BigGameHoundsmen.com

I think the average hound hunts almost totally by nose. The great cat hounds not only use their nose, but their eyes and ears as well. When all three of these senses are working at a high level, coupled with extreme intelligence, a magical thing happens.




It dont matter the breed nor the color but there is the truth of the matter right there. Anything that runs a track and can catch a critter is a hound in my opinion. I dont care if they are 1/4 bulldog, 1/4 collie, 1/4 plott, and a 1/4 walker. If they use all their senses and have intelligence they will be the exceptional ones and like the man says, magical things will happen. In my opinion, houndmen put way too much emphasis on ear length, mouth, color, and breed overall. When you get down to the art of "catchin" game, you will find that no ear length, mouth, color, nor breed has the market cornered and thats a fact.

By the way, there is a book out there called "Dogs" written by Raymond Coppinger and Lorna Coppinger. I think all dog men should read the book and it aint got much to do with hounds.

I think a good deal of the difficulty with getting hounds that are versitile in the manner mentioned is that with most hounds, what makes up their scenting ability/nose power comes from a mental fixation with scent, the desire to follow a track. Having such an obsession is going to take away from any other abililties the hound may otherwise possess. Anyone with an obsessive personality knows what I mean.....other aspects of life invariably take a back seat to your "fixation".... often times proving very costly, figuratively and literally
Within the relm of tracking by scent most truely cold nosed hounds are no exception to this.


Anyone who has seen good terriers work has probably seen a dog that is well rounded in applying all it's senses in a balanced manner. The good ones have some nose power/or focus on scent but not so much it detracts from it's other abilities. They MEAN to catch what they are after and have a prey drive that is off the charts.
However they do not possess what I would consider serious nose power.

With hounds I think the trick is to find that hound that physiologically has the nose power needed to run the coldest track, but doesn't require near the mental fixation or obssession to do so. This will enable such a hound to be able to use it's other senses in a more balanced manner.
Problem is that breeding for such a hound is very difficult and as a result they tend to pop up seemingly almost by accident.