I love dogs. All shapes and sizes. I have a special admiration for beagle dogs. As a child, I never had a beagle, just admired them. They are too cute, so affectionate, and they make that awesome noise when they bark. Best of all, they chase rabbits. That was all I needed to know to make the beagle my choice for my very first pet as a senior in high school way back in 1972.
I bought that first beagle for $20 not knowing much about them other than what I wrote above. I was about to learn a whole lot about this wonderful little pet, the hard way. I would say today, I did everything wrong in selecting my first beagle. I am going to attempt to give you some good advise, based on those many lessons through the years. I have been a breeder and raised beagles purely for hunting rabbits, I have also participated in both gun dog trials and field trials. I enjoy beagles in every way, they are such a special little animal.
Lesson one, before you purchase any pet, determine why you want a pet in the first place. Are you simply looking for a hunting dog? Do you want this pet to be a house broken pet for companionship only? Do you want your pet to be both a hunter and and indoor pet? Are you buying this pet for your children to play with? You must determine why you want this pet before you select your beagle.
You see beagles are naturally good hunters, because of their
inherently good
sense of smell. However, if you are looking for a hunting beagle there are many other factors to consider, I will cover those in other blog posts in detail later. For now let me just warn you that beagles have been bred for gun hunting and for field trials over the years, each is a totally different approach to a hunting beagle. If you
truly want to hunt rabbits with a gun, then you need to carefully choose a beagle that was bred for those characteristics. If you buy a beagle that has a field champion pedigree but your looking for a good gun dog, you will be very disappointed if his pedigree is not specifically gun field champion. Gun dogs are much faster on track and will be less apt to loose track on check. Field trial dogs will run a rabbit at an extremely slow pace being sure to bark at each hop the rabbit takes.
If you are simply looking for a nice pet, a beagle is a very good choice, with the following caveat.
Beagles often have very strong wills, they typically love to bark at anything that moves, are very stubborn, smart, and loving little pets. Obedience training at young age is important, generally 6-8 weeks of age is best. Start with basic commands, sit, stay, come, and fetch. Your pet learning these basic commands will make life much better later on. If you have ever gone to a shelter, you know beagles are in
numerous supply, generally someone purchased a puppy, because they were just so cute. They did not properly train them, then later found them to be "dumb," and noisy. I have heard people say things like, they tore up my house, they wandered off, they would not listen and each of these statements can be true, especially with beagles.
In my opinion the beagle dog is an excellent pet for indoor enjoyment and family companion. They are and excellent watch dog and are loyal to a fault. They can be both a hunter and a pet if that is what you want, they require a great deal of attention and will give back all the love you give them. Some guys I know have beagles, not for a pet or companionship, but rather just for the pure enjoyment of listening to the music of the pack on trail. What ever your reason for having this wonderful little pet, be sure to know exactly what type of background this little critter comes from. It would be better to do some additional investigative work or pay a little more, than to purchase a beagle that will never be able to suit you needs.
