Question about Beagles

[Pam]

DH and I bought our son a beagle puppy for Christmas last year (he's registered and we bought him from a man just a few miles away.) In fact, he just celebrated his first birthday 2 weeks ago.

Now - I have always been a cat lover and never permitted dogs to sleep in the house....... until our beagle arrived. To say that he has me wrapped around his paw is an understatement! He has a $100.00 igloo house in the backyard that he's never spent the night in. In fact, he's sleeping on his Woolrich bed at my feet while I type this.

He's obstinate, a food beggar, howls at the top of his lungs if one of the men leave the house at 5:00 am to go hunting and leaves him behind. ( ) He's also the most loving, playful, entertaining dog a woman could ask for. Although he's my son's dog, I love him to pieces.

Now - onto my question: I never paid attention to beagles before but now I look at everyone's pictures of beagles and stop and chat with other owners when I see them out walking their dogs. Our dog's face is all tan and black, he has a ring of white fur around his neck and his underbelly is all white/ticked. I have never seen a beagle like him in pictures, books, outings, etc. I know that his siblings were colored like him - can't remember what the mom and dad looked like.

Does anyone know why there's a variation in the coloring?

 

[Christine]

I can't really answer your question, but I have seen so many variations with that breed, it is amazing. There are short beagles, tall beagles, miniture beagles....

The ticking is pretty normal although I don't think all have it. I have a very tall beagle and she has a lot of ticking on her.

My cousin's beagle is very short, no real ticking to speak of. Her beagle sounds just like yours and is pretty much running their household. He has severe separation anxiety and they can't leave him anywhere. He gets so lonely and howls like you wouldn't believe. Very affectionate and intelligent dog. Mine is more aloof.

 

[BoyLovesBuzz]

Beagles Rule!!!!!

I love beagles that keep the black on their face. Ours had black as a pup, but it gave way to all brown as she got older. Yours still may loose her black face, but chances are if its still there, she will keep it. I know variations are quite common. Generally the consistantacy comes in the while collar, white belly, black saddle and white tip on their tale.

I will never again own anything other than a hound. Probably only Beagles. I love the pack instinct and devotion.


"If its not a hound its not worth having"

 

[Crankyshank]

Beagles come in hound colors. Predominately tri-colored (any variation of black, white, and tan), some are liver & white, others are ticked (spots).
I have 2. One has the more traditional Tri markings (black saddle, brown head, and white legs. He does have some ticking on his legs but it's very light and looks more like freckles.

My other one has less traditional markings. She has a lot more white with black patches in the saddle area with the brown face.
Here's a picture of them where you can see their colorations

 

[justhat]

We have a beagle (well, he's my mom's really, but I love him) and his face is brown and white, with the while being an offcenter stripe on his head and snout. When we got him (at about 8 weeks old), his back was solid black, including the topside of his tail (the bottom of his tail was brown and the tip was white). As he got older (he'll be 5 in March), the black back got lots of brown in it. It's still more or less black, but lots of brown mixed in.

Bailey (the beagle) also has terrible separation anxiety. He howls like crazy if he's alone too long. When we go away and my mom has to put him in a kennel, he won't eat and sits in the corner the whole time we're gone. We went to WDW for NYE in 2002 and were gone 12/27-1/4 (he had to go to the kennel 12/26 and stay till 1/5). Well we got a call in WDW that he wasn't eating and looked depressed. He was fine once we got home, but he is always devastated when my mom leaves. She has even left him with me and he's okay if he comes to my house, but if I stay in her house with him he's a ball of nerves. He vomits, cries, it's so sad to see. And he likes me and he still does this! He's a great dog though, and my daughter loves him too, plus I feel much safer with her around him than my mom's pomeranian (that little guy is a terror!).

Oh, he's also an enormous beagle! As a puppy, we'd take him to the vet for check-ups and they'd say "well, he'll probably only grow another 5 pounds", but they'd say that at every visit. He kept getting taller and heavier. He's about 45 pounds now (though the vet said he should be about 40) and so tall (he won't let me measure him). He was the largest in his litter, but we just thought "oh, he looks so healthy", little did we know that he just had an abnormally large gene!

 

[aero99]

Hi!

