This month in Dogs with Jobs we meet a modern beagle pack.

Pack of 50 or so beagles in a line along a fence with a blue sky behind them

Presenter Kate Fairweather caught up with the beagles at the Alresford Show. Her interviewee Danny Allen has worked as kennel huntsman with the Palmer Marlborough Clinkard Meon Valley Beagles for eight years.

Country shows like this are part of the summer season for the beagles – they parade around the arena and children are invited in to run with them and meet them up close.

Mingling with the beagle pack is a highlight of the Alresford Show for many young visitors.

Beagling has been around since Elizabethan times, but there are only around 60 beagle packs in the UK, many of them college packs like this one – attached to an school or university.

Beagles have amazing noses, and are used for detection work in many contexts (you often see them used as airport sniffer dogs). They’re not particularly fast, and so humans follow them on foot. The hounds lead the way as they follow an artificially laid trail over the countryside. The hunting season starts from September.

Beagling is hunting on foot, with the hounds following an artificial trail laid shortly before the pack moves off.

Portsmouth born and bred, Danny explains the lure of the green fields and the outdoors, and why he loves working – and to all intents and purposes, living – with over 50 beagles.

Danny takes the beagles swimming – the pack is exercised regularly in summer, when hunting is off the menu.

The interview was recorded at the Alresford Agricultural Show in September 2022.

All photos taken by Danny Allen.

Video: the beagles entering the arena

Danny takes the beagles into the arena, where they parade and then invite children in to run with the beagles.

Do you work your dog or dogs?

If your dog works (or volunteers, perhaps) and you would consider coming on Dogs with Jobs, please get in touch! Kate would love to hear from you and is always interested in working dogs. You can reach her at team@shineradio.uk.