Music

I've got a pink rubber bone - yipee eye-oh ...

You will realise, from our names that music runs in the family, in particular singing.  Choral singing plays a great part in our lives, in fact the life of the Pack depends on it and when we are in the Chase it focuses our thoughts and energy and keeps us together for the common good.

I have observed similar behaviour in many human activities.  For example, at football matches they chant (lacking, in my opinion, the subtleties of the beagle song and hound chorus), which in turn stimulates the strange phenomena of the Mexican Wave, where they stand up in turn and sit down, getting nowhere.  But humans seem to like it and appear very pleased with themselves when it's passed through.  It is also one of the rare occasions where, I have observed, the male of the species is willing to sing. Mostly, when asked to sing,  the males are in a condition called embarrassment.  When this happens, they turn red, wriggle about and generally look unappetising.

What eludes me about human vocalising (and they set much store by this), is their lack of empathy with other species who vocalise. Auntie Gill sings great choral works in a choir.  Daddy Paul is  immersed in Opera North, where the humans dress up and perform 'great works'.  My humans talk a lot about the importance of 'great art' and its civilising influence.  Hmph! They ought to  spend a week with a Beagle Pack before they talk such arrogant twaddle.  For Beagles, the song encompasses mind, body and spirit: life and death. It takes a sharp mind to find dinner, a fit body to chase it (and enjoy eating it) and strength of spirit to surmount the challenges of the Chase.  It is a little known fact, that the saying 'singing for your supper' is a beagle legacy.  Which takes me further into the influence of beagles and my hound brothers and sisters on western music.  Who do you think inspired Vivaldi's 'Winter'?  Look no further.  The Legendary Marvin Pontiac was moved to compose, 'I'm a Doggy' after listening to one of our choirs. Of course, our most profound, contemporary exponent of Hound Song, was undoubtedly Elvis, in his words, 'If you ain't never caught a rabbit, you ain't no friend of mine.'

I love my human family, but at times I could give them a kick up the backside for their narrow minded attitudes towards music from my culture.  Why is it that I have to learn their words: sit, stay, off, out, walkies (for god's sake) and they won't learn mine?  I have to listen to their interminable drivelling and droning for hours and when I dare to squeak (I am particularly good in the high registers), I am told to shut up!  It would seem that beagles should be seen and not heard. Well, I've got news for you - we sing to our hearts' content when the humans go out!