The American Beagler Forum

Is a hound having a bawl mouth a trait that you can breed in them? I really like hounds with bawl mouths and just wondered if I could breed that trait just like any other? Thanks.

Love a bawl mouth also but when you woory breeding it you will surely loose field ability.

Just an opinion: Mouth is very hard to predict. I think you COULD breed for it and might have LIMITED success after several generations. However, I do not think it would be wise to breed for mouth at the expense of conformation, brains, running style & ability, and all the many other things that we desire in a beagle. Cull the hounds whose mouths you can't tolerate and enjoy the variety of the music!

If you want to breed bawl mouth, I will give you a starting place. Begin by asking all the breeders you know if and when they bred a bawl mouth male to a bawl mouth female what the pups were like. In my experience it is inherited in a recessive manner, meaning if you breed bawl to bawl most of the pups will be bawl mouth. It is relatively simple to breed for as are most recessives. An example would be 2 blue eyed parents having blue eyed children, where as 2 brown eyed parents can have blue or brown because brown is dominant and will show even when carrying the blue gene. As long as you breed bawl to bawl, most come out bawl mouth. Others may have differant experience with this and of course there are always exceptions I guess. The litter I have right now are out of 2 bawl mouth dogs or should say one bawl and the other squall which is the same, and I am sure 90% of the pups will be bawl or squall mouth. It does not interfere with the selection of other top traits because it is so easy to breed for, in fact one of the easiest things to breed for. It is like the black blanket on a Doberman or Black and Tan Coon Hound. AS long as you breed blanket to blanket, all the pups will be blanket and is simple to breed for. This is a recessive trait as opposed to the black saddle which is a dominant trait. Chop mouth is dominant to bawl just like medium nose is dominant to cold nose etc. Hope this helps and good luck!

Try this::::::::::::::find someone that breeds walky talky beagles and get ya one from them,usually bawl mouth relates to very slow hounds,it takes long breaths to put out a bawl and a houd usually walks a step,picks up its head,lets out a bawl,looks back at the ground,sniffs a few smells,raises its head,lets out another bawl and starts all over again in a dead mans walk style and if you set all day this hound may make a little movement indicating it is not dead and than you know cause it is bawling for some one to kick it in the rear so it can move its feet==FORGET A BAWL MOUTH WHAT YA REALLY WHAT IS A CHOP MOUTH HOUND!!!it can raise its head or lower it without interferring with its voice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is there a reference available that one can turn to to determine which traits are dominate and which recessive ? especially those traits found in a beagle.

Hey Doggin There is research telling what traits are dominant, recessive, incomplete dominant, sex link, sex related and other types of inheritance. In some families of hounds, bawl mouth may mean slow. It has to do with genes beeing inherited in blocks or chunks and certain traits being inherited together or stuck together in the same chunk in that particular family. This can be true in certain Beagle families, that if you get the bawl mouth you will also get a slower dog. In other families just the opposite may be true. At present, the fastest dog I have is a bawl mouth dog. The absolute fastest hound of any breed I ever saw run was a Plott hound I owned sired by Brandenbergers Pioneer Echo. He stood 30 inches at the shoulder and ran with a 100% loud horn bawl and was loud. He could run most coon like dogs run deer and had blazing speed. A guide in Michigan by the name of Leo Dollins bought him to use for bear. A lot of bawl mouth dogs will shoten to a chop when on good hot scent as most know. In reality, mouth has nothing to do with the speed of the hound, but if your only exposure to hounds is certain families, I could see where one would be led to believe that. If a belief arises that chop mouth dogs are faster because of a chop mouth, then breeders will try to breed that type of dog. Soon all the fast dogs in that family or type will have a chop mouth. If people that like slow dogs breed for a bawl mouth, then soon all the slow dogs have abawl mouth. its like which came first the chicken or the egg. The reason I feel this info is correct is because most of the fast dogs I have seen that were a complete hound and could do it all, were bawl mouth dogs. In SPO and some other formats, there is a limited gene pool but one shouldn't base their judgement on mouth to one small gene pool. There are many hound breeds in the world of which Americans have limited knowledge. Europe is full of differant hound breeds and there are is a breed of hound for every purpose and region. Unfortunately the walkie talkies have given a bawl mouth a bad name in the world of field trial Beagles. There are strains out there though that have a bawl mouth that are actually faster than a lot of chop mouth dogs. I think it would be safe to say that a chop mouth does not make a dog fast and a bawl mouth doesn't make it slow. It is ability and desire that accounts for these things. This is a trait that means differant things depending on the family and the gene pool they came out of. I believe it also matters greatly the style of tracking or trailing a hound does. I think a trailing hound that takes body scent doesn't need to get as big a whif of scent to keep the track going, where as a tracking type dog that tracks more foot scent and is doing it in a hurry with speed, needs to keep his nose working more and therefore a bawl can interfere in his tracking ability. A chop allows him to keep his nose down more. The old Plott dog I mentioned could swim a pond or creek and would drink the water as he swam in order to smell the coon and would track while swimming as he lapped at the water to get scent. He would bawl out right in the water just like he was on dry land. The first time I saw this I stopped in my tracks and knew I was seeing a real hound with a cold cold nose and yet he still had unreal speed. He was out of a line that Hack Smithdale made famous and Dale Brandenburger bought the Smithdeal pack when he got out of WWII. These dogs could smell tracks 2 days old and work them and jump the bear. Good luck!!

