howling beagles - explained!

a few people have written to ask me how i got the beagles to howl. i have to say, our 3 guys are usually really quite, and never howl unless encouraged by us.

my very first beagle sarah (back when i was about 15) would howl if she got really, really excited and only if i would howl at her first. it was a great party trick to get her going in a singsong of sweet beagle howls.

so when we got stella we tried to make her howl. she wouldn't...until one day we were on a canoe trip, and my husband and i jumped into the water to go swimming without her. she started baying and howling and we could tell it was out of sadness that we were in the water and she wasn't. so we took that theory and tried it out with other things...like asking her where auntie or uncle so and so were (our beagles know everyone based on their names. so, for example, if we say "where's auntie allee" they will run around the house looking for her, and when they don't see her they will start to howl).

if they don't particularly like someone, they won't howl. and that's how we got them going in the video i posted.

we always use "where's uncle matt" because they *love* their uncle matt and that makes them howl non-stop!