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“If you do not know where you come from, then you don’t know where you are, and if you don’t know where you are, then you don’t know where you’re going. And if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re probably going wrong.”
–Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight
…OK so I haven’t actually read that book. I don’t even know what it is about! But I stumbled on it online and I like the quote a lot and I think it applies very well to my breeding philosophy.
I bred my first litter in 2013, mostly because I had become very interested in the dog show world and wanted to see if I could produce a champion. By the time I bred my second litter in 2015, I decided to do some soul searching. Why was I producing these puppies? Just to win titles and ribbons? Or was there something deeper, something that I believed in? Nearly every breeder of purebred dogs will say they breed in order to “better the breed”…but what does that mean? I decided that in order to formulate a coherent, respectable breeding philosophy, I first needed to understand why beagles exist in the first place, so I began studying the history of the beagle and the history of scent hounds in general. I also decided I needed to understand the tradition beagle function, so I joined a field beagle club and started going to field trials.
Creating a breed with specific, consistent, recognizable traits is not done overnight, or even in a few generations. To obtain traits that breed true, a breeder must have a vision that looks not just at the current generation and what is going to win at the next show/trial, but at multiple generations, both past and future. Without such a coherent, well-defined goal a breeder cannot hope to obtain consistent results over time. I, personally, cannot accept just haphazardly producing inconsistent puppies with no larger purpose or meaning.
Since I am already working from within an established breed, I already have a written standard that describes what my breed should look like. I have history and field trial manuals that describe what my breed should do. I have access to veterinary information and research about dog health and structural soundness. To me, “bettering the breed” means that I as a breeder should strive to preserve the breed’s history and tradition in both form and function, promote the breed’s best interests given the current world we live in, and advance the breed towards an ideal that is formed from both the past and current considerations and that can remain relevant into the future.
I organize my efforts into three categories which I consider to be pillars upon which the breed is built: Function, Soundness, and Type.
(1) Function: The beagle does not exist as a breed outside of its traditional role as a rabbit dog. Loss of this function means loss of the breed, period. Specific styles and preferences have shaped this function in many different ways over the years, but the fundamental job of the beagle remains true: to find and trail rabbits/hare, and to bring them back around to the hunter(s). If a beagle cannot do this, it is not truly an excellent representative of the breed.
(2) Type: Type, which encapsulates the overall body of traits that distinguish a beagle from any other breed, is critical in defining the beagle based on its unique history. Other breeds also hunt rabbits and may perform a similar breed function, but beagles are specifically descended from a long tradition of British formal hunts. Described as a “foxhound in miniature”, the beagle as a breed will cease to exist if we allow it to become just a generic rabbit hound, indistinguishable from some cross between any other rabbit hunting breeds such as the dachshund, the basset or even certain types of terrier.
(3) Soundness (including structure, health, and temperament): Soundness produces resilient dogs that have the physical and psychological assets required to perform their job as efficiently as possible. Soundness also enables dogs to live generally healthy, fulfilling lives. I believe that as the oldest friend of the human race, it is unethical to intentionally breed for traits that cause a dog to be in pain or suffer. Most of the puppies that I do not keep for my breeding program will go to pet homes and must therefore have suitable temperaments and good health in order to make wonderful pets.
I believe that a truly excellent representative of the beagle breed should possess all three of these “pillars”. At its ideal, the conformation show ring evaluates type as well as some aspects of soundness (in the form of physical traits described in the standard that are supposed to enhance the beagle’s functional ability). Beagle field trials are the best way to explicitly test function, as well as also testing some aspects of soundness.
But unfortunately, the two worlds of show and field have gone in very different directions within the beagle breed. Most show dogs simply cannot perform their traditional breed function, and most field dogs are sadly lacking in type and correct beagle structure. The last AKC Dual Champion beagle (a show champion and a field champion) was crowned in 2003. Before that, the last AKC Dual Champion beagle was in the 1950’s, nearly 70 years ago. In my opinion, this is the single biggest problem in the beagle breed today, because neither the show world nor the field world is preserving the breed as it was meant to be. We are losing, or have already lost, the truest representation of the beagle.
My goal is to produce beagles that can perform respectably in the show ring and respectably in the field. I am not breeding for a dual champion, explicitly, as I believe that getting fixated on a title is precisely why other people have failed – and most have subsequently given up on the idea of a dual-purpose beagle entirely. To me this indicates that it was never really about preserving, promoting, and advancing the breed; it was really all just about an elusive piece of paper with an AKC stamp on it. Well I don’t care about the paper. I care about the breed. My focus is on the traits that such a title should represent, and trying to recapture those traits in the beagles that I produce regardless of whether or not we ever earn that certificate. Of course, given that a major measure of my progress comes from results in the show ring and at field trials, I would be pretty thrilled and honored if one of my beagles ever does earn an AKC Dual Champion title. But that should be merely a nice side-effect of honest efforts towards producing a dual purpose beagle, not the goal in and of itself.
I cannot stress enough, “breeding an AKC Dual Champion” is not an explicit goal of my breeding program. Rather, I strive to breed towards the most excellent representative of the beagle breed that I can possibly achieve, and to me, that means a beagle that can do its traditional breed job while still possessing correct breed type and exceptional soundness. To me, breeding the most excellent representative of the beagle breed means breeding the best dual purpose beagle I can, whether it ends up with the AKC Dual Champion title or not.
