Welcome home to Paradise Valley Jodhpur '10 (“Chopper”).
http://picasaweb.google.com/duddlesworth/20101209?authkey=Gv1sRgCMrt-frDzeyZrgE&feat=directlink
He came home last night & is settling right in.
Very cute, gotta love an early Christmas pressie!!
LBR
Good Grief!
Whoa! That’s one BIG beagle I gotta say!! What do they feed them out there anyway?!!!
It’s ok; I always look larger in a photo too btw…yup…
Beagles are wonderful, wonderful dogs! Congratulations to both boy and hound!
Awwwww. He’s gonna love the life of “couch potato” and “little boy’s bestest friend in the whole world”.
What a lucky little dog to get two such great Christmas presents. 
Happiness is a warm puppy!
I LOVE the look on your son’s face!! Sheer Bliss!
The beagle looks like he can’t believe his good luck. Don’t let him talk to the rest of the pack or they will be protesting until they get to live with you.:winkgrin::lol:
You all have some seriously big jack rabbits as quarry. Tell me about the size and other qualities your pack was chosen for. I was listening to some tales last night that a member of Red Rock was telling about your pack’s prowess. Have you gone to any of the 4 day gazillion pack hunt meets, I think in Nevada? Sounds like a wild and wooly time, 2 different hunts a day, and lunch with serious libations in between.:eek: OH. WOW.:lol:
Congrats! Too cute! For my 8th birthday my parents bought me our first beagle - and I’ve always had at least one in the 22years since. They are wonderful dogs and make great family members! Guaranteed you’ll want another soon!
I was enthralled by those stories. Now it’s all I can think about. The monster meets sound like a good old fashioned Rocky Mountain Rendevous.
That beagle looks awfully abused. So does the kid. They are going to get into a heap of trouble and enjoy every minute of it.
I’ve gone on the multi-day extravaganzas in Flagstaff (Western Hunt Challenge) and the Ridgecrest (CA) joint meet. You can be sure that if Red Rock is involved, it’s gonna be the most fun you can have with your clothes on!
Ridgecrest is when we take the beagles and meet RRH @ the Kingsbury Harriers. A keg follows around in John Auborn’s trailer & good times are had all day and night. Sometimes you can locate things like moonshine or absinthe near me. One year I bellydanced as a surprise gift to John & that’s led to an annual talent show.
Fun times, people! Put it on your bucket list.
But, on to the hound. First some history. Paradise Valley originally began with English beagles as our foundress is Welsh.
It’s been a primarily English pack, with some American beagles drafted in once in a while. They haven’t always worked out for one reason or another, so they have been a minority.
Since becoming such good friends with Kingsbury, and having successfully hunted the packs combined a number of times, in 2005 a breeding between the two packs was made. In 2005, Kingsbury Cavalcade '02 was mated to PV Echo '02, giving us our “H” litter.
But, in 2003, we were able to obtain another Woodrock Blackwater Valley doghound, Walker '03, who sired the 2006 litter (on Echo, again).
Farmington Virgil '05 started hunting with us in 2008 I think (couldn’t find that hound list but he’s on 2009-2010 and I suspect he was with us the previous year), with our having also hunted Farminton Inkling '00, Farmington Isaac '00, and Farmington Garrick '01.
Chopper is by Virgil out of Halo, so he is 50% American beagle, 25% Harrier, and 25% English beagle.
He is 17" at the shoulder and 34.4 lbs @ 6 months. I expect his height to remain close to the same, but he will probably bulk up a bit with the Eng/Har blood.
I’ll try to get some decent photos of him. I think he’s a really nicely conformed hound. My vet fell in love at first sight this morning. She describes him as the size of a beagle with the head of a harrier. He toes in a bit like a harrier, too. His head is proportionate, though.
Just a word on size: you think he’s big? That kiddo snuggling him is only 5. He’s about 3’5" and fifty-some pounds. They’re made for each other.
