ORIGINAL: SwampCollie
They are good for winning dog shows apparently.
Beagles are hounds, and hounds chase just like goldens retreive and setters point. Its instinct. They make fantastic rabbit dogs, and are my personal choice in a deer dog as I am not a fan of long legged dogs for deer hunting, espeically as of late, but that is southern politics.
They are incredibly stubborn (most of them) to train. Which is why they make good chase dogs. All you need to do is teach them to come to your call when you want them to come to you, at least thats a start. Much more to it than that.
Best advice I can say is give it a try. As a pet they are cute, and often very very sweet, but they are very hard headed.
I love to hear them running a deer too, although i only own walkers and blueticks for deerhunting. They will make some noise too coming through the swamps!