The American Beagler Forum

Dog A and dog B are very similar in ability. The biggest difference between the two is in how much they use their mouth. Dog A only opens when he is on a good track and has it moving. When "A" hits a check he shuts up until he figures out the check and has the track going again. On a good running track "A" opens about once every 10 seconds.
Dog B has a lot more mouth. He only opens on a jumped rabbit, no cold trailing under Joe's definition of the term. But when old "B" is on a running rabbit he makes a constant roar. At a check "B" opens every time he smells rabbit, even if he hasn't gotton the track straightened out yet. "B" used to trail the other dogs when he was younger, he doesn't anymore. Sometimes "B" will even trail you up, barking all the way. B does not ghost trail, he doesn't open off the line, he doesn't do anything that "A" doesn't do, he just barks a lot more while he is doing it.
Which dog would you rather have? Why?

Because I wouldn't trust dog B enough to keep him around.
Once a dog barks on my tracks or anything like that I start getting sceptical of how smart he really is .

I like a dog to give plenty of mouth on track but in all honestly the ones I keep usually are considered border line tight mouthed.

But when they open they have and you can trust them...

Accountability of game. It's my personnal number one pet peave.
If you open there better be a rabbit there..

I have a hound much like yours, a little tightmouth. My friend has one much like your other dog, a little loosemouth. He is a young dog and will run other dogs, will bark in the check area a lot, and can run a line real good. I don't like either type, but a dog somewhere in between both, but if I had to choose, I would take the tightmouth dog. A loosemouth hound will disrupt the pack in a check and while they are hunting for a strike. I think your loosemouth dog will get better as he gets older.

Opening only once every ten seconds is more then a little tight mouth. A hound can travel a long ways in ten seconds. Not clear on hound B with the opening on a check. Nothing wrong with proclaiming a find but how much proclaiming is he doing without moveing? Not a thing wrong with a lost hound opening on your trail when attempting to find you either.

Hound A would be too tight for me. Hound B sounds much better and I'd only have to see how much proclaiming he deos on a find when he's not able to move it.

go joe im 100% with you on this one and a dog only barks every ten seconds better have an incredible bark when he does open . ive seen many good dogs open on my track and seen a lot of guys call it a fault , which i agree it is , it doesnt show lack of brains to me maybe the oposite , dog shouldnt open on my track cause its not a rabbit but its not a shooting ofence either cause id wish i could have every dog that ever opened on my track in my yard right now. pete

tom you send old b right to my house. solid roar . thats what i want to hear. pete

I have found that I can shoot more rabbits in front of a dog like B than A, everything else being equal. When you are hunting you are trying to guess where the rabbit will be and get there before the rabbit does. Like Joe said, a hound can travel a long ways in ten seconds. I want to know where that hound is and what it is doing.
That extra mouth can pull the other dogs in at times when it shouldn't but I think the good outweighs the bad.
I would imagine sooner or later, dog B would get itself in trouble in a field trial and be picked up. I can't help but think that there have been a lot of dog B's that were culled when they were young and were trailing the other dogs around the pen.
Sorry Pete, old B has a home for life right here!

I PREFER DOG A BUT WOULDNT MIND HAVING THE PAIR THAT WAY IF HE WAS BARKING OUT OF PLACE I WOULD HAVE A GUAGE TO MEASURE BY AND THEM WOULD ADMINISTER A LITTLE SHOCK THERAPY!

i might argue that you could run the pair and shock A for when he isnt barking and should be. if b has scent and is moving in right direction he should be barking. the world is full of dogs that dont bark enough. its not just beagles all hounds. tom said he didnt bark when he didnt have scent. bottom line is tom says he could kill more rabbits with b and in my opinion that is the way a rabbit hound should be judged. if you want to shock him for running your track i wouldnt argue but i wouldnt do it best hounds ive ever seen did that and i kind of liked it. lot of times it would loosen some hare up and make them move and if it did pull other dogs in ok they were that much closer to me which is wher i want them i want to know where they start the hare. and while im at it i keep hearing how dogs bark on cold track lack intelligence. i could argue that i only have to hunt with a dog a few times and i know what his bark means. every dogs is different and a dog that is constantly pulled to another thats cold trailing may be the one lacking intelligence. just something to think about. pete

THAT IS FOOD FOR THOUGHT SNOWSHOE!IF TRIALING I WOULD WANT B TO CLAIN THE QUICK CHECK EVEN IF HE DIDNT HAVE IT STRAIGHTNENED OUT!BUT WHEN HUNTING I GO WITH B DOG GUYS A LITTLE AND WHEN MY MALE LETS HIS VOICE GO I TELL THEM THERE'S UR RABBIT THERE ALL URS DID WAS KEEP OUYR EARS BUSY WHICH I LIKE TO HEAr but i want it to be rightr is all i'm saying if he has to hee haaww for 5 minutes before goin in the right direcvtion after he has opened then i'll take a every day!

