Don’t Invest In Pocket Beagles

Back in the 1300’s and 1400’s the British monarchy was in full swing and there were things that they found to be very appealing to them. One favorite pet of the British monarchy back in those days was a breed of beagle known as the pocket beagle. A pocket beagle measured only 9 inches to the shoulders and back in those days it was very popular. But today the American Kennel Club only lists beagle breeds that are 13" and 15" as being the current breeds of beagles. So what happened to the pocket beagle?

The pocket beagle breed was declared extinct in 1901 by both American and British breeding clubs and since then it has been accepted that you really cannot get a true pocket beagle anymore. With all of this there are still breeders selling pocket beagles and it is feared that the only way to get a pocket beagle is to sell an unhealthy dog that has had its growth stunted because of physical problems.

If you go looking for pocket beagle breeders you will find a very different story than many of the breeding associations are currently telling. There is a breed of pocket beagles being sold all over the world being referred to as old English pocket beagles and they differ just a little bit from the original pocket beagle breed. An old English pocket beagle is considered to be any beagle 12" or smaller and it almost seems as though many people are trying to get their dog to fit into a category that it may not be part of.

Breeding has a big part in all of this, as breeders are the ones that can help insure that beagle puppies are clean of any kind of health risk or any unhealthy situation. Many times a beagle marketed as a pocket beagle is a beagle, which the breeder allowed to be born with common physical ailments in beagles such as hip dysplasia and epilepsy. Be certain to ask many questions if you intend to buy a dog marketed as a pocket beagle.

The debate rages on between people that claim to be breeding and selling healthy old English pocket beagles and the people that say those breeders are only breeding sick dogs and should be stopped. Perhaps it is naïve to think that a way of breeding health pocket beagles could never be found but at the same time there is a large pool of very qualified experts that are speaking out loudly against the breeding of modern day pocket beagles.

At the same time the dog buying public is kind of caught in the middle as there is no denying that just one look at a pocket beagle makes it really hard to not take one home. It is kind of a shame that something so cute, and so small, it at the center of such a large debate but when you have equally qualified people on both sides of the fence it is difficult to ignore a debate like this.

Michelle Adams is a big supporter of animal rescue societies and supports the humane treatment of animals. Of all of the beagle types available the pocket beagle is one of the more controversial. You will find valuable beagle information in this article about the pocket beagle.