The American Beagler Forum

When arha first came out to promote the rabbit dog.Did AKC have anything out for hunting dogs back then or just the walkie talkie dogs.Not putting any dogs down run and like what you want but just wanted to know about the meat dog at trials?Arha was the only trial I seen back then for meat dogs.

Both

I dont believe questions like these benefit anybody. They way you have it worded is designed to pit two different groups of ppl against each other. That being said, Dogs don't know if they are akc or arha. They just do what they are bred to do. Rabbit dogs can win in either registry. Find breeders that make being a gundog the first priority. There are good lines in both.

Earl, do you own any dogs? where are they registered?

Neil don't know you but great answer.

No I don t have any dogs now.daddy past away last year and two month later we put mom in the rest home.I just don t feel like it.

Neil it would help me.In the 70s I did not know of any trials but slow dogs and then came arha.I was so glad to see something for rabbit dogs and It did not have to be AKC reg to run in a trial.I remember one maz that at the world hunt there was right at 800 dogs in the trial.I was so happy to see that.I was just wanted to know did akc have something like this before arha.Remember back then I did not have anybody I know that rabbit hunt so I had to learn everthing on my own.If akc did, what were the trials call?Its just a ?sorry to upset you?Maybe some old timer that done akc trials can tell me?

I'm not an old timer but its my understanding that there were good akc meat dogs that ran akc. Always heard you could buy an spo cull that would hunt hard and put meat on the table just wouldn't trial. At some point they slowed everything down and focused more on line control and tight check areas. I've talked to some of the local guys that run the more conservatove spo hounds and they believe that hunt and search in the check go hand in hand. When they tamed the hard search in the check to tighten up control they also lost hunt. I know this is a lot of he said she said stuff, but its all I got.

reg. or not all dogs that will hunt has the ability to put meat on the table.

Earl,
In the AKC the walkie talkie dogs do their thing traditional brace trials. The meat hounds run in gundog brace, spo, Midwest spo, and large pack.

As was mentioned above back in the day the dogs that eventually became traditional brace hounds could be used for hunting. But, in an effort to breed the best line control dog possible they bred out the fire to "run to catch" as well as the foot.

We were running Large Pack On Hare before ARHA was a dream here in the north
I believe a lot of gunners from the south came up here at the time to get something that could RUN a rabbit to the gun

John O

NeilKimbrel7 wrote:I dont believe questions like these benefit anybody. They way you have it worded is designed to pit two different groups of ppl against each other. That being said, Dogs don't know if they are akc or arha. They just do what they are bred to do. Rabbit dogs can win in either registry. Find breeders that make being a gundog the first priority. There are good lines in both.

Great answer Neil. I have never understood why people feel its necessary to label dogs based on their registry. Bottom line is that a good houndsman should know what he or she likes, and not depend on the opinions of others.

Casey Harner wrote:Both

Yeah. Correct me if I'm wrong but, didn't AKC Mid-west and ARHA start up at about the same time ( early to mid 80s ).
And I have talked with some of the gentlemen that were involved with their conceptions and they were and are rabbit hunters.
It seems that BOTH of these organizations came about to put the "meat dogs" back on the trailing circuit.
I know one was a closed registry and the other was an open registry.

fulcount wrote:We were running Large Pack On Hare before ARHA was a dream here in the north
I believe a lot of gunners from the south came up here at the time to get something that could RUN a rabbit to the gun

John O

John,I remember some of these dogs.Most were grade a lot of them could of been registered but most of the rabbit hunters back then didn't care about paper.They were crossing brace and show bloodlines with the northern hare bred hounds.Some real tough rabbit dogs resulted that you could hunt day after day as long as you wanted.

Thank yall so much.I m not to old to keep learning about these dogs.Thanks

HOF (LPGRCH) GRPCH (FCGD) Kimbrel's Kickem Up Kane


AKC Field Champion & Little Pack Grand Champion. I've watched this dog many of times and hunted over him for two days on Ky swampers.... Meat dog for sure...