Hardest thing to breed for

[THALL]

everyone throws "Brains" out as the trait they look for in a hound. I want a Rabbit Crazy SOB with total disregard for his well being. If they give me something to work with then time and repetition can fix alot.

I agree 100%. How can we call a dog [that will bust briars wide open, will run 'till he falls over, hears nothing when he's running and searching, will carry a bad leg while runnig, ...ect] smart? My expierence is some are too smart for their own good. They are "smart enough" to know the briars hurt and when they quit the pain stops.
I think breeders should breed more for tuffness!

[Newt]

It's apparently not hard to breed for any particular trait but it is difficult to find several beaglers who agree on which trait is important. Maybe that is the difficulty of breeding for a particular trait.

[denny606]

has any body on here ever owned that one dog that suited them perfectly ,I haven't and Ive owned what some of you might think are sorry not worth keeping on the place,but they had their place in the small pack that I try to keep for myself,I love a total package in a hound but it is hard to find,I like a dog who has what I call "rabbit sense" and to be honest there are not many out there,One thing I want above all else is an eagnerness to please and desire to hunt{ I guess that's 2 things},what i try to acheive is a pack of dogs with the ability to work together ,since I don't trial any more and mostly run for pleasure and gun over my dogs, I know what I like and adjust/ cull in my pack to get what I'm looking for,Beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder,what I'm getting at is the total package is easier to get with a pack that works together than with a single dog and I have found there will always be one take charge dog in that pack and their will be a pack leader,and it will be ME,I expect all my dogs to handle and I expect all my dogs to perform to the best of their ability and no me tooers in the bunch,maybe I'm different,But I ain't ashamed to put them on the ground with any body elses hounds,and if i was somebody else can feed em,Denny

[BrewerMo]

I was reading a few of the posts in this thread and they got me thinking...... LOL ( No low blows either Blair )
How much of a dog's learning ability ( Brains ) is inherited and how much is developed?
Every book I've read about raising a puppy ( for me it's been about raising a baby lately...lol ) stresses how important it is to stimulate them durring the period where they loose the muscles (brain) they don't use. When we raise a litter Amy and I try to stimulate them as much as possible ( without stressing them ) with the hopes they would learn faster and easier when they are ready to learn basic comands, start, hunt over, trial exct........
I still have yet to raise Beagle Einstine

[Mo. Beagler 5000]

Ya but I own beagles labs and rots....... I like beagles but they are dumb as hell compared to the other dogs. By dumb I mean they don't get what I want them to do probably 99 percent of the time when my other dogs can get me a beer out of the fridge and even turn off the light swich if I tell them too... sit, heel, come, stay, roll over all learned in less than six months but my bealge is three years old and won't sit unless he can acually smell a treat or has fear of getting popped with an e collar....

Brains may be stimulated but your workin with a shorter deck of cards in a beagle..

[JesandDeb]

Our female we had many years ago and with one of her litters, had a pup that wasn't making it.....only a few days old. She brought the pup to me while I was asleep in bed, stood up at the head of my bed and carefully put it on my pillow right infront of my face ....I jumped up to try and save the pup but while walking to the other room it took its last breaths. Brains? Trust? Instinct? Our awesome male "Jack".... was such a hard case he would bloody himself to get over barbed wire , went through a window in our back door one time just to get out .... Stubborn? Determined? Once we started to work with him, he QUICKLY learned to sit, stay and heel, and calmed himself as WE were in control then. Eager to please? Loved his people? Or maybe those "goody" treats he got for doing good? He could run rabbit ALL day so we could eat it ALL winter . Desire? Instinct? Making what he wanted work for him? I'm not sure, but I think a beagle is ALL of those things, and NOT dumb at all. Good gosh, they are a blood hound in a tiny body by nature . With understanding how those little boogers work and think, I think ya can get on top of any flaws they may have . No matter how ya look at it though....they are still dogs.

[mybeagles]

" My expierence is some are too smart for their own good. They are "smart enough" to know the briars hurt and when they quit the pain stops."

To smart for their own good......or.......to smart for your own good? This toughness, desire, willingness to please, may be enhanced through training and fertile environment, but if the instinct is not there you can train you life away and end up with nothing. We might all be refering to the same thing when one says brains vs instinct/desire.

In reference to the question about my prefered breeding methods........

I do stongly oppose inbreeding, mixed feelings about linebreeding, but prefer a well thought out and planned outcross. I will follow that statement up with the fact that amongst the best dogs out there, some are outcrosses, some are line bred, and there might even be one thats inbred. I believe linebreeding produces more consistant traits, but in my experience, the majority of "great" dogs were outcrosses. The question I have not settled for myself is wether or not linebred dogs increase your chances of getting a "great" dog from an outcross. Anyone have any thoughts on that?

