Nature has done a lot of work designing animals in certain ways. For instance, a bully is one of the most short-muzzled dogs around. Tell me how often you see them chasing hell-bent for Georgia to catch a ball or a frisbee or such. They are low-level activity dogs and they do not and cannot inhale humongus amts of air because of the design of their faces and resp. tracts and are not expected to be high performance dogs. They are somewhat like pugs in that respect. I LOVE Pugs and know a delightful one named EGG and he will not get out of his own way. I am from a hunting state and know many Beagles that would absolutely collapse is their air intake were restricted.
The point I am making is that when we mix breeds that are, well, possibly the word is opposites, we need to study the special designs of each of the breeds. I worked in research for a number of years and similar issues were considered. My neighbor's Beagle has been a bayer and I agree any help with that would be an improvement, but that is inherent in the breed.. |