The Beagle

When looking at all the different breeds we have in our world today and especially considering the fact that most of those breeds can be traced all the way back in to the B.C. time era, I think that the Beagle can be considered a more recent breed.

The first time that we meet the word, "beagle" in English literature, dates all the way back to 1475, nobody is completely certain what the real origin of the word "Beagle" is, although some suggest that it is from the French Begueule which means, "Open Throat" but others hold the position that the word Beagle comes from Old English, Welsh Beag meaning, "small", still others say that it means to scold and to bellow. Whichever one is the real meaning (it doesn’t really matter) I think that we can honestly say that when it comes to the Beagle every one of the above terms accurately describes this wonderful interesting breed.

It is said that the Talbot hound (which is now extinct) is the most recent ancestor of the Beagle. The Talbot hound was brought to England in the seventh century by William the conqueror. another hound that played a significant part in the forming of the Beagle breed is the Black and ten Kerry Beagle, these dogs have an excellent sense of smell so it is believed that the Beagle inherited his sense of smell from the good old Kerry from Ireland.

Now the Beagle is first and foremost a hunting dog, that is what he was born an bred to do, Beagling (a poor persons foxhunting) is done on foot. What is so great about this is that anywhere from 1 to 32 dog can be used in the hunt, now of course there are several different techniques used to bring down the prey.

One of these techniques is to, quite simply, bring your dogs let them find the trail and start tracking the rabbit or deer or whatever it is that you are hunting, and when they have taken off don’t try to chase after them! Oh no, all you have to do is stay in one spot and wait for the animal to circle around and come back towards you. You see, different animals have different sized territories and those animals will not go out of their territories so eventually they will come back approximately to their starting point.

Again, depending on the prey you might want to take more then one hunter with you and place everybody at strategic points along the terrain, in so doing you will increase the odds in your favor.

The beagle does get some diseases, some of them coming from the fact that they were not properly taken care of or groomed properly.

Grooming is really easy with the Beagle their main problem is their ears, because the ear is so long warm, hot and moist air gets trapped in there making the perfect breeding ground for bacteria, which cause ear infections and all kinds of nasty stuff. A good preventative is regular cleaning of the ears and just being careful when you are giving the dog a bath.

Another common problem with beagles is obesity, believe me, most beagles will eat everything that you put in their plate, all the way down to the last kibble! Because of this, an eating schedule should be set up or at the very least keep a good eye on his food intake and make sure he gets plenty of exercise.

Speaking of exercise another thing that these lovable dogs can get is arthritis (affecting old dogs), this being a direct result of too much exercise when the dog was young.

The beagle is the perfect pet to get if you have small children, they are a gentle, loving, loyal breed that will even take care of the toddler, they are great family dogs that love to get attention, and even though they have a reputation for being loud and boisterous, I can assure you that there are beagles out there of a much more quit nature, if you put three dogs of the same breed together you will find that each one has his own individual personality.