I've Grown to HATE a full length tail on a beagle!!

[Garrett]

I'm with jim on taking a little of the tail when they are pups. I have a year old pup now that I have banded because of a bloody tail. It sucks to have to lay her up for a while during the process. The two older dogs I have also needed banding when they were around the same age. I wish it was done when they were pups. My next litter will be docked no question.

[bear128]

I don't knock my female for not hunting as hard when her tail is bleeding bad . If a rabbit gets up she is going to be on it and running the pee out of it . Just when you kill it she is not going to be the first dog jumping back in the briars .I've had her run all day 50 plus days pregnant she just doesn't hunt as hard as she does when you drop the tail gate after a few hours of bleeding . My dog is red and you can see it on her sides real good over her color

[ackermanich]

Always seems like the ears get bloody too!
Seems like a lot more blood loss from the ears. Moving forward I don't believe I will buy a beagle from anyone unless they have them long ears trimmed up, cut off or pinned upward.

[Alabama John]

Around here over the years, there have been many Beagles bred with shorter ears and some even stood up to a point.
Never had trouble with those ears bleeding and they got in the thick and jumped a lot of rabbits. Along with those type of ears seems to come a high pitch mouth as a bonus too.

[rabbitearl]

I say do what you want with your dog. but used the 3 SSS. BUT and a big but. Don t tell everbody. The reason I am saying this. Yall would not believe what us hog farmer are going threw with peta. We have to dock there tails and peta are trying to stop it. There are trying to stop us from growing hogs. If a hog is sick and dieing we now have to gas that pig or hog . No longer with a 22. We no longer can used a hog shocker to move a 300 pound hog to the truck were he going to be kill in a hr.. If the right one see this on this net. They will try to stop us from the used of any dog for hunting. In dec I had permissing to trap rabbits in a place and two lady were riding there bike and came up to one of my boxes that had a rabbit.I drove up about the time they were letting the rabbit out. I ask them why and they say if was a very very bad thing to do to a rabbit. I just turn around and got the rest of my boxes and left. There are becoming more and more people out there like this now. So ME too. We have to be more carefull about what we say on here. Or the days of a beagle running a rabbit is over.

[BCBeagles]

Earl...I agree with you....it is sad.....

[Budd]

Looks like Troy prefers docked tails as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKB011Y ... e=youtu.be

[mybeagles]

I had to dock my males tail. He would get covered in blood.....obviously the breeder was not breeding for tail.....

My female is out of the same sire and her tail rarely gets bloody. Both dogs have as far as I can see the same "tail wag" and similar thickness to their hair.

The "bleeders" are the ones that have the exposed blood vessel at the tail tip. By clipping or banding the tail you remove the area where the blood vessel is exposed.

Breeders can do what they want.....if I liked the cross I would buy a pup regardless of tail dock or not. The Blackcreek breeders dock the tails to about 3" long. I don't necessarily like that looks of that, but if I liked the dogs involved that wouldn't be a major factor.

SR Patch, if you can breed for proper tail why don't you breed dogs without cherry eyes and splayed front legs?

[S.R.Patch]

I had to dock my males tail. He would get covered in blood.....obviously the breeder was not breeding for tail.....

My female is out of the same sire and her tail rarely gets bloody. Both dogs have as far as I can see the same "tail wag" and similar thickness to their hair.

The "bleeders" are the ones that have the exposed blood vessel at the tail tip. By clipping or banding the tail you remove the area where the blood vessel is exposed.

Breeders can do what they want.....if I liked the cross I would buy a pup regardless of tail dock or not. The Blackcreek breeders dock the tails to about 3" long. I don't necessarily like that looks of that, but if I liked the dogs involved that wouldn't be a major factor.

SR Patch, if you can breed for proper tail why don't you breed dogs without cherry eyes and splayed front legs?

Hi Dave, I've missed talking with you also...lol
Your statement to me seems to indicate you've seen some of my hounds with cherry-eye and splayed legs. Can you be more specific what hounds you've seen from me?
Yes, one time I got cherry-eye from acouple of bitch pups I brought in. They never had the affliction themselves but their sire had the loose lower eyelids which made me suspect, and one of the bitches mother was a little buggie eyed. I tried to talk the owner into using my Casey hound on West River Patch Bell but he wanted to use his own sire on the cross. I have told this story before and also included that I kept all the pups from the cross I made that resulted in having cherry-eye till they died so I wouldn't forget where it came from nor pass it on to any others, none of these were ever bred.
Conformation is tricky to breed for until you get in some time and do some breeding with the hounds in the family to figure out where what is coming from. Since there is no perfection, it's a game of mixing the best you have, letting the dominates surface and trying to compile them into one litter(fingers crossed). It's a lot of hard choices, I ran with a excellent hound up on the Island one trip, heck of a rabbit hound but Magnum's front legs were so bassetity, I could never bring myself to use him. Another fellow called me from the east and said he had a pup from two hounds I knew that were straight but when the breeder crossed them this fellow got a pup that wasn't straight in the front and he ask about breeding her. I told him breeding was about "a standard", if you see something not right don't use it in your path to reaching your goal.
I hope I've answered your question, I don't breed hounds with cherry-eye or bad legs but would like to hear what you think you know about my hounds. Oh, I did get a runt one time. Dick Rollins came up with a friend of his he called Cotton, an elderly man who love hounds but didn't feel he could keep one anymore. Well, before Dick left with his pups, I slipped little Purdy in his box and told him to give her to Cotton when they got home. Well the report I got back was Cotton was a happy man and little Purdy just didn't know she was to little to run with the big dawgs...lol