[sanfordssj]

Half brother / half sister crosses seem to be the most sucessfull line/inbreed. To me this is inbreeding, but most everyone on here seems to think it is line? I have looked through just about every Branko, Dingus, Maravic, Blueback, and Turbo pedigree i can find and it is amazing at how many times you see this in those pedigrees.

I'm a believer in line breeding, and one day i will attempt my own half cross becasue i like what i have seen so far. The one i have seen have good foot speed, brains, and the ability to hammer down and do what ever it takes.

[S.R.Patch]

Imho, the hardest thing to breed for is balance, while still moving forwards. the hardest thing to breed for is improving what you have with a outcross. The hardest thing to breed for is finding those who breed true, the performers from the producers and that rare one who can do both.
To me, continual outcrossing is a short end to a long range plan. Things start to come unwound, the number of unknown hounds and their quality greatly increases and consistency suffers in the litters. I will say an outcross into another line or family of hounds that complement your own in type is a good thing once your line shows a weakness and a fresh infusion of new blood is needed. This was my thinking when I brought in my English hounds, I had already had a taste of weedy hounds from intense inbreeding(some things you must learn from doing/seeing, sadly it's the way I learn most things experience is the best teacher, but she's painfully slow ) and any line kept true will degenerate over time, the more condensed the pedigree, the more perfect the hounds used must be, I had read where at the end, Mr. Card's BlueCaps were small and inclined to babble. Anyway, my goal was to improve what i had and contribute something to the line for longevity. Like a doctor, I took the oath to try and help but mostly, the goal was to "do no harm". Imho, the patches are a wonderful family of hounds. Thinking back when Randall developed this family, he bred for a hound that would go hunting, find it's game and pursue it in an accurate manner with the intent to overtake it in the end. After learning about the English hounds, I felt there was no purer source to go to than the fountainhead of beagling. A place where hounds hunt, pursue their hare with the intent to overtake and the gun does not cut short the race, Sport in it's purest sense. I doubted the English hounds could contribute anything to my patches hunt but it was mainly their conformation I was after. It's an ongoing project, time, money and numbers of hounds is always a problem, many times after disappointment I've thought, "is feeding hounds and shoveling crap all I'm getting done?" It's never easy, and there's never a cheering section, it's more like, " what the heck are you doing"...
All I can say is, "don't knock it till you've tried it" and "don't try it unless you can take the hard knocks"...

[Newt]

I was reading a few of the posts in this thread and they got me thinking...... LOL ( No low blows either Blair )
How much of a dog's learning ability ( Brains ) is inherited and how much is developed?
Every book I've read about raising a puppy ( for me it's been about raising a baby lately...lol ) stresses how important it is to stimulate them durring the period where they loose the muscles (brain) they don't use. When we raise a litter Amy and I try to stimulate them as much as possible ( without stressing them ) with the hopes they would learn faster and easier when they are ready to learn basic comands, start, hunt over, trial exct........
I still have yet to raise Beagle Einstine

The majority of books are written to make money, not to enlighten. My third grade teacher attempted to hold me back because she said I couldn't read well enough to do fourth grade work. I did a lot of day dreaming in elementary school, probably about hounds. On my reading comprehension test in HS me and another kid tied for the highest reading comprehension level in the school. I'm not bragging because it was a small school. Starting half a litter of pups early will not guarantee that they will be the better than the other half litter that started later. Breed for the desired traits, give them all an equal opportunity, and cull breeding stock severely is the best policy, IMO.

[Pine Mt Beagles]

THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST POST I HAVE READ IN A LONG TIME-------
A LOT OF REALLY INTERESTING POINT'S OF VIEW,,I DON'T CALL MYSELF A BREEDER AT ALL ONLY A SMALL HANDFULL OF BEAGLE OWNERS CAN CLAIM THIS TITLE (I HAVE BEEN LUCKY TO HAVE MADE SOME CROSSES THAT WORK WELL)JUST BECAUSE YOU PRODUCE HUNDREDS OF PUPS DOES NOT MAKE YOU A BREEDER.BUT THE MORE YOU BREED THE BETTER CHANCE YOU HAVE, TO GET A GOOD HOUND NOW AND THEN.A LOT OF HUNTERS SEE A GOOD DOG OUT OF A STUD OR FROM A WELL KNOWN KENNEL AND BASE ALL THEIR DECISIONS ON THIS ONE OR TWO HOUNDS. WITH NO REGARD FOR THE FEMALE SIDE..THE TRAITS MENTIONED ABOVE IN THE OTHER POST'S ARE ALL NECESSARY TO HAVE THE TOTAL PACKAGE """BUT ''''''HOW MANY OF THEM ACTUALLY COME FROM THE CROSS MADE -THIS IS JUST MY OPINION" YES" I KNOW WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT OPINIONS!!!!!NOSE ,CONFORMATION,---GRIT, DESIRE,GUTS ,I CALL IT GAMENESS,,,,,,BACK TRACKING,EXTRA BARK,SHYNESS,HAIR COLOR ,SIZE, SPEED ,,ETC,, MOSTLY COME FROM ONE OR BOTH PARENTS,AND ALL WILL EFFECT THE END RESULT OF THE HOUND.SOME THINGS I THINK THE OWNER IS RESPONSABLE FOR ARE.TEACHING THE DOG TO HANDLE.KENNEL MANNERS,CONDUCT AROUND OTHER DOG'S AND PEOPLE,TRASH BREAKING,,,.CONDITIONING THE HOUND BOTH MIND AND BODY,, GIVING THE HOUND THE CHANCE TO REACH IT'S FULL POTENTIAL IN ALL THE ABOVE.SOLO TIME, PACK TIME.GOOD FOOD, HEALTH CARE,THE MORE A HOUND IS IN THE FIELD,THE MORE IT CAN IMPROVE ,IN LINE CONTROL,SPEED,LEARNING WHERE TO LOOK FOR A RABBIT.HANDLING.STAMNIA.TO HANDLE PACK PRESSURE.ANOTHER POINT IS THE CONDITIONS WHERE YOU RUN.FOR EXAMPLE LITTER MATES ONE RAISED IN THE MOUNTAINS EASTERN KY,THE OTHER RAISED IN THE BLUE GRASS FLAT LANDS IF YOU RUN THEM IN THE MOUNTAINS YOU WILL SOON SEE THE DIFFERENCE ENVIRONMENT MAKES. I HAVE NOT MENTIONS BRAINS BECAUSE BY THE TIME THE HOUND GETS BIG ENOUGH TO GET THROUGH A TRIAL OR HUNTING SEASON IT WILL EITHER BE TRAINED OR CULLED HOPFULLY,,I THINK IF 10 PEOPLE LOOK AT THE SAME DOG THEY WILL SEE 10 DIFFERENT DOG'S AT LEAST IN SOME SMALL WAY .SO JMO.----BRAINS IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER....I KNOW IT IS LONG WINDED,,,,,,AND A NOT ALL WILL AGREE BUT IT WOULD BE REALLY BORING IF EVERY ONE LIKED THE SAME THING------------- AND I THINK THE HARDEST THING TO BREED FOR IS CONSISTENCY WHAT I MEAN IS TO GET PUPS BETTER OR AS GOOD AS ONE OR BOTH PARENTS YEAR AFTER YEAR, AND MOST IMPORTANT, THE PUPS WILL PRODUCE THE SAME. IN THE NEXT GENERATIONS...GOOD LUCK AND
KEEP'EM RUNNING
PINE MT BEAGAGLES

[JCM]

A lot of interesting points.

On the discussion about brains, we have an easy test with pups.

A horse walks by the pen, and a pup barks. You scold him and tell him to get in the box and he stops barking.

Two hours later, a horse walks by the pen and the pup barks. You scold him and tell him to get in the box and the barking ends.

Four hours later, a horse walks by the pen and the pup barks. You scold him and tell him to get in the box and the barking ends.

Three days later (and 20 walks by), a horse walks by the pen and the pup barks. You get aggravated, put on a bark collar, the pup gets shocked, and shuts up.

Two weeks later (and 5,000 walks by), a horse walks by the pen, the collar battery died, and the pup barks.

This pup is too dumb to ever make a good rabbit dog, and he is gone.

[ray s]

the hardest thing to breed for is a hound that matches the" rule book",maybe not the type of hound you really like.

[Newt]

Do you know anyone that uses the rule book, I mean all of it, as a guide for breeding dogs? It appears that what ever the judge likes in a particular club is the only guideline most breeders use. Does the rule book change, club to club? Most swear that they have rule book hounds.


IMO, if you keep the idea of breeding a hound that is most efficient at jumping rabbits and most efficiently circling them to the gun you will have a rule book hound. That is a daunting task in an age where the traits that are most important to a rabbit hunter are never tested at most trials.

[MasonsBeagles]

Newt that is the main reason to breed what you like and to hell with anything else. If you end up with some trophies the more the better if not then who cares you have what you like. JMHO