The strikers lined up 20 abreast in the brush.

Their beating sticks drummed the rabbits out of hiding and the race began.

“Tally ho!” was the call and the first brace of beagles set out to follow the scent.

The event was the Kahmooks Beagle Club Licensed Field Trial in Castle Rock, and Langley beagle Otis Happy Run Bandito took the blue ribbon at only 7 months old.

“He won all five of his braces,” said Otis’ owner Duane Den Adel.

“Until next May and the next field trial, Otis is the best beagle in the state,” Den Adel said.

A “brace” is two dogs grouped together in each heat of a race. When the rabbit is scared from the brush, the first brace is let off leash to follow the scent. The dog that stays on the scent the longest wins the brace.

Because Otis won each one of his five braces, he was awarded first place among the 12 other 13-inch male-class competitors.

Den Adel and his wife Ruth were surprised by Otis’ performance. As new owners of the breed, they knew nothing of what they were getting into when breeder Pat Liebenrood of Happy Run Farms in Poulsbo asked them to sign up their beagle for the competition.

After all, Otis is the son of a champion bred at the same farm — Happy Run Black Bandit, a 2-year-old male — another beagle Otis also happened to beat in the Sept. 11 field trial.

“We know nothing about beagles,” Duane Den Adel said.

The couple, in fact, are previously longtime owners of Labrador retrievers and are new to the “beagler” set, those folks who take their beagles seriously.

“I wanted small and he wanted big,” Ruth Den Adel said. “So we decided to meet in the middle and we got Otis.”

The couple has owned the 25-pound pup for about nine months, since he was 7 weeks old, and have been pleased with their choice.

“He’s a great dog,” Ruth said.

“I take him down to the beach or over to the fairgrounds, and there are rabbits everywhere around here,” Duane said. “His nose starts to sound like a vacuum cleaner and he starts barking (or baying as beagles do) and he’s like a fighter in training.”

As if on cue, Otis smelled something in the garden. Nose to the ground, sniffing furiously, he began a moaning sound, and his whole being signaled his need to sniff out whatever was under the brush, as if on an urgent mission.

“Nothing distracts these dogs from the scent,” Duane said.

Indeed, alongside the bloodhound, the beagle has one of the best-developed senses of smell of any dog.

Nose or none, the decidedly adorable Otis is hard not to love.

Duane and Ruth Den Adel show a typical devotion to their new puppy, whether he wins his braces or not. But Duane is eager for Otis to continue competing and spoke of another field trial he’d like to attend through the Stockton Beagle Club in Vacaville, Calif. with his young champion.

On a sideboard cupboard in the dining room, a painting of two beagles is displayed with pride. The painting was donated to the Kahmooks Beagle Club by the late painter Bob Sternloff, a serious beagler himself, whose work was often seen in Field & Stream magazine. As the owners of the prize-winning beagle, the Den Adels were given the painting to keep for one year, until the next Castle Rock field trial.

If Otis’ impressive display in the garden of his talented nose was any indication, the Den Adels might have to move the painting to a permanent place on the wall.