The Beagle's Tale, Part 2

Old English Beagle

About the time of the Norman Conquest and the arrival in Britain of the Talbot hound that odd notes begin to appear regarding an All-English hunting hound known as the North Country Beagle. The written record, however, is scant in the extreme regarding the origin of this dog since this was before huntsmen and kennel masters began keeping detailed, written records concerning their breeding activities.

One minority school of thought contends that the North Country beagle was among the oldest of dogs known to man, originating in the British Isles and coming down through the ages from the Celts. Another majority school holds that the Northern was a smaller, faster off shoot of the Southern hound, also a descendant of the Talbots brought over by the Normans. Whichever way you choose to vote, the term beagle begins to appear in the literature in the 11th century.

Being an English minor as well as a journalist, of course, I can’t help but muse on the etymology of beagle. A quick check with ancestry.com on possible origins of the English sir name reveals it was either a variant of Beadle OR originally a nickname relating to the English hunting hound. However, we also find the old French term begueulle, meaning a noisy shouting person.

Whatever the origin, by the time of Henry IV and Elizabeth I, beagle was applied to any hound dog in England. The above mentioned royals both were particularly fond of a quite diminutive breed known as a pocket beagle. Rather than a novelty, huntsmen bred these pocket-sized hounds to go after game that had taken refuge in dense thickets and undergrowth where the larger dogs could not follow. Common practice was for the hunter to carry one or two of these pint-sized demons in his pocket or saddle bags until needed.

WARNING! The true old English pocket beagle went extinct well over 100 years ago! Today's so-called pocket, or teacup, beagles are relatively new breeding creations, often achieved by breeding litter runts. Such breeding is little more than abuse. These dogs display a whole host of abnormalities directly resulting from being bred to be small.

By the 1700s fox hunting was gaining in popularity, and some clever kennel master thought of breeding a North Country Beagle with a Foxhound. The result was a nearly "perfect" fox hunting hound and pretty near the dog we today know and love as the beagle.

Mere months before a young biologist embarked on a world-changing voyage aboard the

From the Journals of Charles Darwin

HMS Beagle, Reverend Phillip Honeywood  established a formal breeding program. His dogs were nearly pure white, smaller yet than the North Country and were known as Honeywood Beagles. One Thomas Johnson further refined the breed to devise rough-coat and smooth-coat varieties.

Beagle varieties abounded by the 1840s with four distinct types being the most popular. They were the medium beagle, the lapdog beagle, the fox beagle and the terrier beagle. Less than 50 years later, however, beagles were in danger of vanishing entirely from England as had their forerunner Southern and Northern hounds. Records for 1887 revealed only 18 packs of beagles remaining in the country.

The Beagle Club formed in 1890, and the first true standard for the beagle breed was written. A dozen years later 44 beagle packs were registered in Britain.

General Richard Rowett is credited with importing some exceptional beagles from England and breeding them in the United States about 1876. Rowett's beagles generally are credited as the first models for an American breed standard. That American beagle was formally recognized by the American Kennel Club in 1884.

Today the beagle rank 4th in popularity with Americans.

Our own Charlie Beagle, our 2nd foster on the Road to Forever, literally is somewhere along that road tonight as this is published. Good Lord willing and the snow doesn't get too deep in the Northeast, he and the rest of Dog Runner's charges will arrive in DeWitt, New York, some time Saturday.

God speed, Charlie!