Tag archives: Beagle

It’s easy to see why the beagle has been ranked near the top of AKC registered dog breeds since their acceptance in to the AKC registry in 1885.  Their amiable personality, fantastic sense of smell, and natural talent as a hunter and guard dog have kept them popular with American dog lovers for the past 130 years. Unfortunately, like most popular, purebred dog breeds, particular inherited diseases can make life tough for some beagle blood lines. Luckily, the genetic cause of some of the beagle’s known inherited diseases have been discovered. Thus, allowing laboratories such as Paw Print Genetics to develop genetic tests that allow for the elimination of these disorders through informed selective breeding. The following genetic tests are available at Paw Print Genetics:

Musladin-Lueke Syndrome

One of the largest inherited disease concerns for beagle breeders is a disease known as Musladin-Lueke Syndrome (MLS). MLS is listed on the Canine Health Information Center (CHIC) as a required test for the beagle and is typically identified in affected puppies by 2 to 3 weeks of age. MLS is a connective tissue disease that causes stiff, contracted joints, and inelastic skin giving affected dogs a characteristic tip-toe walk described as ...

Hunters spend big bucks on their passion. Seriously, big bucks. According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, hunting’s economic impact surpasses Google’s revenue ($38.3 billion dollars in 2011, compared to $37.9 billion) and supports more than 680,000 jobs. Hunting-dog owners are a big piece of that economic impact.

Well-bred field dogs average in the realm of $500 to $1,000, and this upfront cost is the least of your worries when it comes to caring for a dog. The AKC estimates that more than $2,000 is spent on one-time expenditures (crate, bowls, etc.) and that on average their members spend approximately $2,500 per year, per dog.

At first glance, that might seem extraordinarily high, but for hunters and competitors, it’s probably on the low side.

Professional trainers worth their salt average $550 to $650 per month. If you choose to use a pro trainer, you’re looking at a minimum of three months of board and training. Not a whole lot can be conditioned in and built upon in less than that time, unless you’re just going for a preseason tune-up or obedience training. In three to six months of training, you’re already knocking on or ...

Interactions with our clients are valuable to Paw Print Genetics. It helps us understand their concerns when it comes to genetic testing. One question that we have been asked on occasion is about the number of genetic tests we have available for a particular breed as compared to a different breed and what that number means for the health of that breed as a whole. For example, Paw Print Genetics currently offers 12 genetic tests for the Labrador retriever, which is more than any other breed. For some of our clients, the natural follow-up question after this discovery has been, “Are Labradors more unhealthy than other breeds?” Though there are many diseases that have been identified in the Labrador retriever, we cannot make the assumption that they are more unhealthy or carry more genetic problems as a whole than other breeds without doing some statistical evaluation of the entire dog population. However, to my knowledge, this potentially expensive and time-intensive evaluation has not been performed. Despite the fact that veterinarians may sometimes get the impression that certain breeds are overrepresented in regards to disease, there are many factors that must be considered when objectively evaluating the number of genetic ...

The olfactory capabilities of our best friends are amazing, and we continually find new ways to put them to work. From hunting and police work to security and disease detection, a dog’s sense of smell keeps us safe and healthy. Now it seems a two-year-old rabbit-hunting beagle from the Ozarks might help zookeepers detect when threatened polar bears are pregnant.

Taking a page from diabetic alert dog trainers, officials at the Cincinnati Zoo's Center for Conservation & Research of Endangered Wildlife have been working with Matt Skogen at Ironheart High Performance Working Dogs in Shawnee, Kan., to train dogs to detect hormonal changes in gestating polar bears so that officials can take necessary precautions with the expectant mothers. Polar bears have complicated reproduction cycles littered with false pregnancies that make captive breeding programs difficult to successfully administer. Early detection gives zookeepers the chance to separate male and female bears, to provide necessary cub-rearing dens and to monitor the mother more closely.

Skogen originally started with the border collie, arguably the most intelligent breed of dog, but a methodical beagle named Elvis eventually won the job. Elvis trained by sniffing fecal matter from bears that were and weren’t pregnant. When ...

All dogs are special, but Beagles play an important role as working dogs, especially in the areas of airport security and customs/immigration. In these roles, Beagles are trained to use their keen noses to identify agricultural items and substances, such as drugs, that are forbidden to be brought into the U.S. Estimates are difficult to come by, but there may be as many as 1,250 dogs being used for customs and border patrol at U.S. airports and borders. More difficult to obtain are the estimates for the costs associated with training a Beagle for these important functions. Some estimate the costs to be $16,000 to $20,000 per dog. Therefore, it is imperative that these dogs are physically fit to perform their duties once trained. In the breeding of Beagles, their top-notch sniffing abilities, desire to learn, and loyalty to humans were desired traits that were retained during their evolution. However, along with these desired traits, Beagles have a particularly high burden of genetic diseases. Many of these diseases to not manifest until the dog is mature and will impair the animal and prevent it from performing its work. Diseases such as degenerative myelopathy, Musladin-Lueke ...