These two months are tough for me. I apologize that I haven't posted. I will be so glad when I see things start greening up next month, minus tornado season though! I guess we just have to take the good with the bad. All is well here at Perfect Pocket Beagles. We had quite the winter weather in the last few weeks, so glad thats over! Maybe we can get to spring without another one of those storms. 

Christmas this year was SO COLD! Winter storm Elliott came in with a force and left most of the US shivering. I am so glad to see the sun shining and ice melting! We have a lot of work to catch up on here at Perfect Pocket Beagles. I hope your family stayed warm and dry during this weather event and you all had a wonderful Christmas!

A health certificate is provided with every single puppy that leaves here. My vet acquires these from USDA and issues them after a thorough physical exam and fecal analysis. This ensures your puppy is healthy when they leave my hands. A health certificate is only valid for 10 days as we cannot control the environment once they leave. 

When we have a new litter of pups I usually wont post them for sale until they are 10-14 days old. Mom doesn't like for me to handle them much before that, and the last thing I want to do is stress her out. Also, I can't tell enough about the pup to be able to accurately price them when they are newborns. Once they are old enough to be photographed I like to update their pictures on my website weekly, as they change so much in such a short period of time! I keep the pictures up until the pup has completed its journey home. This provides the new owner opportunity to save the pictures to their phone or computer. 

In the pocket beagle world there are two breeds, the Olde English Pocket Beagle and the Queen Elizabeth Pocket Beagle. The difference being Olde English are 100% pure bred beagles, while the Queen Elizabeths are mixed with dachshund. At Perfect Pocket Beagles we raise exclusively Olde English, they are the smallest variety of beagles that are pure bred. I always say that ALL dogs are precious, but we are partial to the Olde English. 

When a breeder is giving you a verbal description of a beagle, sometimes they will say "full saddle". This means that the puppy/dogs back is completely black with little to no white markings to break it up. When the breeder is referring to an "open marked" dog or pup this means that there is a considerable amount of white on its back breaking up that would be full saddle. Either way, you can rest assured your puppy is precious no matter the markings!

There are many different ways a beagle can be marked up and I would like to go over some of those with you! The first one I want to address seems to be popular among puppy owners. This is the white stripe between the eyes that most internet pictures have, it's called a "blaze". Most of the time the blaze will be bright white, but in some cases when the puppy is heavily ticked there will also be some ticking in the blaze. Not all dogs will have a blaze but its something I am always happy to see!

Ticking is the "freckles" or "speckles" that usually appear on the beagles legs or areas that would otherwise be white. Ticked coats are generally softer than a solid white color pattern. It is a dominant gene, so if your puppy has some ticking usually one or both parents will also be ticked. 

These are the colors I see the least often. This coloring comes from a genetic mutation, and even though those words sound scary, they aren't at all. Colors have no bearing on the health of the puppy. I like to think of Lavender and Silver as the lighter shades of the grey category, which is likely the hairdresser in me speaking. Any of you who have an education in cosmetology will relate to that statement! 

Hare-Pi coloring is not seen often. Sometimes it's hard to spot, while others times it's obvious. Hare-Pied dogs usually have a bright white coat with clear cut patches of gradient browns. They also have what is referred to as a butterfly nose, which is when the septum is darker than the rest of the nose and it gets lighter as it goes out toward the edges. This coloring will almost always have dark circles around the eyes, not like us ladies frown upon, but much more like they are wearing eyeliner! Hare-pied beagles are absolutely stunning and I always get excited when we have one!