Hi Everyone!
We’re announcing that there will be a little bit of an image rebranding in the coming weeks and I wanted to take a second to explain it.
I bought my first beagle from Barry about 12 years ago and since then have bought 2 more from him. I keep going back to him because his beagles have such a sweet and loving temperament. What’s more, Barry’s dogs have always been “chatty” but not obnoxiously loud… In fact, I imagine most of us have had full-blown conversations with our beagles! It’s always been very important to Barry over his 30 years of breeding, to favor a lineage that created great family pets.
Lately Barry has had some beagles that weren’t strictly pocket-sized, but had just such wonderful personalities that he wanted to breed into his line of family pets. So over the next few months you might see the word “Pocket” phased out of the verbiage of the site and the FB page to prevent confusion.
A little history on what Pocket Beagles actually were from the beagle wiki page:
From medieval times, beagle was used as a generic description for the smaller hounds, though these dogs differed considerably from the modern breed. Miniature breeds of beagle-type dogs were known from the times of Edward II and Henry VII, who both had packs of Glove Beagles, so named since they were small enough to fit on a glove, and Queen Elizabeth I kept a breed known as a Pocket Beagle, which stood 8 to 9 inches (20 to 23 cm) at the shoulder. Small enough to fit in a "pocket" or saddlebag, they rode along on the hunt. The larger hounds would run the prey to ground, then the hunters would release the small dogs to continue the chase through underbrush. Elizabeth I referred to the dogs as her singing beagles and often entertained guests at her royal table by letting her Pocket Beagles cavort amid their plates and cups.[5] 19th-century sources refer to these breeds interchangeably and it is possible that the two names refer to the same small variety. In George Jesse's Researches into the History of the British Dog from 1866, the early 17th-century poet and writer Gervase Markham is quoted referring to the beagle as small enough to sit on a man's hand and to the:
little small mitten-beagle, which may be companion for a ladies kirtle, and in the field will run as cunningly as any hound whatere, only their musick is very small like reeds.[6]
So it is immensely entertaining to picture English royalty going hunting with 3 or 4 different sized and purposed beagles. And if you’ve ever cut your beagle loose in the woods and watched them easily go bounding through the underbrush this really hits home.
But the Pocket Beagles of Queen Elizabeth I, time and the incarnation of what’s called a pocket beagle today are not quite the same. Barry wants to be as transparent as possible. Pocket Beagles are understandably confused with miniature beagles and teacup beagles. These are not recognized by the AKC, so their definitions can create some confusion.
Just know that even though “Pocket” may be removed (or replaced with “Pocket-ish”) from the website and FB page, it doesn’t change the fact that the same smaller, family-friendly, adorable beagles are only changing for the better!