I have a beagle age five years and three months,he is very gentle nearly all the time.this is until I try to clean his ears,or clip his nails,I had him at the vets the other day. For his booster which he never got,as he bit the vet,what would make him like this,he sits okay in the waiting room but as soon as the vet touches him for more tab a couple of minutes. He snaps.hes been like this since he was about three.at that time he stayed with the vet for sedative nail clipping and ear flushing.i don't like people thinking he's a bad dog,as he stands for a lot of mauling at home.im so upset I don't want him put to sleep as I love him dearly,he has bit me once a long time ago and he will snarl if you try and do anything he doesn't want.he has sore paws at mo which I'm finding impossible to treat

I dont understand why the vet dont put a mussle on him when he is trying to do something, surely that is only common sense?
He must have had a bad experience I would think.

i did wonder about a muzzle, to be honest, you could do with one yourself to put on while you treat his paws, as it's for his own good

We have one of those cloth ones you push on, they cant bite you and are very handy in such situations.

Yes muzzle is the short term answer longer term one is handle him as much as possible so he gets used to it.

as mollipepops says

our boy used to snarl at anyone going near his feet, so we got a mikki muzzle, always take it with us to the vets, though it's rarely needed

How did you get him uses to his feet being touched,and why don't you need th muzzle at the vets,how did you manage to get to this stage,don't know why but muzzles scare me

You have to keep touching them, try and make it a game and start gradually, like you would with a new puppy. They naturally are not keen on paws being held etc you have to get them used to it.

i'm no expert but my reading of the situation is as follows.

if left unaddressed the situation is only going to get worse. because if he doesn't like being handled you will only handle him when you're doing things like cleaning his ears, and clipping his nails, so it will reinforce his idea that handling is bad.

to me you need to teach him that being handled is a good thing. so i would start with small food treats. cut down his regular food if you have to. bits of meat are usually best rather than man made stuff. but you know him. give him a treat, show it to him and wait a moment, get him used to that, seeing a treat and waiting a moment. we're just going to fill that time with some petting. then with the treat in one hand just give him a little pat on the head, start as lightly as you need to, if he wont let you then don't give him the treat but go back to the beginning get him used to treats so he knows after seeing ita treat is coming, if he waits and try very slowly to work up.

it doesn't matter if nearly all his food has to come this way for the few weeks it should take. it wont do any harm.

muzzling obviously will work. but it will make things worse in the long term. understand it comes from anxiety and fear. it sounds like classic fear aggression. so taking away his only weapon in a situation where he is scared will upset him even more.

to that end it has been shown that dog appeasing pheromone can be helpful in reducing anxiety and fear in adult dogs and i would suggest it as part of the training program.

My dog is a gorgeous gentle boy - until we get to the vets. From being a puppy he has had to go to the vets a lot from ear infections as a pup to grass seeds in his paws etc ... He hates it, so we have to muzzle him. He is quite an embaressment at the vets, but the minute he walks out he reverts back to being his normal gorgeous self.

All our 5 beagles are extremely laid back about everything....except one who hates the vets. The vet cant even stroke her and she goes ape. Shes had a lot of intrusive treatments in the past so I cant blame her really but the vet knows that she (the dog not the vet lol) ought to have a muzzle on just in case. Its pitiful seein her in a muzzle but the vet literally takes seconds to complete what he needs to do as opposed to a yowling, yelping, crying and frantic dog that takes forever to calm down and is distraught once home. At home I can clip all their claws, clean their ears, eyes, teeth & empty her anal glands as we've done this right from the day we brought them all home but the minute we step in the vets its a different story with just one.

You say he has been like this since a stay with the vet at the age of three. Is it possible he had a really bad experience during this time? So often an animal's stay is dependent on the nurses and assistants.

I agree that a muzzle is a safety precaution - especially in an emergency situation to protect the humans dealing with him. But long time - you really want to retrain him and learn to accept that an invasive procedure is not threatening. I agree, this seems to be fear aggression - and the only way is to try and relieve whatever fear he is experiencing.

First of all - I would change vets. Not because your present vet may be at fault - but because he obviously associates the vet with a bad experience.

Another solution - and probably not practical - is to get a dog owning friend to allow you both to accompany them on a vet visit. To accompany another dog into the surgery but without undergoing treatment. Any decent vet should understand and be sympathetic.

Not an easy one - and good luck.

Rather unhelpfully for you, we didn't really do anything to get him out of it, he's really just relaxed on his own with time.
it was only really with people he didn't know that he was really bad about it with. (i could deal with him myself, for example. he wasn't aggressive about anything with me, but made me very aware he wasn't comfortable being messed with (pulling his paws away, tucking them underneath himself and generally being difficult.)
it wasn't really much of a problem, all could be worked around fairly easily.

but we know why he was like this as a few years ago he skidded on some ice and cut open his "wrist"

the emergency vet (this was boxing day) flushed and stapled it up without any pain management, my mums partner of the time and myself were there pinning him to the table while he worked
which was pretty horrendous.

it was a male vet who took his staples out too, so since then, we've always requested a female vet whenever possible as he's a lot more comfortable around women than men.
it was a brand new vet who we saw last year for his jabs, it was the first time in years he'd actually had his teeth checked by someone other than myself, it really shocked me how relaxed he was with her.
we told her that he had history with vets, but she just got on with it.


the advice flagpole has offered sounds absolutely brilliant though, muzzling is a short term solution, if you need to get something done there and then for your dogs own good, it is obviously a quick fix, but over time getting him used to you just stroking or touching the areas he's not very happy with you dealing with is the best course of action for long term happiness.

if you're not comfortable doing this yourself it may pay you to consult a behaviourist, your vet may be able to recommend one

For dogs that are scared at the vets what we have always done is with the help of the nurses and receptionists, just popped in once a week sat in the waiting room and then left, building up to the nurses giving a treat (I provided sausage) and then touching the dog. Work slowly and I have had a lot of success with mine who came to me scared of vets.

When I get them as pups I do the same but in a more accelerated way so when they go for their first vaccination they have already met the vet and nurses and are happy to be handled by them all.

I feel useless now,I can't manage to help my one beagle and you manage five,I need to know what I'm doing wrong,maybe I'm loving him too much,or not enough