beagle running anyone?

[rimfirematt]

Since I have been forbidden from obtaining any more beagles in the forseeable future,( the one I have has been a terrible house dog and the wife is ticked) I cannot develop my own pack of them. But i have been wanting to hear a pack of them run. Anybody that has one want to get together with mine and see what they do? It'd be cool to get a pack singing through the woods.

Mine has only soloed with a buddies pup tagging along occasionaly, so he has never been in a pack.

He is a good rabbit dog, so Im not looking for anybody to bring their dog to start mine. On the flip side of that I dont mind if anyone brings their pup either. I wished someone was around with a dog to help mine get going when he was a pup. My dog is young and fast so I cant garantee he will wait for your pup though.

[akjagd]

Douse it have to be a Beagle or would you consider running a mixed pack?

[BrownBear]

We used to breed beagles, timing our litters for spring then keeping the pups till they had a chance to run with our adults before turning them over to new owners. As a result, we had experience running snowshoes with one or two dogs, as well as "packs." We also had friends bring their dogs (beagle and otherwise) to get experience running with our adults.

In a nutshell, I'm not sure much is gained other than noise and excitement running snowshoe hare with more than a couple of dogs or even one good one. Sure is a hoot to see all those extra bodies tearing through the brush, but too often for our tastes the hares simply give up their home turf and line out cross country to get away.

Smaller dogs are better than bigger too, simply because they don't push the hares quite as hard, thereby helping them keep to the near ground. Big dogs send them sailing cross country, and most big dogs simply don't have the nose for it. Great sight hunters, but they're pretty useless once they lose sight of hares they jump.

Among the small dogs, you want one with both a nose and a voice. They need the nose to keep on the job, but they also need a voice to let you keep track of their progress. Usually the hare is 100-300 yards ahead of them, and if you can't hear that the chase has turned back your way, you won't be anywhere near ready when the hare appears----- and disappears.

In spite of our love of beagles, the best overall hare dogs we have run were bassets. They have incredible noses and deep voices, but are slow enough that the hares never wander as far. Best yet, if they get on deer or fox I can run them down and teach them the errors of their ways. Short of a shock collar, there's no way to do that with beagles.

Have a ball with as many dogs as you can round up, and it sure will be fun. But I bet you get fewer hares than you usually do with one good dog.