A Hunting Beagle: Noah Webster's dictionary states the word hunt as "to chase wild animals for the purpose of shooting; for food and for sport; to go in search of, to pursue, or to follow closely; to use hounds in pursuit of taking game." That is Webster's definition; here are my personal observations about a hunting beagle.

First of all the beagle must know its proper game. A real hunting beagle will hunt for a specific game (ex: rabbit) in a convincing manner that indicates that it knows what it is looking for. We don't train our beagles to coarse the woods looking for anything that will get up in front of it. So it must know its game, and leave all other game alone. This is the first notable quality we want to be found in our G&S bred hunting beagles.

Secondly, the search is very important. The beagle must be willing to hunt independently of other dogs; solo search is what I call it. We start this early in the process. They must be willing to venture into thick cover without other dogs and without me; this is a very sensitive spot. I've ruined some good rabbit dogs walking them into briars. Now that we have learned not to do that during the early stages we let them begin solo search. On occasion we go in with them and shake a bush to instigate a certain location and then let them continue with the search.

Thirdly, a beagle must stay busy in his search; tail left to right, nose on the ground, over, under, and through, but never around the tough stuff. Be careful putting too much pressure on a young dog here. Tough briars need to be occasional on pups less than 12 months old. It is important to remember that they are still youngsters. Breed to the busy dogs they are the ones that turn out to be what most people call jump dogs which this term alone I don't agree with. If a hunting beagle will be busy in his search he will jump his share of rabbits, so it may be that all your others are just not good hunting beagles. Pick out the busy ones in a search and watch that they are not standing and waiting or cueing off other dogs. Believe me they will stand out. Those are the ones we want to hunt and trial with.

Three things we have covered: know its game, search, busy. If you need a hunting beagle call us or contact us, because we breed, start, and trial them.