Before today, each time she would find a rabbit she would run it but she did not circle it back to me until today; it was very exciting. It is a lot of fun to watch her continue to learn and put things together; she keeps getting better each time we go out.

I have attached some pictures of Millie. She is out of Chop-A-Line Kennels, located in Sligo, PA (Close to Clarion, PA)

[Will05]

Congrats!!!! I know the feeling. There are much easier ways to train a pup but taking them out in the wild as much as possible and finally seeing the rewards is arguably the most rewarding way. Everytime my pups open up i smile because i know i taught them what they know

[John Way]

Sounds like your enjoying yourself Robert. Thats what its all about. Many solid Trial and gundogs produced from chop a line. Best luck with yours!!

[Jbfous01]

Where did you get her she looks real nice...got a pedigree?

[rmassella]

Thanks,

Millie is out of Chop-A-Line Kennels. They are located in Sligo, which is close to Clarion, Pennsylvania, Richard and Susan Zettlemoyer are the breeders. I think she is a pretty, but then again she's my dog so I might be a bit partial to her. One of the guys at the Beagle Club that I belong to (where I run Millie) told me that she has good conformation. I'm hoping she stays under 13".

Millie of course has Chop-A-Line breeding, but also has some In-Line (Black Jack), Postoak (Set-em Up Joe), and Goersch's blood. She even has some Branko's (Big Sam) in her. She seems well bred (19 Field Champions); there are quite a few well known SPO Stud dogs in her pedigree (Rob's Diamond II, Thorn Gap Bad Jack, F-n-F's Two Toney, Dan's H&H Batman, and others). (http://www.angelfire.com/planet/jetline ... orites?i=0)

I eventually want to add a couple (2) more beagles to run with Millie, I'm just not sure what direction I want to go. I'm going to run her the rest of the fall through late winter/early spring and see what type/style of hound(s) to get so that they all compliment each other.

[Cooz's Beagles]

I love Millies looks from what I see she has good conformation. By Millies pedigree she is a med-upper med line control dog a ubgf style hound. I would find more dogs with a pedigree like hers torun her with. Many of the people on this forum run a bit of a faster type of hound, including me, so careful not to find dogs that will b too rough and wild to run her with .

All in all it looks like your having fun! Good luck!! The first time is always the most memorable!!
------
Cooz's Beagles
Kristina Cusimano
Cooz's Just Snoopin Around
Lone Pine Cooz's Nicci
Lone Pine Cooz's Swampin Sammi
Lone Pine Hank the Tank
Pups: Cooz's Tuffer in Black
Cooz's and Chloe's Swampin Destiny
Lone Pine Cooz's Kickin Up Thorns

[rmassella]

Thanks for all of the replies, it has been a lot of fun to get out and work with her. Millie and I are continuing the training process and if she keep progressing, I plan to derby her next spring. Besides continuing to solo her, the next step is to get her to work with other dogs. While training at times she is a bit timid with other dogs; she usually has a very bold demenor/temperment.

The first time I tried to work Millie with other dogs/a pack, she was very submissive and could have cared less. The second time out she looked at the other dogs but did her own thing. The last time out, she was interested in the other dogs and would run off with them for a while but kept coming back to me and she did not work. She was just interested in what the other dogs were doing. She did hang especially close to another dog in the pack.

I don't push Millie, I let her do her own thing, I'm just trying to get her exposed to others dogs that are working together in a pack. I figure the better she gets at soloing the more confidence she will gain and then one day just like when she was learning to circle a rabbit, it will kick in and the pack will make sense to her. Am I on the right path, I don't want to blow her up. Any advice that will help her pack/work with other dogs is greatly appreciated.

[Will05]

My pups are 7 months old next week and they would not even entertain the idea of working with other dogs. I started trying to make sure they were getting out with others more consistently and now it is totally different. I would let them start a track and then turn an older dog lose to help them but they would almost instantly break off the track and do their own thing. I think for the most part it was a confidence thing because as they got better with out other dogs they started to stay on the track longer. Most of the time now they even pull up when they have a break down and another dog figures it out. This pretty much changed over night for my pups it just seemed to all click for them at the same time and tbh the first time they showed any interest in working with other dogs was running with a buddy and he had 4 older much better dogs on the ground. After that i went out a couple times with someone who was only putting down 1 dog and my pups had 0 problems working with them. I was really concerned in the beginning because i have never owned a dog that wouldn't instantly honor another dog but it all worked out in the end so my advice is just keep getting her out with other dogs and im sure she will be fine

Good Luck