misunderstandings over defining your ideal beagle?

[Chris]

As Joe knows, the art of debate isn't honestly answering a question and in turn asking one -- the real art of debate is to minimize your adversary's point by mischaracterizing what they say; then re-asking another question in such a way as to insinuate there's a disagreement on the initial topic; then questioning them about it.

Example...

Chris:-> I think it's OK for a dog to look for the rabbit where it probably went if he can't readily find it where he last smelled it.

Joe:-> No, they're faulty for swinging.

Chris:-> I agree Joe, but I'm not talking about flying all around willy-nilly. I'm just saying that to get hung up would be foolish.

Someone else:-> I think that makes sense.

Joe:-> Well of course it makes sense. But that's reaching, and that's not faulty (in fact, even my hounds do that), but what you're really talking about is swinging, and by your dogs doing that, it means they're faulty. Look in the beagler's bible -- it says so right there; plain as day.

Chris:-> No Joe, I'm pretty sure that we're talking about the same thing. I'm not advocating a dog herding the rabbit. I'm fairly confident that I know what impedes the run and what doesn't.

Joe:-> Anyone who avoids calling a fault a fault is fooling themselves and is ignorant.

John, you had it right, way back in the beginning of this thread, about just being in it for the fun of debating -- even knowing that, we both got sucked in.

[DESERTDOG]

if some has a problem with judging speed bye 1 to 10. how about this peanut rollers1,2,3. faster peanut rollers or fools gold4,5,6. rabbit hounds7 ,8, 9, 10 there real gold. a friend of my calls the peanut rollers[p.e.t.a. pales ] so slow if they did catch it they would be to wore out to hurt it, ha . ha. good clean fun never hurt anyone

[TomMN]

I know many of you have only run beagles so I am going to tell you a story about coonhounds, see if you see anything in common. At one time, not long ago, there were no feild trials to test a hounds ability to tree coon. The most popular breeds of coonhounds were Blueticks, Black & Tans and Redbones. All these breeds were great because the big time breeders said they were in the magazines. All these dogs trailed a coon by following every track the coon made (great line control and style) until it went up a tree.
Then someone came up with a set of rules for a competition based on which dog could tree the most wild coon (acomplishment) in actual hunting conditions (no fences, only four dogs at a time). Soon these hunts were totaly dominated by a little known breed called Treeing Walkers. These Walkers were FAST. They skirted, they cut, they didn't stay on the line at all, and they left the competition in the dust. Now days the Walkers are by far the most popular coonhound (one even sired over 5000 pups and still counting). The other breeds are starting to catch up and win some of the hunts. If you hunt with a Bluetick today you will find they hunt just like a Walker. No more track straddlers, all wind splitters. Instead of sitting by the fire all night waiting for old blue to tree that ghost coon you have to go into a tree every few minuets to look at a coon.
What some of you guys are calling faults are treasured traits by other houndsmen. Some of the things you are trying to breed for would get you left in the dust of the past in the coonhound world. I know a coon is a different animal than a cottontail, and a snowshoe hare in February is a different animal than a summer cottontail at a feild trial where they judge by style over acomplishment. Unless the beagle world sets a standard for all dogs to follow, one mans faulty hound will always be someone elses brag hound.

[Alabama John]

Well put Tom, and you're right. Calling swinging some a fault does not make it one to a lot of us. I like it and bought four pups last year from Nate Johnson because they come from swinging fast hounds.
The pups are running now, and I'm pleased to say they swing just right and I would not part with them.


Rule books:
According to the modeling handbook or rule book, most that would qualify would be too skinny for me, and most of us would rather have a Pamela Anderson type even though she has the rule book fault of too big a boobs.

Its a matter of preference and that is the way it has been and will be forever.

[deseartdog]

tommn you are so right, i have coondogs now . and i have had big gamehounds in the past ihave hunted lion, bear,&bobcat all my life till the last five or six years. ihave allways keep a few beagles to .in the biggame hound world they have called swinging, drifting. some runningdog men call itdrifting to,fox ,&coyote. i might be wrong but isent a beagle arunning dog. you know there is only room for one dog to be first. and if they run to close of a line then what.just my thoughs , i perfer fast beagles but i like any good honest mouth rabbithound friend in sport desertdog/tom

[Bev]

John, my money says Pamela's fault is not a genetic one, lol!