I started with show beagles, so that defines my particular approach. I have decided to keep a “pure show” line going, as a way to keep me in touch with the show world and continue my education on type and conformation. From this line I plan to weave in field blood to produce dual purpose beagles. At some point in the future, if I find myself in a life situation where I have the space and resources, I may also keep a “pure field” line. There are very few people attempting to create dual purpose beagles, and some of them have different goals and priorities than I do, so the “dual purpose” breeding pool is extremely limited. By maintaining a “pure show” line, and possibly in the future a “pure field” line, I hope to be able to purposefully breed for the particular traits that I value in both conformation and field, and then try to integrate them into my dual purpose line as needed.
In conformation, my first priority is in shoulders and running gear. I do not claim to have gotten anywhere near perfection in these areas, but as I select breeding stock, I will choose a better shoulder over a nicer head. Many people believe that the head is the hallmark of the breed; I disagree. Yes, the AKC beagle standard does call for a soft, gentle, pleading expression, but it also states very clearly that the general appearance of the beagle should have “the wear-and-tear look of the hound that can last in the chase and follow his quarry to the death”. This, as well as the description of the beagle as a “foxhound in miniature” is the clearest declaration of explicit beagle type found anywhere in the standard. Looking further into the AKC English foxhound standard, we see that the breed upon which nearly all beagle type is based is clearly not a “head” breed. I believe that my emphasis on shoulders and running gear are further justified by the fact that, all else equal, the beagle with the better shoulders and running gear will outperform the beagle with the better head when engaged in their traditional breed function. Finally, correct shoulder assembly is often considered one of the most difficult traits to maintain and correct. If I sacrifice a bit on head or tail in one generation, I can (somewhat) easily reclaim it in subsequent breedings. But shoulders are very difficult to fix! This is further complicated by the fact that many show breeders have abandoned good shoulders in favor of winning heads, making it harder to find good stud dogs with nice shoulders to breed to. In fact, part of my emphasis on shoulders is precisely due to the difficulties I am having in correcting the shoulders I started out with.
In the field, I strive for a medium speed hound that stays very close to the line with an honest mouth. I can’t stand “cold trailing” and a hound that is too mouthy is no better. I like to know more or less exactly where the rabbit was and where it went. I want to be able to follow my hounds’ progress on foot, in the old English tradition. My preferred field trial federation is the United Beagle Gundog Federation (UBGF), as well as any club or federation that runs at approximately the same speed and style, because I feel that the UBGF style of dog best reflects the old beagle formal pack traditions combined with the American version of the beagle as a small pack hunter that helped to put food on the table for its family. I also like the UBGF because it places more value on conformation and on the concept of a dual purpose beagle than any other beagle organization that I know of in the United States. I do not think that the other speeds and styles and federations are wrong or incorrect, but for consistency, I wanted to choose one to strive for. However, I very much respect the different preferences of my fellow beaglers, ranging from the extremely fast “hare hounds” to the incredible precision of traditional brace beagles. I still want to learn as much as I can about these other formats, as they also contribute to the legacy of the breed. Finally, as I try to create a dual purpose beagle I will trial in whatever format my beagles are suited. Most show line beagles tend to default to a much faster running speed, so I suspect I will often have beagles that are a bit faster than I would like. The format that I run in is one of the few things that I can directly control, so I will breed for UBGF-style dogs but trial wherever my dogs end up fitting in best.
As a practical limitation, a significant degree of “show quality” can be assessed in a beagle puppy at the age of about 8 weeks old. This allows me to choose the puppy with the most conformation potential early on. In contrast, field ability cannot truly be assessed until the beagle is several months or even more than a year old. At this time I do not have the space and resources to keep a whole litter of puppies for a year or more to assess their field abilities and choose the best field potential for my breeding program. So since I am starting with show champion bloodlines, my basic plan is to keep the puppy with the most show potential at each generation, and then keep breeding in field blood until I am satisfied with the field ability I have obtained. In choosing a field stud, I would rather make compromises on conformation than in field ability, since I can choose the better conformation puppy out of the bunch but I am entirely depending on the field stud’s genes to give me sufficient field ability in whichever puppy is just happens to be chosen based on conformation. However, I still seek a stud who has conformation assets that compliment my girls, and I believe there are excellent field studs out there that do have conformation assets they can bring to the table.
In summary, in 2020 I hope to continue developing show lines in the style that I feel best honors the written breed standard. My next step towards this goal is to breed Saddiqa (Huda’s daughter) and Manney (Aerial’s son) in Fall 2020. From there I will maintain a single “pure show” line from the descendants of my two foundation bitches, Aerial and Huda. Although they will be born in 2019, early 2020 will be spent raising half-field, half-show litter out of Saddiqa (my first was Spring 2018 Lexi-Madman). The resulting half-field, half-show girls will each be matched to another field champion stud to produce “3/4 field, 1/4 show” progeny. I hope that by keeping the best conformation puppy out of these breedings, but increasing the percentage of field genes at each generation, I can achieve my goal of a dual purpose beagle. Because at this point they are completely unrelated, I may also match my half-field, half-show girls with males from the complimentary half-field, half-show litter to try to seal in various conformation or field traits. This will also let me maintain breeding stock available that still has a significant amount of both show blood and field ability. If my dual line starts getting a bit too rough conformation-wise, rather than having to breed back to pure show dogs and risk losing all of my gains in the field, I can instead breed back to a half-field, half-show beagle. I am trying to keep as many options open as possible!
I have not chosen an easy path, but it is a path that I believe has a purpose a meaning beyond on my own personal interests. It is a breeding philosophy that I can passionately believe in.
A pedigree shows what a beagle should be.
Conformation shows what a beagle appears to be.
Fieldwork shows what a beagle is.
–Unknown/unattributed