The American Beagler Forum

I have a question to those of you who have little swimmers to condition your hounds. Wonder why my dogs won't use their back legs to swim? Do any of you have this problem? I have a board across the top of a big tub with a chain hanging into the water. I put the dogs in a life vest for dogs and attach them to the chain. Problem is they only use their front legs to swim. Now if I throw them in a pond or something they will use all four legs.....Wonder why they won't in the tub? Any thoughts........

I would say they are sitting too high in the water.

what the heck??My hounds hate water!!!afew summers ago i bought a little kiddy pool when it was really hot to give my hounds a place to cool off.Well they figured it was a big water bowl and just drank out of it.In my experiance beagles are not fond of water.Run em don't thrown em in the water!!!geezzz.

Harv at least they drank it, mine would probably pee in it. lol

Its all what they get used to. My winter puppies have no idea what the kiddie pool is for and and my summer ones are the first ones in. I have a couple that get in and lay down and stay for a while. Had one order a pina colada the other day!!! Now thats where I draw the line! LOL I ain't no pool side waitress!!

Leah

he is talking about conditioning by swimming...lol should be ok as long as front legs are pumping. they will still build wind.

I have one pup from one of Leahs bitches that LOVES the kiddie pool! Most of my others just drink out of it but I keep it clean so there isn't any harm in that.
I throw dog toys and small balls and stuff into the pool for the pool puppy to get and she just loves it. Once in awhile another beagle will brave the pool too...I also think it looks pretty with the balls floating around so it works for me.

MasonsBeagles wrote:he is talking about conditioning by swimming...lol should be ok as long as front legs are pumping. they will still build wind.

I know.. guess I got off track!! LOL I think swimming is good exercise if its natural say in a pond but, forced? I don't think I have the patience or would care much to do it. Our dogs are in very hard condition from exercise running in our yard. The more natural a dog can use its body the better conditioned it will be

Leah

put a rabbit in front of it and see if it uses all four legs

My hounds love the water and don't have a problem with me putting them in the swimmer.....I just didn't know if they would get the right conditioning from just using their front legs.......

harvhounds...Its kinda hard conditioning them while running if it's too hot and dry to smell rabbits....otherwise they are just walking around and that won't condition them....Also I work night shift and its hard to run dogs for hours...

Matt Wilson wrote:put a rabbit in front of it and see if it uses all four legs

ROFL!
My hounds HATE the water so not sure I'd be able to get much forced exercize out of them that way ... one of the pups I sold out of a litter last spring has a pool in her backyard. I kid you not, but the poor thing races over to the sides and tries to lift herself out of the pool to no avail Mine are pretty much the same way when I introduce the kiddie pool on a hot summer day - they use it as their personal watering hole. Tried to dip one of my young bitches in one time ... you would have thought I was murdering herthe way she yelped when her paws hit the water She couldn't get out of there fast enough & was basically fliping me off the rest of the day, lol. But the same female loves to be bathed, so figure that one out, lol.

do ya use bikinis or just a one piece boy ive heard it all now thats not a natural conditoner it mite do more harm than good ive tried to conditon other animals in the past by doing what i though was best for them it hurt them more than it helped them i was exerzising muscles that they usually didnt use made them slow n muscle bound just my experince jb

CALL JEFF BROWN IN RUSSELL SPRINGS KY, HE USED TO SWIM GOODTIMES UNO ALL THE TIME, I AM SURE HE COULD FILL YOU IN BOUT IT

I have seen some dogs swim with all four and some with just their fronts,so I think its what is natural to them.all my hounds have gotten baths around once a week since they were puppies and they have all grown to love the water.I have been laughed at more than once for my dog doing a few laps in a strip pond during a warm weather trial.

i got a good friend name mark privett who use to swim his dogs through the summer in the river,he would find a hole about waist deep and put a concrett block with a chain on it and tie the dog to that no vest and set back on the bank drink beer and wait for them to start giving out and sink then he would shitch dogs, the problem he found with swimming the too much was they get mussle bound and it slows their foot down, so he would swim them a couple afternoons and run them at night for a few hours it would keep them from getting so much mussle mass and his dogs were very tough, he had 2 full litter mate brothers too mike abrams (fc badgers brush bandit) dog that was about as tough and good of hounds as i have ever seen. mark is a hell of houndsman as well.