Beagles are working dogs, and need to have a “job” even when kept as a pet. They do make excellent pets. But, they tend to bay (bark) a lot, so start work early on teaching them when it’s ok to bark and when it isn’t. Try to find a “bark park” or a remote place in the country where you can let him or her off-leash, to run and to track scents.
I’ve recently adopted a Walker Hound, which is much like a Beagle in habit and temperament. She’s a sweet girl, very loving and affectionate, but wants to climb and needs to “work” the back yard, tracking scents, back and forth, back and forth. She’s as compelled to do that as my Lab was compelled to retrieve or swim. Her breed was created to do these things, going back centuries to English Foxhounds in Virginia.
So, study the purpose for which Beagles were bred, and you’ll find what you need to know to make him or her happy, and for him or her to make you happy.
Good luck.
I love everything about beagles and hounds except the cacophonous noise they bellow when they get wind of a quarry. It is a great song in the woods but dang painful on the ear pans around the house!
I always get tickled at lab owners getting upset when their dog “digs” the water bowl at the dog park.
Just like I shake my head when people wonder why my bassets bark a lot.
That is what dog’s do. Their thing.