The American Beagler Forum

Just wondering how most people felt about today's beagles. Are today's hounds as good as hounds from years past? Are we as breeders improving or hurting the breed?

I personally don't think there is a problem with beagles today. The problem lies with dishonest beaglers and buddy juding! If we all had honest beaglers and honest judges, we would see more honest hounds. Just my 02. cents.

I think the reason it seems like the hounds are going down hill is because we expect more out of them. I believe sometimes we set the bar too high and kinda take the fun out of it.

cburchett77 wrote:I think the reason it seems like the hounds are going down hill is because we expect more out of them. I believe sometimes we set the bar too high and kinda take the fun out of it.

I agree. People go hunting with other peoples dogs and they're looking for faults as well. Anything they can find that their dog does better than the next guys to make them feel better about their kennell. I look for the positives in others dogs and if I get my but outrun by a buddies beagles good for him and his dogs its a sport and it should be fun to many jealous and envious hunters nowadays. Givin ur buddy a hard time about his dogs used to be part of the fun now everything is taken so personally.

My opinion is that breeders, some breeders, have bred for the specialty dogs, be it super fast, super nose, super hunt. I would question if the hounds of
yesteryear were more balanced than some of today?? I also think culling was a much bigger part of breeding years ago. JMO.

Now a days people breed in order to compete in a certain format of field trialing. Not everybody likes the same style of hound. That to me is the biggest difference, the different running styles out there. When I was a kid you had fast crazy trial dogs and you had slow-medium speed gundogs. Now we have them and everything in beteween.

mobeagle wrote:

cburchett77 wrote:I think the reason it seems like the hounds are going down hill is because we expect more out of them. I believe sometimes we set the bar too high and kinda take the fun out of it.

I agree. People go hunting with other peoples dogs and they're looking for faults as well. Anything they can find that their dog does better than the next guys to make them feel better about their kennell. I look for the positives in others dogs and if I get my but outrun by a buddies beagles good for him and his dogs its a sport and it should be fun to many jealous and envious hunters nowadays. Givin ur buddy a hard time about his dogs used to be part of the fun now everything is taken so personally.

i gotta agree some take it a tad to serious IMO . i believe you would catch more heat for jokin about there hound than you would for cuckling them.

i agree alot on this post, but the thing that I can't stand is a dog that blows out of the check with nothing in front of him and gets check for it instead of a minus. I have seen alot of this lately and the owners are like my dog is destoring this pack and he anit running nothing but the wind. If a dog can't run the line with some foot and hold the line, then it's a piece of junk.

i would have liked to see some of them old hounds run !! i know there are hounds gone some talk about and i have seen run!
i think the older them old beagles get the better they get !!! i dont think theres a problem with beagles just look at some of the other breeds what they done we keep the beagles going !!

internet....... bench beaglers. today hounds are just as good as yesterday. also when a hound dies he becomes a better dog then he really was. how can u prove any diffrent.

BCBeagles wrote:My opinion is that breeders, some breeders, have bred for the specialty dogs, be it super fast, super nose, super hunt. I would question if the hounds of
yesteryear were more balanced than some of today?? I also think culling was a much bigger part of breeding years ago. JMO.

I think it goes back to culling. We (in general) are affraid to cull a hound that is not up to par. I am faced with this as we speak. I have a 1 1/2 year old hound that when he's on, he's on, but man he does some stupid stuff when he is off, such as ghost traling, running backwards up the line, just being stupid. I need to take a good long hard look at him and do what needs to be done, I hate to, but what do you do. I think if we all did this or paid to have them fixed so they cant pass on all these faults, we would have better hounds now.

scootersjilli wrote
gotta agree some take it a tad to serious IMO . i believe you would catch more heat for jokin about there hound than you would for cuckling them.

Whats Cuckling?

i dont see anything wrong with todays dogs the dogs i have today are better than the dogs i had when i was growing up there was bad ones back then just like today also some good ones same way

jfields wrote:scootersjilli wrote
gotta agree some take it a tad to serious IMO . i believe you would catch more heat for jokin about there hound than you would for cuckling them.

Whats Cuckling?

they just thought they cuckled somebody they just treaded after them

SCOOTER ---I knew you were one of the goood old boy using the word CUCKING -----Ihaven't hear that word since I was a kid --100yrs. ago-----I hear my dad said one day that old so and so was CUCKING his friend