I remember growing up in the country, we always
had a dog around the house. Most of them were
hunting dogs as my father was a sportsman. He
was very fond of beagles though.
I was a duck hunter growing up and rarely hunted
rabbits but when I did, it was at night with a
headlight. So I never really knew much about
beagles while growing up.
At the time I bought my first beagle, I was living
with this lady and her young son. He pestered
her for a puppy and I suggested a close friend of
mine. I knew that he had some hunting beagles and that
he often sold puppys. As it turned out, he had sold
all of the litter and she began to look elswhere.
She looked at several litters, all of which she passed
over mostly because of dirty kennel conditions. Finally,
she came home with a blue-tick beagle puppy
with personality plus. I liked him
but I thought he needed a playmate. So, I went
to the breeder (Mr. John Flowers of Westlake, La.)
and bought a littermate male.
The two puppys grew up and the boy wanted
another puppy. The close friend of mine had a
litter of beagle puppys ready for sale and much
to my disapproval, the boy's mother bought him a
female. Well, I said, "What the heck" and bought
a littermate female also. Now we had four beagles
all within eight months old of each other.
When these beagles became of hunting age I
started them one at a time on roadkill rabbit skins
dragged across the yard in the early morning dew.
I noticed that the females were steppier than the males.
I didn't think much of it until I began to hunt rabbits
with them.
The females were wind-splitters
and the males were too slow to get out of their
own tracks. I talked to a few rabbit hunters and
they all asked, "What are they out of?" I didn't
know so I wrote to AKC and they sent me a four
generation pedigree with coat colors on both bloodlines.
I went to see a friend, (Mr. Henry Tousaint of Lake Charles, La.)
that I had met at a field trial
who was also a breeder of some very fine hounds. I
showed him the pedigrees and he said,
"Well, there's your problem, you running a double bred hare hound
with a line bred brace hound!"
Like I said earlier, I grew up knowing very little
about beagles. I tried in vain to hunt these hounds
together thinking all the while,"One too slow, one too fast."
I decided to try crossing the two bloodlines
hoping that something would fall in the
middle.
I kept two puppys, Roscoe and Gypsy, both
of which I still have. I finished the female on April 3, 1999 at Choctaw Beagle Club in Byron, Mississippi. You can see her page by going here.
Field Champion Straight Flush Gypsy Queen
Rosco didn't handle the pressures of the field trials very well but makes an excellent rabbit hound.
Want to see some Great Hounds from our bloodline history?
Go here: Our Bloodlines.
Me and my hounds at a two-couple pack trial near Eunice, La.
The thing I like about Two Couple Pack Trials is that the hounds run against the clock, not the "Buddy System."
Here's why...All of us who Field Trial know about how the "Buddy System" works so I won't go into that.
At a Two Couple Pack Trial even though you and your friends enter the best dogs from multiple kennels,
they
still have to run against the clock.
Two Couple Pack Trials are a great place to find out what a hound is really made of.
My hounds took the 3rd place ribbon at this trial.
Oh by the way, all you really need is two good dogs to hunt rabbits.
This is me, Gypsy and Jetson after a cottontail hunt.
We got ten cottontails in about two hours.
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