Pocket Beagles:  Where did we come from?

 

This adorable mini beagle is intelligent, sweet, loving, with a wonderful disposition.  They are very social and are meant to be inside companions with their humans. They are softer spoken than regular beagles, very intelligent, and with guidance are very quick to learn tricks and manners.  They love attention from their humans, and will entertain you with their willingness to please.  They love children, get along with other dogs, cats and a variety of other animals making them the best addition to your family. They are a rare gift indeed.

 

Sizing varies for these mini creatures standing anywhere from 8-12 inches tall and ranging from 5-20 pounds.  Available mostly in the standard and much-loved tri-color which is a variation of black, tan and white although they also are available in Ginger, Lemon, Black and Tan, as well as Tick.  Ginger is the beautiful copper colors, reds and chocolates.  Lemon is the cream and white variations.  Black and Tan look similar to the tri-colors but lack the white base and Tick is the mostly black and tan variations with minimal white “mottling” or better known as speckles of silver and black where solid white would normally be on a Tri-color. 

 

They say The Olde English gentlemen welcomed the smaller sized beagles as they were easy to transport in their saddle bags from one hunting location to another.  Therefore arriving at the very appropriate name, Olde English Pocket Beagle.

 

The various misconceptions people have about Pocket Beagles are wide in tale.  They are a pure breed. They are not mixed with another breed to get their miniscule size and adorable looks. They are pure Pocket Beagle - the dog we love. They offer intelligence in a small package, combined with their loving, sweet dispositions in a small body.  They are not the diggers and noise makers that their larger cousins are.  Like their larger cousins, they are too known for their good genes and overall health. There are no Pocket Beagles left in England, Ireland or Scotland where they once thrived. At this time, less than 1200 adults of the orignal type Pocket Beagles have been located in the U.S. We have Robert Mock to thank for bringing these mini companions back into our lives.  Here is the story behind how they came to be a known breed once again.

 

FOUNDER: ROBERT MOCK

Here is the story of my association with the Pocket Beagle.

 

In 1967 I purchased a boarding kennel in Seattle, over half of the Beagles we boarded were the small 10″ to 11″ Beagle.  There was a very noticeable difference in the dispositions of the smaller Beagles as compared with the larger Beagles.  We nicknamed the smaller Beagles “Dolly Faces”.  They were extremely intelligent, were not stubborn in training classes, did not bark a lot, or dig craters in their yards.  They were more interested in staying by your side and watching you for signals than the larger variety.  I used to wonder how people could live with the larger variety of Beagles.

 

By the early 70′s there was a very noticeable reduction in the smaller Beagles and a large increase in the larger Beagles.  Dog people had started breeding the smaller Beagles with the larger variety to get dogs that were leggier, and had more stamina in field trials and won the trophies.  The larger Beagles at that time were called Harriers.

 

By the late 70′s the little “Dolly Faces” had all but disappeared.  Their stronghold was in the Ozark and Appalachian Mountains and Deep South.

 

I then forgot about the smaller Beagles until 1999.  I had a stroke and could no longer work with the restoration projects of the larger livestock.  Although I still maintain the protective registries for them.  See The Olde English Baby Doll Registry which has been the most successful restoration project of any domestic livestock breed by an individual in U.S. history.

 

Wanting another project with a smaller breed, I remembered the little Beagles.  I started out the next day to buy some breeders and found that there were none left in the general population.  The search started.  It took over a year to find the first ones back in the Ozarks, Appalachians and Deep South.  Most of these folks were older and had had them in their families for many years.  Because there was no market for them they rarely bred and only to replace their own little packs.  Many of these folks were hill people and could talk to you on the phone but not write.  I finally located about 25 breeders, with less than 100 breeding dogs left in the U.S.  I also searched England, Wales and Scotland, none were found in those countries.  A friend had given me a copy of Beagles by E. Fitch Daglish, published in England in 1961.  I started collecting breeding stock and eventually ended up with about 30 dogs all from diverse bloodlines.  I gave them the name “Pocket Beagles” taken from the E. Fitch Daglish book to give them a separate identity.  It had never been used in this country, and I then founded the protective Registry for them.

 

Purchasing the dogs sight unseen was a trial and error situation.  Not all the breeders represented their dogs honestly.  Puppies had to grow out to a year old.  Many of the dog’s pedigrees were from memory.  However many of the breeders were honest and happy to see a restoration project for their little Beagles.  It was a very expensive project.

 

The Pocket Beagle is not bred from the larger sized Beagles.  This would take years of work.  The genetics for size is inherited from many generations.  Yes-there are breeders who do breed from the larger sized beagles and have litters with small and the other large pups mixed.  But they cannot be registered in the protective registry.  Many smaller pups are also nutritional runts.  These are not genetically pure Pocket Beagles.  Others have mixed them with other breeds such as Dachsunds to reduce size.  Your only protection is to buy from breeders who have been accepted by the Olde English Pocket Beagle Registry.    There are many breeders using the Pocket Beagle name who are scamming the public.

 

About other registries:  There are many dog Registries.  AKC means nothing to the Pocket Beagle.  These papers only state the breed, there is no size or way of tracing genetic size with them at this time.  There are also paper registries who will register anything even with mixed parentage puppies.  They do not check the background on your dogs.

 

This is the information that is true and I give out to any who ask me.

-Robert Mock

 

Reference:  http://oepbr.org/2012/02/17/founder-robert-mock/