houndlove
Posted : 7/9/2007 10:05:01 PM
So, for two years I lived in a duplex where my neighbors owned a beagle. I am a dog-lover and have a coonhound myself, not the most silent of breeds by any stretch, so I was okay with the beagle. But believe me, there were times defiantely where it was 2 AM and none of our neighbors were home (they were college kids) and their dog was howling to beat the band when I really really really wanted him to please shut up. Beagles as a general rule like to be with their people, so a beagle left alone for long periods is generally not a happy beagle, and a beagle who is not a happy beagle can be a very very loud beagle.
Dogs in apartments is always a dicey affair. Any dog of any breed can turn out to be a barker or a howler, and any dog of any breed can turn out to be silent as the grave. And you never know until you're sort of in the thick of it.
For your other needs, a beagle is great. They're friendly and non-aggressive and generally happy little critters. They do need a lot of excerise and generally don't turn out to be obedience champions (it takes a speical kind of person to train a hound for obedience). But the baying.... Yeah. Talk to your neighbors, seriously. I would have told my own neighbors to go for it, get a beagle, I love dogs, I don't mind hearing the howling--and 95% of the time I didn't, it just became background noise that I didn't even notice. But if you live next to someone who really likes their peace and quiet, or just doesn't like dogs in general and looks for excuses to hate them, perhaps a beagle is not the best choice.