88 
Beagles and Beagling 
hunted, one at a time, with an older dog, but this 
must be a reliable and true dog, with not a great 
degree of speed. The reason why a slow dog is 
preferable should be obvious, for it stands to reason, 
that if a puppy is put down with a fast dog he will 
be obliged to concentrate all his energy and atten¬ 
tion on keeping up with his brace-mate, with 
consequent less attention to the trail; furthermore, 
the puppy is apt to become a babbler, for he will 
cry because he cannot keep up, and eventually this 
superfluous tongueing will become a habit, which 
will be difficult to break up after it once becomes 
fixed. 
After the puppies are so well advanced that they 
will carry a trail independently, and hunt with eager¬ 
ness and judgment when the rabbit is afoot, it is 
well for the trainer to work them with strange dogs 
whenever possible; and, if new grounds can be 
found frequently, all the better, for nothing is so 
efficacious to give a dog confidence as to accustom 
him to hunt anywhere he may be put down. A 
puppy hunted over the same grounds, day in and 
day out, might do very well where he is accustomed 
to running; but were he turned down on a field trial 
ground, for instance, where everything is new, the 
dogs are strange and the crowd behind him a 
novelty, it is as like as not that he would not per¬ 
form up to the form that he showed at home. For 
this reason the handler preparing his dogs for the 
trials would do well to join forces with another 
trainer in some other locality. The two would bene¬ 
fit equally by such an arrangement. They could hunt 
their dogs in braces over strange territory and thus 
