Growing up I hunted a lot with a beagle. Now, up north, the cottontails are mostly by buildings and snowshoes are tough to hunt with a beagle. After our last beage got run over, we did not get another. The way you hunt with a single beagle is you get them on a trail of a rabbit you or the dog flush out. A good beagle will dive into the heavy brush, even crawling under brush piles if they can. I had a beagle that could find a rabbit anywhere! After the beagle gets on the trail, you stay put in the original area, positioning yourself for a good shot when the dog brings the rabbit back around. The beagle will bay or sometimes just yip. Doesn't matter which. You listen to their sound off and the rabbit will be 10-80 yds ahead of them. Typically, the dog will bring the rabbit around in a big circle that might be 100 yds or as much as a 200 or even 400 yds in diameter. The rabbit will try to go back on the original trail to confuse the dog. Just stay put and wait and watch. Sometimes it can take a while! Cottontails might also hole up - then it is time to find another. Snowshoes might just take a straight line path away but sometimes they make a nice circle too. The biggest pitfall is deer. Besides rabbits, beagles will chase deer. I always found the best way to avoid them taking deer is to try to keep them in areas with lots of rabbits and fewer deer. They seem to favor the rabbits. I am not an expert trainer, but you can train a beagle fairly easily - simply take them on hot rabbit trails as often as possible when they are perhaps 6 mo old - their natural instincts can take it from there. And as I said, avoid deer areas. Find some areas with thick brush and brambles and you will find rabbits. And you want a fairly big area - perhaps a large tract of public land. Unlike deer hunting, public land can not be wrecked for rabbit hunting by others tramping through. Those bunnies will hunker down til you almost walk over them.

Besides rabbits, beagles can tree squirrels, but I only got a few squirrels with my beagle. Rabbits are good to eat, but you must clean them good, quarter them, soak in salt water overnight in a frig, and then cook the next day, baked in a covered dish or slow cooker with cream of mushroom soup over them.