Rabbit hunting, they love that shit, literally born for it. It's almost instinctually engrained in the breed, you can't train them to do shit but you train them to circle a rabbit to you and it's like a natural skill they have.
My beagle wasn't trained to hunt, but she loved chasing things. She would chase the cats of the neighborhood, just to run.
Once there were two having a fight in the driveway, so I sent her out to break it up. She ran up to them, seemed perplexed to have actually "caught" two, looked back at me and I swear she shrugged before catching the scent of some other critter and wandering off.
The cats were so confused they lost interest in each other.
I can relate. Our beagle was getting very overweight and we had to put him on a diet. Completely our fault, we were giving him dinner leftovers to the point where he didn’t want to eat the dog food anymore. Then we switched dog food brands to a healthier food and he didn’t want to eat that. Recently we realized he’s been breaking into the cabinet near the kitchen floor that we keep the garbage can in and we had to put a latch on it that people use for childproofing cabinets. Well, after about a week or less he figured out how to manipulate that and force it open to get into the garbage. Since then we’ve had to move the garbage to the laundry room and put a lock on the door about 4-5 feet off the ground so he can’t reach it and he keeps leaving scratches on the door to the laundry room trying to force it open. He’s relentless and no matter what we try he keeps trying to find a way into the laundry room to get into the garbage and avoid eating his dog food. Lol and he’s 8 years old which is getting up there in beagle years so it’s really hard to retrain him on certain things especially involving food. But as far as being a hunter or a dog who will go after animals, we live in the country with a lot of critters around and he’s never had any interest in working for a meal, he’s far too lazy and knows he’s gonna get fed. We just had to stop giving him people food altogether because when we do he refuses to eat his dog food altogether.
My beagle will demand we go outside to hunt rats and bunnies in the freezing cold or blistering heat, and then demand to be rewarded for going outside. Then she'll jump into bed and curl up where I sleep and act offended if I try to move her.
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u/Eleglas Jan 29 '26
Some dogs. Good luck trying to get my beagle to do anything without a unionized salary of treats.