Guest, you are dead wrong about a bawl mouth dog being also a slow dog. Lifting the head to bawl does not stop the feet from moving.

As usual, Bob is right about breeding for a bawl mouth, it is one of the easiest traits to breed for. You don't have to know a lot about genitics, all you have to do is listen. There are plenty of good, fast beagles with loud bawl mouths that will send shivers down the spine of any true houndsman.
Coonhunters never heard that story about a bawl mouth hound being slow because they can't trail and bark at the same time. There was a Treeing Walker by the name of House's Lipper that had a huge bawl mouth. He was also a fast track dog and a big, nice looking hound. Coonhunters lined up to breed their females to Lipper. To date he has sired over 5000 (thats five thousand) pups and through frozen semen is still producing. Most of his pups had a huge bawl mouth and were fast. I bred a chop mouthed female to a dog named Cash that was sired by Lipper and out of a female that was known for having a loud bawl mouth. Cash was advertised as being the LOUDEST coonhound alive. Every pup sired by Cash and my chop mouthed female had a LOUD BAWL mouth.

Guest, You really need to go see some "other" dogs run, because like someone stated above, one of the quickest dogs I've seen run in a long time was a bawl mouth hound! She could run the front of almost any Little Pack style pack!

What does bawl or chop mouth have to do with speed?
Two of the fastest coondogs I've ever seen had bawl mouths. I've seen some bawl mouth beagles that could fly. Just don't like a bawl mouth on a beagle. Most will raise their head too much.

Hey smiley,I have 2 littermates that have bawl mouths.I dont know if either of the parents have bawl mouths or not but they do.If you are wanting to bread to something with a bawl mouth these 2 are gay breed on top side and on bottom side they have some F.C. f-n-f two toney,F.C. pond creek blackie,d & w sampson.If you are wanting some bawl mouth dogs try looking into these bloodlines.

I agree that raising the head too much could be a fault in certain Beagle types, strains or families. I haven't seen this too much, only in certain families. I will tell you something you are apt not to believe but it is fact. I had a Plott once that had so much tree in him, you could breed him to any dog I believe and he would produce tree dogs. he stayed treed behind my house sown on the creek for 36 hours once and I finally went and got him. He was laying down on his belly and was staring up in the tree and would bark about every 5 seconds when I finally leashed him. I could tie him on the hood of my truck and drive down a dirt road and he would strike off the hood and then run and tree. This dog was so wound up he could bark for hours and hours on a chain and if you whipped him for it, he would get up and wag his tail and start barking again. I bred him to his cousin and about half the pups would run a track fast and rear up on their hind legs as they went along winding the trees. They did this at a constant rate all their lives if they were running a track through the timber. Run a few yardson all fours and then run a few yards on their back legs while they winded the trees. All the while they were running the track and never lost contact with it. I know it is hard to believe but not for me because I saw it. The treeing aptitude got doubled up in these pups and then some. Having their head up never seemed to bother the tracking ability one bit. Some may understand why I find it hard to believe that a bawl mouth can affect a dogs tracking ability.

Both the sire and dam of my last litter bawl with their heads down now that I think about it. Never really thought it was that unusual.

Our Rowdy dog has a loud, high bawl mouth and he hangs on to it. A friend of ours says he barks once every 6 seconds, or 60 yds - whichever comes first, lol!