I am a beagle owner and lover. My parents have two and I have two. I just wanted to mention something that I am trying to make all Beagle owners aware of: Beagle Pain Syndrome. Ok, before you start laughing it is a genetic diease that results in many beagles being put to sleep when they don't have to be. It usually first appears when the beagle is under 1 but can appear later too. (My dog got it at 9 months, my parents got it at 8 years old!) The dog does not want to move and whines when touched. Basically it hurt my dog to move his spine. My parents' dog was orginially diagnosed with a disc problem but after talking to me, they did some research and found out is was BPS. There are supposedly no one solution but for both dogs steriods helped them and then the symptoms stopped. Just wanted to make you all aware in case your dog ever seems to have these symptoms.

Melissa

 

[browneyes]

Don't know, but I've always thought this was the cutest beagle in the world when I was younger:

 

[StartedAJoke]

We got Charlie, a "beagle-mix," in June -- he's 9mo now. He's got the classic brown and white beagle head, and black circle around his tail and rump, with the last 3/4 of his tail being white. From his shoulders to where his tail begins, he is pure white with ticking. We have no clue what he's mixed with but, like justhat mentioned about her mom's beagle, Charlie's huge. Forty-five lbs and stands quite tall. He truly looks like 1/2 beagle, 1/2 dalmatian, which is reinforced by his size. Sweet boy, naughty, but SO sweet.


Karla

 

[Pam]

Thanks everyone for your replies! Our boy truly runs the roost at this house and yes, he has separation issues as well.

Everyday he parks himself in front of the door half an hour before my DS should get off the school bus. When he hers the bus come down the road his tail starts to wag like crazy and he begans to yip. By the time my DS hits the porch, the dog is in a full frenzy - barking, bawling, jumping for joy!

Don't know, but I've always thought this was the cutest beagle in the world when I was younger:

browneyes - our dog makes that "aaarrgghhhh" noise just like Snoopy!

 

[Dee & Greg]

She's ticked on her stomach, mostly black and white. But she doesn't have the traditional beagle behavior. This is the laziest dog in the world... lays around everywhere, but mostly on the sofa and in her bed. When we lived in Kentucky I got her from the Humane Society as a puppy. She layed around so much that I took her to the vet. Vet tells me in his KY drawl "Ma'm your puppy is just lazy". It has become the standard joke in our home 9 years later! She is still a "hound" at heart... nose on the ground at all times, and she can be very stubborn... can't seem to "hear" us calling her inside! She is also the sweetiest and funniest dog we've ever had.

 

[WilmaBud]

I can't resist a Beagle thread! Beagles rule! I now have 3 beagles (my beloved Freddie died 3 weeks ago ). Fred, the one I just lost, was the laziest dog on the planet! She had the "saddleback" coloring (tricolor). Wilma is a more traditional tricolor, and she's a taller girl. She has the prettiest eyes - they look like they're rimmed with black eyeliner. Lucy's coloring is a lot like Wilma's, but she's petite. Lucy and Wilma have the ticking on their bellies (along with freckled skin). Desi's coloring is "saddleback," like Freddie's was. Ironically, Desi is another lazy girl. My 2 lazy girls had (Fred) and have (Desi) almost Basset Hound builds (sloped backs and chubby tummies), but they're definitely Beagles. Also, interesting (to me, anyway ), my 2 "saddleback-colored" girls were/are non-hunters, while my traditional tricolors are great hunters (not that we hunt them). I also used to have a tricolor boy, Barney, who was an avid hunter.

I think Beagles are God's sweetest creatures.

 

[Crankyshank]

My female is pretty lazy as well. She's also a harrier beagle, which is a larger (not standard) beagle. She's the better hunter and also the more wily of my two. Oh and boy is she stubborn- refuses to come when called unless she feels like it, despite several rounds of obedience school.

She watches TV. Loves the red sox and her favorite show is Jeff Corwin. She can open some doors, the fridge, turn on the ceiling fan, put down the electric car windows, and turn on the bedroom tv.
I think her laziness is just an act

 

[justhat]

I forgot how stubborn Bailey is (not sure how I forgot considering his personality). When he was a puppy, maybe 3 months old, we baby gated him in the kitchen since we were going to a wedding and didn't want to come home to puddles on the rug. Well he climbed the baby gate and we couldnt' find him. We were calling him for over 30 minutes, searching all over, we even went outside thinking he snuck out somehow. We were about to start driving around to look for him when I happen to check the family room once more, and there he was, sleeping beneath a pile of laundry on the couch! He heard us, but was tired and could have cared less that we were calling him. And he still likes to sleep buried under whatever he can find on the couch.