[Ted Peercy]

Crooked Barrels
If you've got your pack down too (reaching) just ten yards, you must have sold Queenie, Mary Ann, Buzz and the rest of your pack. If so, I think my pack can take yours now. I'd like a re-match. Is too big of boobs a fault on a beagle?

[Bev]

Only if they snag in the briars and interfere with the run, or reach out too far in the check.........oops! That question was for John, lol!

[Robert W. Mccoy Jr]

I'm glad i found this place you guy's are too funny

[Joe West]

Warddog: Sorry your hackles got up but that is what happens when we speak openly about hounds, someones toes are bound to get stepped on. Scientific proof of hound actions? What scientist knows more about houdns field abilities then beaglers do? Here's how I studied hounds and hound actions and everything else beagling through the years. I've studied and not just read the writings of our great beaglers of the past. Tom Dornin, Lew Madden, L.M. Watson, G.G. Black, Ike Carrol and many many others but most importantly I've studied the hounds themselves. Only through observation (a valid scientific method) can one truely learn about hounds running abilities, faults, pluses and so on. The faults we are discussing were know as faults long before they were written down in the standard.

If it's official descriptions of terms you seek try the AKC field trial rules proceedure 5. standard for judging. Now I know they are only field trial rules BUT they were written by a true houndsman and since it is a place to get official descriptions of those old faults there you go.

Most hounds eliminate when they are cast first so they don't interfear with the run later.

A hound action need not be recognized by any orginization to interfear with the run. IN fact they were interfearing with runs for as long as there have been hounds. It wasn't until Lew Madden came along that someone put it down in some type of official format on paper. Whether on paper or not, trialing or hunting, makes no difference, a faulty hound action interfears with the run and many of these actions have been identified and put on paper by one of beagledoms most knowledgeable men.

John: You've assigned several faults to the hounds in your imaginary pack. First off if they're running wide open the conditions must be pretty good. One would not expect them to miss a minor 45 degree angle turn under good conditions but since they don't even know they have run out of scent for 30 feet one could understand how they could miss a minor turn. IN your scenerio your swingers are lucky the rabbit only took that one turn and then continued on and didn't take a second turn or decide to sit tight. In fact they got lucky with their gambling action.

I would expect my hounds to know exactly where they lost the line of scent (they can't run it if they don't know where it is) and instead of going another 30 feet beyond that they should be turning themselves inside out to stop where they lost the scent; but be that as it may okay they don't know where the line of scent is.

Now you've assigned another faulty hound action to my hounds. Why are they all going in the same direction looking when they should be searching independantly of each other and in a sensible manner rather then just willy nilly? They should be checking the point of loss for an indication of direction and if none is found gradually widden their search in all directions in an attempt to regain the line. (kind of like a wagon wheel with the hub being the point of loss is one way, ever widening circles is another, but the point is they must have a sensible method) Why they all going in the same direction when the direction of the game is not known? They are not correctly reaching out they are all together and a well oiled pack of good hounds should search independantly of each other.

One pack is reaching if they went back to the point of loss first, the other is swinging farther.

Both packs as you've described them are faulty. The swinging pack not only swings but they were also showing a lack of accuracy in trailing. My pack was also showing a lack of accuracy in trailing by not being able to make the turn and I'd suspect both packs of racing for going so far past the point of loss. My pack was also showing a lack of independance and were too stupid to know where the point of loss was let alone work a check in a sensible manner.

I understand the point you were trying to make with the scenario John even though it may not sound like it from my answer above. But if we assign one pack of swingers to the scenario and one pack of top hounds also to the scenario in the end the swingers would loos their bet because the next time the rabbit might take a left oblique and then a left flank and then the swingers are lost. Or as I've said he might just sit tight knowing that the hounds were going to blow by his turn and wait for them to go away. The gamble that the hounds took in your scenario worked out well for them only because the rabbit cooperated that time. Eventually he won't cooperate and then the swingers will be in real danger of loosing their game; and THAT is what we want to avoid. Each time hounds loose contact with the line they are risking loosing their game. The farther away from the line they get the more likely their cahnce of loosing their game. Keep them on the line and as long as they are on it they aren't going to loose their game.


Snowshoehareguide: If the rabbit (hare) is up and moving in front of the hound it's not cold trailing. The line might be cold but that's a bit different then cold trailing.

Beagleman973: Your right.


John: as for Pam Andersons boobs, as beagleman has said there are some faults we can live with.

