Posted by Jeanne on April 8, 2009
The Beagle is a dog that officially belongs in the hound group. This group is divided into two classes – those that hunt with their eyes, like the Greyhound and the Borzoi, and those that hunt with their noses, like the Dachshund and the Bloodhound.
The Beagle is a nose hunter, too. If you take a Beagle into the field, he’ll be off on the trail of a rabbit before you can say, “Go get him!” If you live in the country and rabbits keep digging up your garden, get a couple of Beagles and your rabbit troubles will be over. The Beagles will not only chase rabbits oft your property but woodchucks and moles as well.
When a Beagle is on the trail of game, he often goes through grass and brush so high that it it were not for his white-tipped tail sticking up in the air you wouldn’t know where he is. As long as you see his tail up, you know the Beagle has his nose down. As soon as the nose comes up off the ground, the tail comes down to a level with his body, sticking almost straight out.
The reason for this up and down signaling of the tail is that the dog can’t bark to let you know where he is as long as his nose is down tracking game. His tail has to tell you his location. But, as soon as he can bring his nose up, he can bark to signal where he is and he doesn’t need his “flag.’
There are big Beagles and there are small Beagles – whatever kind you have, you know that yours is a popular breed.
Posted by Jeanne on April 1, 2009
Any dog can be a hunting dog. Some do one kind of hunting better than others, and some will go after anything that moves including mailmen, cats, cars, boys on bicycles, salesmen, and even other dogs. But most trained hunting dogs go after birds and small animals like rabbits, fox, coons, and possum.
With their keen noses, bird dogs like the English and Irish Setters are taught mainly to locate game birds. When they find a bird, they stand a certain way – hunters call it pointing – showing their owners where the bird is. After the bird is brought down, the dog is then sent out to bring it back to his master. This is retrieving. It’s just like the game you play with your dog when you throw a stick in front of you and ask your Fido to fetch it.
Retrievers, like the Golden and the jet black Labrador are especially trained to bring back water fowl that have been shot down over a body of water. They do a good job of retrieving land birds, too. Some hunters like a dog that can find game and retrieve it from both land and water. The Spaniels and the Weimaraner with their webbed feet are such combination all-purpose dogs.
An entirely different group of hunting dogs are the hounds like the Beagle, Foxhound, Whippet, and Borzoi. Hounds are used primarily to hunt for four-legged game rather than birds. One of the best-known hunting dogs is the Bloodhound. This breed is frequently used by the police to track down fugitives from the law. And sometimes little fugitive children who get lost or who run away from home can thank the Bloodhound’s keen sense of smell for finding them.