Halo had 12 pups in this litter! I believe only the females were retained for the hunt, the males having been placed in non-hunting homes.
Here are the puppies @ 10 or 11 days. That’s li’l riv’s hands you see. Chopper is hidden in almost every photo, but he was there. Apparently, we were destined to have him. http://picasaweb.google.com/duddlesworth/JPuppies619202010?authkey=Gv1sRgCO3E1f-UkOv_cQ&feat=directlink
I will be interested to see how Chopper’s sisters do when entered next year. The harriers seem quite biddable and hunting fools.
I forgot to grab a hound list at the blessing, but PVB drafted a whole bunch of hounds from Canada & the northeastern US this summer, so we’ve got a lot of new blood. I think at least one came from Betsy Parks.
Yes, the jackrabbits we hunt are large.
http://www.scenicdrive.org/cgjack.htm
There are cottontail here, too, but we don’t hunt them.
It’s dry, dry, dry out here with horrible scenting. A hound must be persistent! With the washes we can get caught in, I think voice is very important.
Susie doesn’t breed every year, but more with an eye on when we need to enter new hounds because the beagles tend to hunt a long time. Some of the '01 hounds were still hunting last year!
We usually hunt about 8 or 8.5 couple at a time, with previous years having about 10 couple total. With the new additions this year, I don’t know what we’re up to! (Gotta grab a hound list)
This is a trencher pack, but most of the hounds do live with Susie & all kennel with her in Flagstaff for the summer.
I think I speak for the entire rivenoak family when I say that we’re very lucky and happy to have such a nice hound join our family. We hadn’t planned on a new dog, but when he came back to the pack with a need for a new house, we couldn’t resist. We look forward to many years of fun with a sweet, engaging beagle.
I’m not sure who’ll have to be bailed out of jail first, li’l riv or Chopper, but I’m sure one of them will be!
Ps-yes, he sleeps in bed with us already. :lol:
Pps- he had brain surgery today, so is actually sleeping right now.
Even beagles sleep sometimes
[URL=“http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/TMs_iwbwQtKkKsYivH6rs92RW0Cck8RPLFKoTjsc3QM?feat=directlink”]http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/TMs_iwbwQtKkKsYivH6rs92RW0Cck8RPLFKoTjsc3QM?feat=directlink
The vet said he was mellow for about 10 minutes during his surgery, but was ready to go home 30 minutes later. It’s catching up to him a bit, but not much. She said, “Good luck with the low activity for 10 days.”:lol:
Thanks for the great pedigree history. I’m trying to learn the beagles all over again this year. After almost two years off, I didn’t recognize a single one! They were so much taller and different looking with the Harrier infusion!
Doctracy, not only are the H hounds taller, I think the I litter is tall, too. Which is odd since that’s the Walker x Echo litter & he’s a bit of a shorty.
We’ll see how the leggier & more tri-color hounds do in our territory.
Both Patrick and Walker are basically white, so we’ve had lots of white or white/lemon hounds. PV Pennzoil '06’s puppies tended toward darker colors, but there aren’t too many of them left. The light coats may have been at an advantage in our sun/heat.
BTW, if anyone ever wants to practically guarantee a large hound, let me name it as a puppy. PV Hotshot became a housepet immediately due to size & PV Igloo is something of a f@t@$$. I didn’t name a J, but looks like we got a big one anyhow.
So for a size comparison between the American & English beagles in the pack in the summer of 2005, you can see the bold tricolors of the Farmington hounds toward the left foreground. Everyone else is a PV English beagle with muted coloration. http://picasaweb.google.com/duddlesworth/20090913?authkey=Gv1sRgCOLHg5Oc3oLB_wE#5404878366912278626
There’s a cookie in the middle of that huddle!
awww!!
awwww that made my heart go all squishy!!
We fostered a stray beagle this fall while we tried to locate her owners and it was so hard to give her up. she was such a sweet sweet dog.
Very cute I like
