[H]ang on, Snoopy, Vermont wants to make the beagle its state dog. Sen. John Rodgers, D-Essex/Orleans, has introduced S.25, which would establish that “The State Dog shall be the beagle,” effective July 1.
If passed, the bill would put Vermont into a league of nearly a dozen other states that already have canine bragging rights: Maryland was the first to name a state dog, the Chesapeake Bay retriever, in 1964.
The bill was read Tuesday morning and introduced before the Senate, Rodgers said in a telephone interview later in the day.
Besides getting some pretty intense ribbing from his fellow senators over introducing what’s already being called “The Beagle Bill,” Rodgers said he was a hot topic among reporters, too.
“It’s pretty interesting,” Rodgers said with a laugh. “I’ve gotten more ribbing from fellow senators than on anything I’ve ever done. It’s pretty amazing the interest in the beagle bill.”
The origin of the bill came from his Northeast Kingdom neighbors, he said.
“I have a bunch of constituents who are avid hunters and beagle owners and they are part of a much larger statewide group who do the same, and someone in that group came up with the idea. They love their beagles, and they would like to see it be the state dog,” Rodgers said.
Rodgers said he received a petition with more than 200 signatures on it, from people all over Vermont who support the idea.
“The folks who asked me to do it were Stuart and Sheila LaPoint, and they live in Craftsbury and they are constituents of mine,” Rodgers said.
Rodgers does not have beagles, his family raised them and hunted with then when he was young.
He has a black lab named Molly now, he said, and sponsoring “The Beagle Bill,” is not making him feel any pressure to get another beagle. He said he warned the LaPoints that the bill may not just sail through, that others might want the black lab, or the Chesapeake Bay retriever or the Siberian husky.
He said the bill has been sent to the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee, on which he serves. That would not normally be the committee of jurisdiction, he said, but that’s where it’s headed for consideration.
Rodgers said Lt. Gov. Phil Scott laughed when the bill was read and other senators were somewhat bewildered.
“Most of them were sort of shaking their heads … really … the beagle? Those yappy little things?” he said. “It’s been a source of amusement if nothing else.”
Correction: The number of names on the petition was incorrect in an earlier version. It is 200, not 1,200.
