question about running pups with old dogs

allen keller · Post by **allen keller** » Sun Jun 18, 2006 1:59 pm

around these parts they say not run to your started pups with old dogs asthey it will ruin them, i really don,t believe this as it never hurt mine, but would like other opinions thanks

Emery · Post by **Emery** » Sun Jun 18, 2006 2:38 pm

I take my pups out with my older dogs. Eventually they will hark in and run with the dogs and get conditioning. Sometime after that they will start. Of course, this isn't the only way to teach pups, I also get them some sight chases on tame bunnies and then let them use their noses to find tame bunnies. Then it is off to the wild for more and more and more running, solo and with the pack.

Emery

gus · Post by **gus** » Sun Jun 18, 2006 3:27 pm

IMO a pup is born to run a particular speed and style. I've seen a lot of pups started and they usually run in the style in which they were bred. If you breed two wild overcompetive dogs then no matter how you start and train them the chances are good that the pups will be wild and over competitive. If you breed brace style dogs, the offspring will usually run in a deliberate style. Try running them with a fast pack and some are competive enough to try and run with the faster dogs. However, take them out alone and they revert back to their geneticly programmed style. Some beaglers claim they can slow them down or speed them up. That has not been my experience.

Chuck Terry · Post by **Chuck Terry** » Sun Jun 18, 2006 9:58 pm

I am with you Gus. Some beagles are really competitive and are not happy anywhere but the front of the pack. However, most seem to LIKE to pack and will adjust up or DOWN quite a bit to fit in. The problem is that if they are too much out of their league (too fast or too slow for the others), they will not perform their best and may show faults or behaviors they do not normally show. This is especially true of a slower hound that is being "pulled" by the other dogs and shows up as skirting, me tooing, or leaving the pack to find its own rabbit. As Gus pointed our, beagles prefer to run their "natural" gait and that is bred into them. In fact, if you put a dozen or more beagles of varying speed down where rabbits are fairly plentiful, it would not be uncommon for them to "split" into two or more packs with the dogs swapping packs until they find the one they like the best and this is usually the one closest to their preferred speed. For this reason, I like my entire pack to have very similar natural gates. A friend of mine who keeps several packs of "medium" speed beagles still subdivides them by speed. If he notices a particular hound constistently leading (or pulling up the rear), he moves that one to a faster (slower) pack.