The American Beagler Forum

My opinion based on limited experience is genetics is to be considered but training is most important.i

I guess I disagree. I've had rabbit dogs for 50 years or so. All were trained basically the same way and in mostly the same conditions. Some dogs would tear a brush pile apart looking for a rabbit and some dogs just go in and sniff around. So I think it is genetics.

I'm with Big W on this. I haven't been without a hound in over 38 years. I've owned an trained many, many beagles and coon hounds. Hunt is most definitely genetic. You can train a hound to hunt closer with an ecollar and toning or voice. It's impossible to inject the desire and drive that makes a hound search relentlessly for the game they pursue. It's all determined the very moment the egg is fertilized. They either have it or they don't.

Buckeye Bob wrote:My opinion based on limited experience is genetics is to be considered but training is most important.i

Genetics plus opportunity.

Usually it takes few years in the field for a dog to learn where to hunt for success. However, dogs that have the desire, brains, sense of direction, and the ability to home in on air scent make the best jump dogs.

I'm on board with Genetics . I've seen and had dogs you could not pour into a thicket . As I leanered more about genetics and came up with some real good bitchs that I later bred to some good males I begain produceing dogs that had extreme hunt & desire as well as foot & conformation . Luckly I've been blessed to keep that line of genetics going now for 28 yrs now & believe I can keep it for yrs to come .Infact I'd say I can predict to about 90% of what and how the pups will look and hunt .
rv

Genetics

Simply put... they either have it or they don't.

Hunt--either they have it or they don't and no amount of trips to the field is going to put it there!! Now a dog with hunt that sits in a kennel without much exposure to rabbit isn't going to be top notch either. Find one with hunt and feed it tracks and rabbits in multiple environments and you will have a winner!! I'm with the genetics crowd.

Larry

So a pup at 7 months old shows little hunt & shows
Little brush grubbing jump dog powers. He will never have it?

I believe it is SOLELY genetics as is running a rabbit from scent. Hounds have the propensity to pursue specific species of animals from birth and one does not have to teach them that specific game. YES, some will track other unwanted species as well but most can be broke from other than what they were born to pursue.

Genetics, however I wouldn't give up on a 7 month old pup.
They do need to mature as well.

I start my new pups early and would be concerned if they could not run a rabbit at 7 months. But I would give them time to mature into becoming a good jump dog.

I think all traits a dog has are genetic but there all worthless without brains !!! I would rather see a young dog develop hunt than to hunt real hard with no brains !!!

Intelligence plays a role. The good ones learn to recognize cover where rabbits, or in my case hare, are often found. What I understand most people term as hunt is what I consider desire or search. Perhaps the best all around beagle I ever owned was extremely intelligent. When hunting she was rarely more than 50 feet away from me but was always busy. She would tear a brush pile a part, sink into the briars and if you were in places where there were spotty soft wood thickets you'd see her ears pick pick up when she saw these thickets and she'd head for them. I believe by experience, she learned that type of cover often had hare in them. She was extremely fast, ran with minimal losses much of the time and could keep the same hare on the run for long periods of time. I had to walk with her though to get her to cover large pieces of ground. She had all the tools she needed to run a hare exceptionally but she was not what I called a good jump dog.

That didn't bother me much though. I'm willing to work with a hound to get a jump. I'm more concerned with what they can do with it once it is jumped. Good jump dogs or dogs with a lot of hunt are born. As has been stated, they need to be hunted to allow those predetermined qualities to blossom.

I'll go with both. You give me the absolute best pup out of the best breeding program from one of the top breeders in the world. Let me take that pup and not mess with it, leave it in the kennel, take it out once a week if I'm lucky, run it where there are few rabbits, be hard handed in training and throw it back in the kennel. You tell me what I'll get. Take a pup out of a so so breeding and reverse all I've said, put the time in needed. Which one is going to turn out? Now take that first and reverse everything and I'll agree just the genetics will outshine. Problem is alot don't, then its the lines fault.

k & m kennels wrote:So a pup at 7 months old shows little hunt & shows
Little brush grubbing jump dog powers. He will never have it?

He sure can have it , with age.
More experience and "rabbit sence" can develope into an absolute obsession to search.
But, only time will tell. ( that can be the hardest part as a trainer)