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When I was a kid, we always had a few beagles. Rabbit hunting with beagles was one of my favorite sports.

In Victoria they are one of the few breeds still lgal for hound hunting sambar.

Given the headstrong and disobedient nature of the one I spent my childhood with it is no wonder they call it "hound hunting" - you spend half your weekend hunting for the lost hounds

Most beagles are very people oriented creatures, but I was never able to determine if they were dumb as a box of rocks, or just very independent.

Actually, my mate just got a beagle. He is still very young but watching him track downed game over the weekend he shows some real promise, there also a hell of a nice dog as far as temperament goes and make a great pet as well.

I have never owned one but have always had a fondness for beagles, but like has been said, every one that I have ever been around has had an independent personality. That is what draws me to Labs. They tend to actually listen to you and will generally obey a command.

My father had one for years before he died. The dog had a fancy pedigree but if ever "dumb as a box of rocks" applied to anything it was that dog. Lovely little fellow and I suspect he had a good nose though it was never tested properly on game but oi............

I just spent the last several months hunting every weekend with beagles for foxes, rabbits, hares and wild cats. They have a fantastic nose, but these are not pets and will not obey any command. They bark a lot and the person who owns them lives on a farm, almost 1km from the next neighbour and still gets complaints about the barking. Would I buy one, only if I was hunting every weekend and lived in a rural property.

mchughcb wrote:I just spent the last several months hunting every weekend with beagles for foxes, rabbits, hares and wild cats. They have a fantastic nose, but these are not pets and will not obey any command. They bark a lot and the person who owns them lives on a farm, almost 1km from the next neighbour and still gets complaints about the barking. Would I buy one, only if I was hunting every weekend and lived in a rural property.

No, they make great pets, my next dog will be a Beagle, you just have to spend time with them and treat them as pets same as any dog.

SPEEDY wrote:

mchughcb wrote:I just spent the last several months hunting every weekend with beagles for foxes, rabbits, hares and wild cats. They have a fantastic nose, but these are not pets and will not obey any command. They bark a lot and the person who owns them lives on a farm, almost 1km from the next neighbour and still gets complaints about the barking. Would I buy one, only if I was hunting every weekend and lived in a rural property.

No, they make great pets, my next dog will be a Beagle, you just have to spend time with them and treat them as pets same as any dog.

Maybe, but as I said these are working dogs. A lot of them are picked up for free from the local pound. If they don't show any promise they are put down. They are locked in a large dog cage where its survival of the fittest. Might be different if you have one as a pet but I'd be using more than one beagle if I was hunting.

For many years I was a member of a local Beagle Club. The way it worked was each of us a kept at least one dog. On weekends during the season we would all assemble at some designated area with our dogs. Generally the pack varied in size from 8 to 12 dogs. More than that was unmanageable.

And while some of these dogs were house pets, such as mine, they were a totally different animal when hunting together as a pack.

Once the dogs were familiar with one another and fights were at minimum, it was a pleasure to enjoy the music as they worked on a trail. If one dog lost the trail, some other one would pick it up and there they would all go merrily working their noses while the rabbit stayed about 100 meters ahead.

We would often let the rabbit pass just to see how our dogs were working.

We often had problems when it was time to call off the hunt, some dogs would not mind and come back and many an owner would come with a jacket and a bowl of dog food to leave behind to collect their dogs a few hours later.

mchughcb wrote:

SPEEDY wrote:

mchughcb wrote:I just spent the last several months hunting every weekend with beagles for foxes, rabbits, hares and wild cats. They have a fantastic nose, but these are not pets and will not obey any command. They bark a lot and the person who owns them lives on a farm, almost 1km from the next neighbour and still gets complaints about the barking. Would I buy one, only if I was hunting every weekend and lived in a rural property.

No, they make great pets, my next dog will be a Beagle, you just have to spend time with them and treat them as pets same as any dog.

Maybe, but as I said these are working dogs. A lot of them are picked up for free from the local pound. If they don't show any promise they are put down. They are locked in a large dog cage where its survival of the fittest. Might be different if you have one as a pet but I'd be using more than one beagle if I was hunting.

You only get out of a dog what you put into them, that bloke reminds of the Pig doggers that tried to buy my dogs pups, as soon as I took one look at them and they complained about going through 6+ dogs a year, I told them there's the gate
Some dogs take a couple of years to come into it, these blokes that run big packs like that in cages and treat them like tools and not companions, to just put down a perfectly good dog because they don't come good quick enough is bloody disgusting.

Now I grew up on a farm that had up to 15 working dogs on it, now they didn't get the best run of things but they never got that treatment. The hunting hounds never even got tied up, you would find them lying around or running around the house paddocks everywhere. All were working dogs, all would fight over feed but we made sure that all got their feed and were otherwise looked after.

Now it comes down to, are you going to have a couple of pets and companions that go hunting with you or are you going to convert the back of the shed into a doggy sweat shop?
It amazing just how well trained and just how good a hunter a pet can be, my Girl used to sleep inside, jump on the couch with me and was a general sook. But when it came time to work I have never had or seen a dog better then her, she would work with you and treated you as her hunting companion, she is a catcher not a killer and treats it like a great game and that's exactly what I want in my dogs, rather then a half starved pack of unsocial tools.