For the past 2 weekends, I've been to Open Shows. One at Newark where we entered our Beagle pup in Junior, only to find we were the only entry in the entire Beagle group. Yesterday at Melton Mowbray, in AV Hound puppy class, again we were the only entry in the puppy section. It's all very well coming first, but when there's no competition it makes it a bit pointless. Can anyone suggest I may find the best shows/judges with regards to showing beagles. The Open shows we go to always seem to be very poorly represented by beagles. Are owners going straight to Champ shows, I wonder. As our pup is only 8 months old, I feel she needs practice before going to the 'big shows', but with no competition how are we ever going to know how she'll do against other dogs? It's very frustrating and annoying to take the effort to enter to find you are the only entrant. Any suggestions please????

I am afraid that the Champ shows are likely to be the only place where you will find large classes of pups.

A lot depends on what other shows are on, (Southern Counties chap show this weekend, so most people will have gone there instead) and whether your br4eed is stron gin the surrounding areas. Also with competing shows to go to the judge has got to be one that will draw the exhibitors in that bred.

With a pup at an Open show I would always enter the breed or Not seperately classified Puppy or Junior class, then the Any Variety (in this case Hound) puppy or Junior class, and the Puppy stakes or Any Variety puppy class. with luck you may even have 3 different judges, and usually the Group and Best in show judges will be experienced judges.

There are puppy classes at the champ shows, so even if the exhibitors are experienced the pups won't be, and will all be at a similar level of experience. Judges do take their age into consideration.

Hello fellow Beagle owner!

I've wondered for the past two years where all the other beagle owners are! Nice to meet one at last.

If you fancy some competition (!) then my beagle & I are going to the Taunton & District Open show on 2nd July, it's being held at the Royal Bath & West show ground. There's a Beagle Open Class & a Hound Any Variety Class, if you're interested? At least you know you'll have one competitor! It will be our first show so seeing as you're a veteran now you can help us along!

Just don't steal all the rosettes! I LOVE rosettes so as long as Bert comes in the top four & we can claim our rosette then that's all I care about!

Lady G

It's good to hear that I'm not on my own - nice to hear from you. We are actually thinking of going to the Taunton show so if you're there we'll be the one's with the pup who'll be playing up and wanting to play. She's had quite a few rossettes including best of breed - but didn't actually beat any other dog - bit pointless really.

Good luck.
Sarah

Excellent! Hope you've entered already though - the entries closed on saturday. Our beagle is the one with his nose stuck to the ground, probably eating a left over kebab and mucky tear stains arund his eyes that I just cannot get rid of!!

Keep in touch and hopefully see you there!

I haven't seen a Taunton Schedule, when do entries close.

We have just started showing our 10 month old beagle. We went to two open shows last weekend and we were really dissapointed as we were the only one in our class both days. However, we did go in the puppy stakes class so she did have competition. The problem is we haven't seen her with other beagles to see what she is like. I mean so we can compare her.
We have quite a few rosettes now but its not the same as she didn't compete to get them. We are going to the Cheshire Agricultural show on the 17th June so we are hoping to find more competition there as there were a few beagle classes on the schedule. We are not sure whether to enter a champ show. Her behaviour is excellent now. Something has clicked in the last two weeks and she is really well behaved but i know she has a couple of small faults so i don't know whether to take her. If we take her to an open show there are no entries but if we take her to a champ show there will be loads of entries. Its trying to find a happy medium before going in at the deep end, i would like to try an open show with a few entries before entering a champ show.

Our female beagle pup is now 9 months old. Sometimes she walks ok but on Sunday she was very lethargic and wouldn't show herself off. Somedays she fidgits and won't stand still. I hope that one day everything will somehow come togther, and 'click' just like your's has. I have been told that she is a nice dog by a few people at ringcraft, but it would be nice to see how she compares to other beagles! It seems that the best place to compete against other beagles is to take the bull by the horns and enter a champ show, or beagle open shows. It will be our first champ show in August, so I don't know what to expect. Where do you live, by the way? I live near Leicester and was wondering maybe there was a shortage of beagles in the Midlands area.
Good luck with your show in June.

Thanks for the luck i will probably need it. I live in Cumbria. We see very few beagles here (apart from the hunting type). Its like finding hens teeth. We had to travel to Chester to get ours and that was after 18 months of searching. We might enter the Hound show at Stafford. Even if its just for experience. We can also pick up tips from watching other people. I think i'll be a nervous wreck. But don't worry about your beagle i think i've posted a message to you before saying how badly behaved mine was. I don't know whats happened to her i think the penny has dropped after months of hard work. She still has a howl and jumps round like an idiot at ringcraft occasionally but i think that is because the dogs are all her friends now and she just wants to play.
Have you got 2 beagles ? I just thought you may have mentioned it in another post. We are thinking of getting another one this year as a companion for ours.

It's reassuring to know that Willow should eventually settle down. I have got another beagle, who's nearly 6 years, although we don't show her. She just isn't a 'showy' dog but they are brilliant company for each other. It's strange that you should have got yours from Chester as I used to live there. We got both our dogs from Solihull.
May see you in Stafford if you decide to go - I'm sure it'll be good experience!!

They closed on Saturday 31st May Babs - but I managed to sneak mine through the following Monday...

And I see another beagle owner has popped up! Hurrah! Long may it continue until we've taken over the board!

Beagle - what's your pup's faults? My chaps' got a slightly baggy eye, i.e. the skin hangs down a bit further than it should on some days. But I went to the Bath Champ show a few weeks back & I noted that there were a few dogs that didn't look very 'showy' & some weren't interested in showing off their paces at all (it was a very hot day) but despite this some of them still got placed, so I think it's probably worth a bash!