Is a Beagle’s brain bigger than a golf ball?

(NOTE:  if you own a Beagle, you are hereby recused).

Once upon a time, a question like this would lead to some serious cognitive calisthenics.  Beagles are infamously difficult to train, but how does canine intelligence relate to brain size?  Beagles are one of the smaller breeds, but are dog brains proportional in size to the rest of the dog?  What about those big ears?  Is this a trick question?  Do Beagles even have brains?

Thanks to the likes of Google, Yahoo Answers, Wikipedia – or if all else fails, Quora – the age of wondering is over.  In a matter of minutes, in the privacy of your own palm, you can connect to the world at large, flip through pretty much anything, and settle in on an answer (and in the process see some cute Beagle pictures).  All of this transpires with minimal demand on the human brain, which in most cases is substantially bigger than that golf ball. <continue>