It is a popular pet due to its size, good temper, and a lack of inherited health problems. From medieval times, beagle was used as a generic description for the smaller hounds, though these dogs differed considerably from the modern breed. 19th-century sources refer to these breeds interchangeably and it is possible that the two names refer to the same small variety. In George Jesse's Researches into the History of the British Dog from 1866, the early 17th-century poet and writer Gervase Markham is quoted referring to the beagle as small enough to sit on a man's hand and to the: little small mitten-beagle, which may be companion for a ladies kirtle, and in the field will run as cunningly as any hound whatere, only their musick is very small like reeds. Standards for the Pocket Beagle were drawn up as late as 1901; these genetic lines are now extinct, although modern breeders have attempted to recreate the variety. Beagles are considered a chondrodystrophic breed, meaning that they are prone to types of disk diseases.
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