About the UKC Beagle Program

The Beagle breed was originally conceived as a dog to pursue rabbits and bring them around to the gun for hunters. The UKC Beagle programs, along with all our hunting programs strives to keep each breed as it was originally intended. Both our Hunting Beagle and Performance Pack programs are designed to reward a dog that can bring a rabbit around to the gun with as few faults as possible.

In both Hunting Beagle events and Performance Pack events, casts are randomly drawn at the local clubhouse and are sent to the brush to be run on wild rabbits and judged under simulated hunting conditions. No wild game is ever taken in Beagle events. Dogs are scored with the lead of the pencil rather than the lead from a shotgun shell.

Hunting Beagle events offer the participants a chance to participate in each cast as an active handler. Both the handler and his dog work as a team while attempting to outscore the three other handlers and dogs in the cast.

In Performance Pack events dogs are drawn to 5 dog casts and sent to the field with a judge who stays with the dogs as they run a track. Judges evaluate each dog in the pack on their ability to accurately run a rabbit. In the end the judge tabulates the scores he has accumulated on each dog and a winner is announced.