The American Beagler Forum

I have noticed the trends of beagling! Lately everyone is saying their dog will NOT open until the rabbit is up! A lot of the best dogs I have seen & hunted with that finished for FC or RCH had excellent noses! This also meant they opened early on track at times! Everyone is looking for the dog that has enough nose to run in any condition without the extra barks but it is hard to find! I have a female that is the closest to this that I have owned! Most of the dogs I had that didn't open until the rabbit was up struggled in bad scenting! The ones that didn't struggle in bad scenting opened early on the good days! So is this too much nose or not enough brains! Please keep it clean here guys, just an honest question! Would like to hear from everyone elses experiences!

I have and still own both types.My best dogs bark before the jump and will coldtrail some.It seems to me that the best tracking dogs will bark before the jump.

I have never owned or seen a hound with a really good nose that would not open before the rabbit was up . Some claim to have them, I believe their opinion of a big nose hound is simply different than mine!

To me I think when they have two much nose is when you turn out after lunch and they trail a rabbit that has walk that night.Or not enough brains.I think thats a little to much.

It goes back to genes.

If a dog is bred to look for a track that leads to a rabbit or bred to look for a rabbit instead of a track to follow.

Amount of nose can be the same. Same with mouth usage. Bred to open on a two day old feeding track or to not open until jumped or close to being jumped.

Back in the old days, a Bluetick was the cold trail trailer and opened with a beautiful long, long, long, bawl cry on a yesterday track. That is when Walker hounds were fox dogs and were starting to be bred to tree since they wouldn't open until the fox was jumped along with that type opening came the coon dog that wouldn't open until hot. During that same era, same was happening with coldtrailing Beagles, the worse coldtrailer was the old time long eared jugheaded heavy built bluetick and open marked, red, and black and tan beagles were the hot nosed. No gun hunter wanted a bluetick coldtrailing back and forth all morning.

My how the bluetick Beagles and tree dogs have changed in the last 40 years due to the change in breeding tactics for shorter ears, hotter noses,and field trial requirements.

Same worked the same for coon hounds, fox hounds, pointers and setters, squirrel dogs, man tracking bloodhounds and beagles.

Yes, there used to be trail up a covey bird dogs but haven't seen one in 30 years.

gwyoung wrote:I have never owned or seen a hound with a really good nose that would not open before the rabbit was up . Some claim to have them, I believe their opinion of a big nose hound is simply different than mine!

I am one that runs a big or I should say huge nose dog. I have heard the phrase many times that my dogs have huge nose with a pea brain. I always kind of chuckle when I hear that. If you guys have watched any of my videos I think you can tell they are anything but dumb. Jen is my worst cold trailor but is the one who will run the rabbit the most consistent in all conditions. Cold frosty mornings she can be a real pain but I feel the nose is so important. Otherwise you are always going to make excuses about bad scent days or a lot of the other reasons why the dogs can't smell the rabbit.
Watch this video at about the 35 secnond mark and watch the rabbit come out of the brush just to double right back in. Notice how quick Jen realizes the rabbit doubled back and is ready to roll again.

Mark~

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uu5kazZjjNg

Hahahaha Good shooting at the 35 mark!!! hahahaha thats funny

Nice video Mark. Great hound work!!

A buddy hunted with us this weekend . He owns one beagle . I've hunted with the dog before and it's got a Huge Nose and has recovered many hard checks. At times this dog cold trials , babbles on the edge of fields (feeder tracks) , if called in on a jumped rabbit (by a hunter) he will sometimes hit the backtrack for a little ways. In other words ...some bad comes with the good. We hunted a large farm with planted pines Saturday. We found a small 5 acre cutover loaded with rabbits. Each rabbit we jumped made one circle and headed to the big woods where one of our guys would harvest it. The problem we had was putting the dogs back in the cutover after each rabbit harvested. The huge nose dog would hit old lines and "pop off". We took several rabbits from there but with each time going back in to get on another rabbit ....the dog got worse (hitting old lines). Drove us Nuts. In my opinion if I can come up with more cons than pros......the dog has to go. It's a tight line to walk between big nose and enough brains.

This is a topic that has been discussed on here many times so heres my 2 cents. A big nosed dog will open some before the rabbit is up but he or she will almost always produce the rabbit and he or she will on many occasions save your rabbit chase. A small brained dog will trail all over, babble, lay lines and so on. He or she will get lucky once in a while but will not produce nearly as often as I think a dog should. Just my opinion

Ok here is my two cents. If a dog opens he needs to porduce. Call it brains or nose. But if a dog opens on ten different lines. The dog better produce me 8 rabbits or better. If not he can not eat my dog food. But the next persons dog food may not cost as much as mine I have learned.

Amen Mark.The last pack I had Mark was big nose dogs.The good thing about them dogs were they were outstanding on bad scenting days.randy and i look at it this way and randy could only hunt on sat.How many good scenting days are there on sat in hunting season.

I believe I might have a big nose dog, with the brains. Two weeks ago I took him out on a evening run. Jumped Three. Circled all three. It seemed like he has a big nose to move a track in the open during the cold winter and in windy conditons. We had 15 mph winds, it was 10 degrees that night and it was a few days after having the 8 inches of snow... I was proud. By the way, he's only 17 months old as well. Big nose that is a good check dog. Has saved many of chases...

Time will tell if he is that "it" dog.

There is one thing I have found if a dog barks enough it will find a rabbit. Just saying