a quieted voice

I have probably the world's cutest beagle. But that's just my opinion. She's so lovable, so sweet, but despite all of this she does have a wild side. Mom tells me that's my punishment for being such an independent-minded kid. Whateva, whateva..I do what I want.

Well MOST people know that beagles have issues howling, and Luna is certainly no different. This issue has been the 2nd most sour point (second only to her running away) of our mother/daughter relationship. Today for some unknown reason she was really on a tear! Howling pretty much nonstop and for no apparent reason. Well sure enough a neighbor came over to complain. It was just a matter of time, and he was really nice about it. Shortly before he arrived, I had been researching bark control collars online. The thought of getting a collar like that for Luna breaks my heart. I feel like a parent whose estranged child was just sent to jail for turning tricks on a street corner. Where did I go wrong? I really have tried. Is it my fault that she ate Papa Johns butter garlic sauce and got really sick the first day of training class? Yes, I suppose it is. But I still feel like a failure as a mom.

But it was time. What else could I do? Spanking won't do anything, and frankly I'm not sure having a trainer would either. She's a beagle, she will howl. She will howl at a bug jumping from grass blade to grass blade, she will howl at pedestrian strolling alongside our fence, she will howl "just to hear her own voice."

So I sucked it up and went to Petsmart to get the collar. $100 and a few tears later, she is sitting, confused and what I might call lifeless (in that all of her spark has been taken out of her), on a pile of clothes in my room. At first she liked her new "necklace" (that's what I call her collar). But then she heard another dog bark and proceeded to run and meet it with the ire of a thousand demons.... and she was stopped short. One bark! She looked frantically around her to figure out what the hell had just happened. Sniffing, licking the grass, rocks, her paws..everything. She trotted off in the other direction and tried again. BARK! Again, she commenced researching the source of her aggravation. All of these test barks ended with a high pitched alarm that I did not know her voice box was capable of producing.

Sullenly she marched around the yard, wondering how she was going to spend her days. I stood leaning on the porch railing with tears flooding my eyes. I feel like I have taken her second most precious piece of life (her sniffer is first) away from her. I'm worried she's going to become depressed. I'm worried that she won't care about getting shocked in a few days, and she'll just continue to howl, and what then? My apologies to her don't fix this suffocation on instinct. But she's Luna. And she'll love me no matter what.