page_title: Beagle
section_title: Appearance
hierarchical_section_title: Beagle / Appearance
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Beagle Hound-Farben von links nach rechts: tan and white (ältere Hündin mit verblassender Farbe), tricoloured broken, red and white, tricoloured
context_page_description: The beagle is a breed of small hound that is similar in appearance to the much larger foxhound. The beagle is a scent hound, developed primarily for hunting hare. Possessing a great sense of smell and superior tracking instincts, the beagle is the primary breed used as detection dogs for prohibited agricultural imports and foodstuffs in quarantine around the world. The beagle is intelligent. It is a popular pet due to its size, good temper, and a lack of inherited health problems.
  The modern breed was developed in Great Britain around the 1830s from several breeds, including the Talbot Hound, the North Country Beagle, the Southern Hound, and possibly the Harrier.
  Beagles have been depicted in popular culture since Elizabethan times in literature and paintings, and more recently in film, television, and comic books.
context_section_description: The general appearance of the beagle resembles a miniature Foxhound, but the head is broader and the muzzle shorter, the expression completely different and the legs shorter in proportion to the body.  They are generally between 13 and 16 inches (33 and 41 cm) high at the withers and weigh between 18 and 35 lb (8.2 and 15.9 kg), with females being slightly smaller than males on average.
  They have a smooth, somewhat domed skull with a medium-length, square-cut muzzle and a black (or occasionally liver) gumdrop nose. The jaw is strong and the teeth scissor together with the upper teeth fitting perfectly over the lower teeth and both sets aligned square to the jaw. The eyes are large, hazel or brown, with a mild hound-like pleading look. The large ears are long, soft and low-set, turning towards the cheeks slightly and rounded at the tips. Beagles have a strong, medium-length neck (which is long enough for them to easily bend to the ground to pick up a scent), with little folding in the skin but some evidence of a dewlap; a broad chest narrowing to a tapered abdomen and waist and a long, slightly curved tail (known as the "stern") tipped with white. The white tip, known as the flag. has been selectively bred for, as it allows the dog to be easily seen when its head is down following a scent. The tail does not curl over the back, but is held upright when the dog is active. The beagle has a muscular body and a medium-length, smooth, hard coat. The front legs are straight and carried under the body while the rear legs are muscular and well bent at the stifles.
  The tricolored beagle—white with large black areas and light brown shading—is the most common.  Tricolored beagles occur in a number of shades, from the "Classic Tri" with a jet black saddle (also known as "Blackback"), to the "Dark Tri" (where faint brown markings are intermingled with more prominent black markings), to the "Faded Tri" (where faint black markings are intermingled with more prominent brown markings). Some tricolored dogs have a broken pattern, sometimes referred to as pied. These dogs have mostly white coats with patches of black and brown hair. Tricolor beagles are almost always born black and white. The white areas are typically set by eight weeks, but the black areas may fade to brown as the puppy matures.  (The brown may take between one and two years to fully develop.) Some beagles gradually change color during their lives, and may lose their black markings entirely.
  Two-color varieties always have a white base color with areas of the second color. Tan and white is the most common two-color variety, but there is a wide range of other colors including lemon, a very light tan; red, a reddish, almost orange, brown; and liver, a darker brown, and black. Liver is not common and is not permitted in some standards; it tends to occur with yellow eyes. Ticked or mottled varieties may be either white or black with different colored flecks (ticking), such as the blue-mottled or bluetick beagle, which has spots that appear to be a midnight-blue color, similar to the coloring of the Bluetick Coonhound. Some tricolor beagles also have ticking of various colors in their white areas.
caption: Beagle hound colors: Two-colored "tan and white" (older female with fading color), tricolored broken, two-colored "red and white", "tricolored"
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