Beagles off leash?

Amina

Now, I realize that beagles are sniffing dogs, more than other dogs, but LIKE other dogs, couldn't you train a beagle to come back to you?

     In a word, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

     Never, never, never, never, never EVER *trust* a Beagle to be reliable off leash. No matter how well trained. You cannot override thousands of years of ingrained instinct so sharp that the Beagle is one of very few breeds that requires no training to be used for their original purpose. Just put down a Beagle pup in the field, give it experience, and you've got a full fledged hunting dog. Another thought to ponder. The Beagle's intended game, either hare or rabbit, leave the least amount of scent as any prey animal that dogs would be used to track. So not only are their noses powerful, they are quite fine tuned. I breed mine for tractability (among many other traits) and I do have hounds that are quite reliable in the field, however, they have chosen to tune me out & several times it's come at inopportune moments. I can't count the near misses mine have had. They must have a guardian angel because they should've been roadkill several times over.
     All of mine are trained, and a few have been professionally trained, but the fact of the matter is training will only improve the dog's odds of survival should they ever get off leash or decide to dart off after a hare that's just crossed a busy highway :(  A trusted Beagle is a dead Beagle.
TRUST, A DEADLY DISEASE (a must read article for Beagle owners)
http://www.sheltie.com/trust.htm

I wouldn't trust one off leash, in an unfenced area. The risks are just not worth it IMO.

 Thanks for such a thorough answer. I always wondered but never knew for sure. I thought that it was something that could be overcome - like a dog begging at the table. You can teach them not to, they might always try a little, but for the most part, you can stop it.

Thanks for clearing that up! I've always considered having a beagle in the future, but now I know that it wouldn't be a good idea. I love walking Zok off-leash, giving us both exercise, and growing to know that we're in spirit walking together, not separately.
 

I know a guy who lets his beagle off leash at the park all the time. The dog stays pretty close to the owner.  I don't know maybe this dog is very old and has lost his sense of smell? He does chase my dog once in a while but returns when called.

lol, growing up I had a beagle, and even being out in our fenced back yard, he would scale the fence and run straight to the pound everytime lol.  my mother would look, see that Bart (our dog) was gone from the backyard, phone the pound to tell them he was on his way and that my father would pick him up on his way home from work lol.  When he got older and could not longer get all the way up the fence, our sheperd/husky would chew a hole in the fence for him to walk through.

I had a former coworker who had a beagle. The dog was never off leash but managed once to become so (don't recall the details).

The dog was found a week later....40 miles away from home!!! He thought he'd never see her again and then got a call from the police in the town where the dog was found. It was the middle of winter.

Our beagle, Dusty, is never off-leash.  Even in our fenced yard she goes out on a 30 ft tie out.  She cannot be trusted and fences are not a deterent.  She just digs under them.  We've tried blocking the bottom the fence with something, but she'll move it.  We can't do much to the fence because we rent.  She's gotten out a few time and we just don't want to risk it.  Even on the tie out she's been known to slip a collar, so now she's on a harness.  And calling her back?  Forget it, when she gets in tracking mode she hears nothing .  I've actually 'snuck' up on her becuase she was so focused she didn't hear me walk up.

While I don't have beagles, i wanted to add I have the same problem.  I have an 11 year old basenji with over 20 titles to his name.  He's been nationally ranked in the top 3 basenjis in agility for 6 or 7 years, he got his rally title with 2 1st places and one second with a high score of 99 (out of 100) points.  And while I have done outdoor agility events, I would NEVER take a casual walk with him off lead.  If there's something for him to focus on (agility course, or lure coursing), he's fine, but one little rabbit that goes across the road at the wrong time and he'd be hit by a car.  No thank you.  And as for Pwca's question, well, I'd be able to catch up to my basenji after he killed that rabbit.  ;-)  And while I work on recalls with my basenjis almost daily, sometimes that baby goat next door is just too much of a distraction.  And a running rabbit is certainly too much of a distraction.  Maybe if he live to 22 we could get there.

Pwca

I'm mildly curious, HM, how anyone is supposed to prove working ability with beagles if they can't let them off leash to hunt. :P Beagle packs aren't THAT rare, although obviously it's not something you do just randomly.

     Almost all of mine are hunting dawgs, they are bred and raised primarily for hare hunting. Because of this, I took extra precaution with their training. Huntign dogs NEED to know at the very least "come" & "down" to lower the risk of them becoming roadkill. That risk is still there; on numerous occasions mine have had brushes with death, I lost one of my males one time & could not locate him for 5 days. I sometimes run my own hounds with a friends two littermate bitches - we watched helplessley as she was struck by a car when she tuned out our voices in pursuit of a bunny headed across a highway. Her nose was plastered to the pavement and I believe she died a true rabbit hound There are other dangers ... like hounds getting stuck in rabbit holes and suffocating or just starving to death in there, or being stolen by unscrupulous beaglers. Or just wandering off never to be seen or heard from again ... those are the lucky ones. Have heard horror stories of hound carcasses being found in areas frequented by coyotes ...
     Hunting hounds are NOT PETS. If you want a pet dog as a companion and you decide on a Beagle, you better be prepared to have that dog leashed 100% of the time. I don't care what other Beagle is reliable off leash - it's rare but it does happen that one is a velcro dog, but it's not a breed tendency. There's no excuse for a pet dog to meet that fate because of owner irresponsibility.  

I thought that e collars were used to help the dog remember to recall to the hunter? Or at least I have seen hunt pics with the hounds wearing them...maybe those are the GPS locator ones tho. Those seem like a great idea when hunting a dog...for a just in case.

In the "Mother Country", hounds were trained to the hunter's horn and returned when it was blown a certain way from what I understand.

Ditto with my English Pointer.  I use an e-collar to "page" her (and, yes, sometimes give her a little "tap on the shoulder" zap) when we are off leash on the beach or woods (far away from roads, etc).  She has an excellent recall, but when she zones in on prey, She gets so strongly focused that she forgets about everything else out there. 

She also is doing very very well in agility and is my obedience hope because, in the ring where there are no birds around, all this focus is on you, her handler.  I'm confident that she will get her Novice titles this year. 

When we are outside in a wild environment, birds win, hands down, though.

My English Setter is also extremely "birdy", but doesn't totally zone everything else out, and part of her brain always keeps attention on her handler. Also,  her range is much more manageable.   

rwbeagles

I thought that e collars were used to help the dog remember to recall to the hunter? Or at least I have seen hunt pics with the hounds wearing them...maybe those are the GPS locator ones tho. Those seem like a great idea when hunting a dog...for a just in case.

     Those tracking systems are more often used for bird dogs - I've seen some brands sized for Beagles, but they are soooo $$$ that the price does detract beaglers. The last time I checked, one collar was upwards of $600!!! The e collars you'll see on a field Beagle are for breaking the hound from going "off game". So if they start running deer, for instance, they get a buzz  :)