My daddy was a die-hard rabbit hunter. He worked 3 shift 12 hours 7 days a week. He would get off at 7am and be home by 7:30am. He would load up the dogs, take me to school (unless he could get out of it), and hunt till 3 or 4pm. Lot of times he would come home unload dogs, tell me to feed and water them, clean his gun (if didn't I couldn't sit for a week), and take a shower, put on work clothes and head to work.
He ran his dogs year round, six days a week. He had 7 females that would flat out run the hair off a rabbit.
He liked the small 13 in beagles. First time I went with those 7 females. When he was taking them off the tailgate and sitting them on the ground. I laughed and told him them little dogs ain't gonna be able to push a rabbit that hard. All he said was just wait and see. They jumped a rabbit and ran that rabbit for 1 1/2 hours with no checks until they finally caught him. It sounded like they were looking at him the whole time!! My daddy told me after he got the rabbit from them. I told ya them 7 bitches would make go!!!! Still remember him standing in the field on a small hill, with a jawful of Levi Garrett with his old orange briar snagged hat, smiling ear to ear as they were running him. When he passed, those 7 dogs knew something was wrong. They just layed around in the pen. My uncle asked me if I was going get his dogs. I told him, no I wouldn't be able to run them like he did. I told him, look at them do you think they will hunt for anybody else? The guy that got them said, when he took them hunting they acted like they were lost. I told him they were, daddy wasn't there with them.