The American Beagler Forum

Let me ask yall something.Is it in the bloodline or the person behind the dogs?I know of a person that could go to the dog pound and make rabbit dogs out of them.I know bloodline helps.But And A Big BUT?

Has to be consistancy in a line to continually stamp the dogs with there defining traits, JMO. I know people that put hundreds of hours on hounds, but if they did not have the instincts built in thru lineage they would not get any better than what there DNA allows. Dogs can be fine tuned, but for example a dog from two faster hounds would not go out and run medium speed with a line control pack. He or she would still run fast. Again, my opinions I know I talk too much sometimes!!

That man new what he was looking for. If u no dogs good enough. u can get a good idea Of the ones u can mold into a hunting dog. jmo

THE PERSON.....no such thing as an exclusive bloodline, just a kennel name with dogs out of common ancestry. The top kennel names are passionate about it and invest many hours. They generally see a dog for what it is not what they wish it was or anticipate it could be IF they had more time to run. The good top kennels identify what a dog needs and provide it. Most others have a narrow philosophy of how they run their hounds and never veer from it regardless of compelling reason to do things different.

Pedigree will just give you an idea of where the dog should be they don't hold the key on how the dog will turn out ultimately every dog is different the trick for the owner is knowing your dog and finding what it needs to reach its full potential.

The "bloodlines" should give the owner a general idea of how the hound should perform, but, I believe it is a combination of both handler and hound. The handler has to have the knowlege to bring the best out of his/her dog, but, the dog has to have it to get it out. About as simple as I can put it.

If bloodline don't play a role, I would still be running my grade dog n brag about all the rabbits I killed. With the field trial dogs im running now, I haven't killed a rabbit n the last 2 years. I prefer to give than take a life away. Build feeder,.habitat, n relocate my rabbits into my running pen. I think im a better trainer now n see a huge improvement on my dogs.

mybeagles wrote:THE PERSON.....no such thing as an exclusive bloodline, just a kennel name with dogs out of common ancestry. The top kennel names are passionate about it and invest many hours. They generally see a dog for what it is not what they wish it was or anticipate it could be IF they had more time to run. The good top kennels identify what a dog needs and provide it. Most others have a narrow philosophy of how they run their hounds and never veer from it regardless of compelling reason to do things different.

I agree, it only takes one bad breeding to start down the road away from what the originator intended.
How many Branko bred dogs, listed on the "For Sale Board" would meet Branko's criteria.

absolutly both .. if it aint in there it aint coming out ..
but if it i in the dog ,, a bad owner can ruin it ,but a good owner/trainer can bring it out and make a fine dog .

Same as the dogs lineage, you can see the same in the mans bloodline. Good training and patience (or not) with dogs runs in families and is handed down.
How many of you have a lineage chart or papers like your AKC dogs have?
Would tell a lot about what you inherited, same as with dogs.

Check out The Gray Scale part 2 article in the March issue of The American Beagler. It's a nice read and answers lots of questions about this topic.

It takes BOTH a good bloodline first and then a trainer that can bring out the
potential

If we are talking about beagles and their ability to run rabbits, which they were genetically bred to do then I say the genetics are the biggest part of the equation and man is the enabler or disabler depending on the situation. If it weren't for man putting them into capitivity then nature would do as nature does, maintain survival of the fittest. The strongest and the best would survive and reproduce and the weakest would be naturally culled. It would be back to natural selection. Since man has interviened in the natural selection all they do is allow what has been genetically embedded to be honed by experiance. I'm not saying that dogs cannot be taught as we all have seen beagles used to sniff drugs, plants etc but those things are totally foreign to what they were genically programmed to do. I've seen many people that never spent enough time being taught that cannot read or write but yet still have the ability to survive even in todays world. All living things are born with the determination to survive and flourish so their species will not become extinct, not becasue of any man but in spite of him.

I think it has alot to do with the owner or handler of the hound....WHY i think so is some people chase the RED in pedigrees so this automaticlly means these hounds are gonna be world beaters or top notch hounds??????Because of all the FC's in the pedigree. Not so......if this were true every pup in that said litter would be FC... or a world beater??JMO.I think if the hound has the determanation and grit it will show no matter who owns it..Now it takes the owner or handler to get it out of the hound.

If I have to pick just one, I will say bloodline. I use to race pigeon n bloodline comes first. To make a cull champ is almost impossible. U have to start with the best bloodline n go from there.