[mybeagles]

Cherry eye or drooping eye lids and splayed front legs in my experience don't seem to be common in the beagle world but it seems like the times I've seen it a patch hound was involved. I've heard you mention both in different crosses you have dealt with. For as long as the patch line has been closely bred it seems like the hounds producing these faults would have been identified and purged from the gene pool. What made me question you in this matter is the claim that "proper tail" should be a breeding consideration. I think you make a fair argument that bleeding tails are fairly common, it just seems like there are much higher priorities and challenges in the breeding selection process. On the other thread discussing most important traits I didn't see anyone mention tail swing or bleeding tail in their list.

I find it interesting that when genetic faults show up in a kennel of someone that inbreeds its inevitably blamed on the dog outside the kennel that was brought in as if the dogs within the kennel were not carriers of such faults bred in for multiple generations.

[APFII]

Cherry eye or drooping eye lids and splayed front legs in my experience don't seem to be common in the beagle world but it seems like the times I've seen it a patch hound was involved. .

I don't know about Patch hounds ,but these faults are more common than you might think in the rest of trial beagles in my experience.

[S.R.Patch]

Hello again Dave,
Thanks, and I will certainly put your evaluation and study of the patch bloodline under consideration. I've also included on my list to watch for those "exposed blood vessels" on the tips of the tails...I've been talking to my medical colleagues about your theory and they wonder if it may be an aneurysm of the vessels or a hematoma of the tail bursting. Exposed blood vessels on the outside of the epidural is a very serious condition as most would agree.
I certainly don't want to be afraid to talk about weakness within my chosen bloodline. Honesty makes people look at things with open eyes and not try to hide or cover them up with outcrosses. I didn't catch the names or owners of the patch hounds you've seen or been involved with, I don't doubt you honesty or integrity but after hearing that patch hounds are the only beagles you've seen with cherry-eye and poor front running gear and that you think it is not common, i have to wonder how many beagles you've seen, or at least offer up some of the patch hounds you've seen. I'm only asking for examples so we can discuss and gain some understanding of what your seeing and where it may have come from. It's hard to eliminate weakness and faults when there are many breeders and everyone has a standard of what is acceptable. As you said about the other thread, some see tail bleeding as a "non-issue" and just dock the tail bleeders,... some seem to have no trouble with the tail bleeding,... but what if the two are bred together and all the sudden the one with no issue starts to have trouble. Tail bleeding may not make the top five on the "what most important"list, but anything that exist that renders the hound incapable of performing and can only be corrected or eliminated by altering the hounds natural state IS a problem to address and make note of. jmho
Good talking to you again...

[mybeagles]

I'm not of the belief that patch hounds are the only ones that carry those faults. I am simply noting that patch hounds Carry faults such as cherry eye and splayed legs as demonstrated by the fact that you bred to a patch hound to patch hound and ended up with those faults. The Point being that I would be much more concerned about breeding to prevent those faults then a dogs tail. I think there are about 50 other things I would concern myself in a breeding other than its tail. I've had three dogs in my lifetime that had issues with a bloody tail but all three were excellent hounds and worth using in a breeding program.

I know of some very good patch hounds....A friend of mine in Wisconsin has a nice patch female that won the Midwest run off. I also have a friend and have trialed against some very nice patch hounds in Pennsylvania. I will assume you have some very good patch hounds or you wouldn't keep working with that bloodline as long as you have

My veterinarian was the one that explained why a beagles tail bleeds. The tissue between the second and third to last joint on the tail sometimes gets a damaged blood vessel. When you run the same dogs many days in a row all these injuries never get a chance to heal and therefore become problematic. Cutting 2 inches off the end of the tail eliminate this problem and you never have to worry about it again.

I trust that you had a good safe hunting season this year

Dave

[S.R.Patch]

I am glad you hold no prejudice of patch hounds or their inbreeding, the stinking things are all related to a greater or lesser degree, I think Randall planned it that way or something.
As I was trying to get across, it is the standard and the degree of fault or weakness that should guide a hunter's worry. I think we've all had hounds with bloody tails and they survived. It's when you come to the point that you believe tails must be docked to keep the hound useful, that degree of worry is something to consider when breeding. jmho

I had no hunting this season, I've been with my father since May.