We're only given two hounds to choose from here and to me unless B is opening too much he'd be the keeper. The fact is though I prefer them a bit tight to a bit the other way. Don't like to hear them unless they can make progress on the line. Running solo I don't guess it makes a lot of difference excpt to anoy you but improper use of mouth in a pack is disruptive. A little tight isn't as disruptive as a little the other way. Hound A is a lot tight and would be quite diruptive. If hound B only lets out one bawl when he makes a find and then shuts up till he can move it I could live with that but I'd prefer to see him use his tail to communicate that he has a bit of scent till he can move it and then open.

yes i want them to be right too. i have one dog now doesnt bark enough most the time i really like him but when running is tough he may only bark every ten seconds or maybe worse than that. ive seen a few that bark too much . i never want to see a dog go by me barking and i know the hare didnt which i saw a dog do this winter alot. this dog runs when its 20 below zero it belongs to a friend. he is a great dog but my opinion of him went down a little when watching him real close. he can run on the tough days and i mean arctic conditions. he could have a home here anytime but he does run his mouth a little. im not promoting dogs that are babblers. its just that i see more that are too quiet or that cant run at all when its tough going than i do that are really too mouthy. i see this as a trend thats getting worse. i like that solid roar . wheth er its one dog or a whole pack of them. and i will put up with some extra mouth quicker than i will not enough . anyways its very hard to judge dogs by what somebody describes compared to what you actually see and hear. if a dog was perfect there wouldnt be any checks. ever see a dog that would run behind and at 90% of the checks not even hesitate. run right thru. ive had a few like that and maybe they were a little mouthy but run them alone and theyd run almost without a loss. i considered them great dogs and still do those are the ones that opened on my track. ive seen them back track a little cold trail a little too much . i wish i had a pickup load of them right now. pete

I like everyting thing about the A DOG,except he needs to open more on a line then every 10 seconds. So A dog only has one bad strike on him. The B dog opening in a check when ever he smells scent without moving forward progress ,thats one bad strike for him and barking trailing me would be a big NO, strike 2 for the B dog,, I will take the A dog any day over the b dog. because his mouth is more dependable . If im hunting and I hear the A dog I know barking I know he is moving a track, but the b dog could be just hitting the line in a check without figuring it out yet,or worse yet, maybe he is following my boot tracks

i offered B a home. tom wont give him up. tom said he could kill more rabbits with B . when dogs opened on my boot tracks i would know within seconds thats what it was. so did my other dogs. listen to your dog, i guess if dog only opens when its red hot than he only has one voice. i used to hunt competition coon hunts. you do that and you will learn to listen to your dog. a little practice and you will learn to listen to the other dogs in cast. i hunt bear cat and coyote. cold trail long distances. this is one of most enjoyable parts of hunt.also the most important and hardest to find is a good cold trailing dog. when dog is cold trailing do you think i cant tell the difference. seen a few dogs cold trail so fast maybe i couldnt tell and same thing send me a truckload. tom you sure you dont want to get rid of B nobody else likes him but me. i breed dogs to cold trail then run to catch. i dont see a beagle as being any different. usually plenty of rabbits so cold trailing is not so important but when its below zero and crusty snow you will appreciate thos cold nosed dogs. only time i call cold trailing a fault is a dog that only cold trails. he doesnt want to run . or maybe he just cant. i dont like him either. i dont like a boo hooing idiot. dog b doesnt sound like that to me. tom ill send my adress you ship him right over here.

well it maY be diff up there snowshoe but here in tennn i'l take a when my mle is running i get the hammer ready i aint gotta guess cause its rabbit and its in front of him trying to get away!but i still wouldnt mind haveing B also as long as he didnt booo hooo too long or he would hark to A when he got it goin and not stay around still looking for the track!difff weather may very well need diff dogs!ur friend in tennn.and it sounds like u neeed to move down here why ould u want to live in such conditionns lol better u than me!thinking about moving father south myself lol!