What Could Account for this Decrease in the Quality of Our Hounds?

This year. What could account for this decrease in the quality of our hounds?
Wayne Irland

I attended part of the Southern and Im not sure I would agree with that assessment. The Southern Federation is just one event and the quality of performances there may not be reflected in the later Federations. The hounds performance at the Southern, especially the northern hounds, depends to some extent upon having good early spring weather for running conditions necessary for adequate training and development. The weather conditions during the trial itself directly affects the performance of the hounds as well. Also, different judges will vary somewhat in the hounds they select to bring back for second series and place. Since there is some variation in our sport as to what individual beaglers consider to be outstanding hound work, we would need a consensus opinion of the majority of beaglers attending the event in order to have a real index of the quality level.

However, if that observation is correct, one of the causes could be that fewer beaglers are breeding and raising pups. This may well have provided a smaller number of pups from which to select keepers. Also, even though the number of active beaglers seems to be declining, the number of entries at the Southern derby and futurity classes were up from last year. Therefore, more keepers would have had to be selected from a smaller pool of prospects, thereby diluting the quality.

Another factor could be the present difficulty and expense of shipping. This has resulted in more local breeding with a number of males being used at stud that would not normally be bred. Occasionally some of these local males will prove to be good producers. However, this situation limits the number of pups that in the past were produced by our more highly potent stud dogs, thereby tending to reduce the number of high class pups produced.