[REBEL]

Joe West-I am still waiting for my little Irland pup or hound-how soon you think or how much longer will i have to wait??If you have one to fast for you or the pack you like to run or you have one a little wild i am intersted in order not to have to wait to long.I am not getting any younger and if you want any of my bloodline let me know.[/url]

[ACOMEAU]

Well am I glad to see that this is not one of those post where everyone is trying to force their will on others. Ya know the ones where people say "your doing it wrong, I am right", "your hounds are faulty mine are not", "I am smarter than you", you know, the ones that amount to smack! Instead everyone is being polite, kind, and most importantly informative, passing on knowledge and kindling friendship .

I do want to get my two cents in about cold trailing. Every one of us have dogs that cold trail, EVERYONE. This term "Cold Trail" has caused so much controversy on this board and others is sad. I have three beagles right now and each of them cold trail. Some are smarter and do it without opening untill its red hot, some start popping off as soon as it detects scent.

My oldest female opens on an old track, not a babbling idiot, but she opens. I have two males that do not open, but they still cold trail. I can call Chelsea over and point to a track I think is fresh in the snow. She will put her nose in it and if there is any hint of scent left she will open and follow it untill its hot. I can do the same with my two males and they will put there nose in it, follow it out untill jump. Sometimes its 60 to 70 yards before jump, but they smelled hare, and they are smart enough to know there is a rabbit atatched to the end. All three dogs will walk away from a track with no scent.

Joe I will have to disagree with your comment about a cold track not being a cold trail. If the rabbit is several minutes ahead of the dogs then the track is cold and the dog is cold trailing. The scent left in a five minute old track is not the same as one that is 15 seconds old. Put in zero temps and deep snow and that five minute old track is even colder. A dog that can still follow the track and mouth on it, is cold trailing. If a dog starts opening on a cold track left 10 minutes earlier but the hare is set up in a brush pile and is not up in running yet is cold trailing. Shoot a hare 10 minutes in front of the dogs, they are cold trailing. Unless scent conditions allow the dogs to run head up on bare ground, seconds behind the hare, they are cold trailing. All dogs cold trail to some degree. They might not open on a cold track untill its jumped, but they will follow it if they have nose enough. If a cold track is not a cold trail what is?

[Alabama John]

Ted, I'm trying to be conserative here with my answers and my dogs swinging. How about helping me by stating if yours swing or not and if ours can somehow manage to run down a few rabbits even with their supposed and inferred faults!

Let's not forget where the rule book came from. The AKC brace beaglers, so they could follow their dogs easily and have a mark to judge them by.

Back in the 40's and 50's, this debate was red hot since the only registery was AKC and the standard was being set again for the only beagle trials. We call them Brace now to distinguish between all the others available now, but back then there was only one type beagle trial. The debate was between the owners of fox hounds and other hounds that ran their game as some of them had beagles and hunted with them, and, the brace trialers.

I have taken the hunters side and Joe has taken the brace beaglers position of 50-60 years ago, whether aware of it or not.

As Tom has stated well, no people of any other breed of running hound would ever consider swinging a fault. Its only a fault in one rule book, the beagle one, and swinging being minused, recognized, or counted as a fault is only in some beagle trials, not all.

Simply stated, those that hold swinging to be a fault are in the minority in the running hound world!

ARHA gave all the old timers a chance to show off and trial that kept breeding their hunting beagles for over 60 years in spite of having them spitefully called GRADE or if they continued to AKC register them then TRASH Beagles since they did not conform to the rule book.

I know, I was there and my whole extended family dropped AKC and just rabbit hunted using simple hunting sense as a guide, no books by anybody.

Tennessee Ted, you are a lot smarter than me and I value your opinion. Does Bev seem to have the answer just a little too quick on a certain subject? Are we all still referring to Pamela Anderson? I'm confused!

[C.Richard Smoker]

"Rebel, I can stand quite a lot of embellishment (especially online), and it's honestly not my style to tell a guy that he's full of crap, but come on.

I guess what gets me the most isn't so much that you typed it, but I'm really insulted that you honestly want us to believe it. Come on."

Chris are you calling me a liar?

[Chris]

Crichard, I'm guessing that you're the guy that Rebel misunderstood about 2 of his medium speed dogs catching 5 snowshoe hare in a day...

I really doubt that anyone would tell him a story like that. Even if you did, I wouldn't call you a liar because I don't know you well enough to. I would say, however, that someone's playing fast and loose with the truth.