Beagle / dog breed
beagle the beagle is a breed of small sized hound similar in appearance to the much larger Fox hound the beagle is a scent hound developed primarily for hunting hair with a great sense of smell and they’re tracking instinct the beagle is employed as detection dog for prohibited agricultural imports and foodstuffs in quarantine around the world the Beagle is intelligent but single-minded it is a popular pet to its size good temper and lack of inherited health problems although Beagle type dogs have existed for 2,500 years the modern breed was developed in Great Britain around the 1830s from several breeds including the Talbot hound the North Country beagle the southern hound and possibly the Harrier beagles have been depicted in popular culture since Elizabethan times in literature and paintings and more recently in film television and comic books Snoopy of the comic strip Peanuts has been promoted as the world’s most famous people dogs of similar size and purpose to the modern beagle can be traced in ancient Greece back to around the fifth century BC Xena –then born around 430 BC in his treatise on hunting or signage Atticus refers to a hound that hunted harris by scent and was followed on foot small hounds are mentioned in the forest laws of Knut which exempted them from the ordinance which commanded that all dogs capable of running down a stag should have one foot mutilated if genuine these laws would confirm that beagle type dogs were present in England before 1016 but it is likely the laws were written in the Middle Ages to give a sense of antiquity and tradition to forest law in the 11th century William the Conqueror brought a tall the Hound to Britain the tall that was a predominantly white slow throated scent hound derived from the st. Hubert hound which had been developed in the 8th century at some point the English Talbots were crossed with greyhounds to give them an extra turn of speed long extinct the toll that strain probably gave rise to the southern hound which in turn is thought to be an ancestor of the modern-day beagle from medieval times beagle was used as a generic description for the smaller hounds though these dogs differed considerably from the modern breed miniature breeds of beagle type dogs were known from the times of edward ii and henry 7 who both had packs of glove beagles so named since they were small enough to fit on a glove and Queen Elizabeth the first kept a breed known as a pocket beagle which stood eight to nine inches at the shoulder small enough to fit in a pocket or saddlebag they rode along on the hunt the larger hounds would run the prey to ground then the hunters would release the small dogs to continue the chase through underbrush Elizabeth I referred to the dogs as her singing pickles and often entertained guests at her royal table by letting her pocket beagles cavort amid their plates and cups 19 th century sources refer to these breeds interchangeably and it is possible that the two names refer to the same small variety in George Jessie’s researches into the history of the British dog from 1866 the early 17 th century poet and writer gurus’ Markham is quoted referring to the beagle as small enough to sit on a man’s hand and today standards for the pocket beagle were drawn up as late as 1901 these genetic lines are now extinct although modern breeders have attempted to recreate the variety by the 18th century two breeds had been developed for hunting hare and rabbit the southern hound and the North Country beagle or northern hound the southern at all heavy dog with a square head and long soft ears was common from south of the River Trent and probably closely related to the tall dat hound though slow it had stamina and an excellent scenting ability the North Country beagle possibly a cross between an offshoot of the Tull that stock and a greyhound was bred chiefly in Yorkshire and was common in the northern counties it was smaller than a southern hound less heavyset and with a more pointed muzzle it was faster than its southern counterpart but it’s sensing abilities were less well developed as fox hunting became increasingly popular numbers of both types of hound diminished the Beagle type dogs were crossed with larger breeds such as stag hounds to produce the modern Fox hound the Beagle sized varieties came close to extinction but some farmers in the South ensured the survival of the prototype breeds by maintaining small rabbit hunting packs
