VMD 513: Pet animal Breeding, Management, Nutrition and Health Care (1+1)

HOUND GROUP

Hounds

Two basic types are scent and sight hounds. Scent hounds are lethargic, almost frenzied to get about the business, difficult to train for obedience.

• The hounds come in many sizes and in two basic types, scent hounds, who follow their noses anywhere, and sight hounds, whose gaze lingers on the horizon in the search for game. Some of the scent hounds are lethargic, others are almost frenzied to get about the business of following a trail. Most are difficult to obedience train because their noses are always responding to the pungent world of odors far beyond the ken of humans.

• The scent hounds are friendly critters accustomed to working with their handlers in the field. Sigh hounds, bred to work independently of the hunter, tend to be aloof and rather tough to obedience train.
• The scent hounds are Basset; Beagle; Black and Tan Coon hound; Bloodhound; Dachsunds (three coats types -- wire, smooth, and long --- and two sizes -- standard and miniature); American and English Foxhounds; Harrier; Norwegian Elkhound; Otterhound; and Petit Basset Griffon Vendeen. The Elkhound looks more like a sled dog than a hound; it was bred to hunt moose in snow-covered mountains and has the typical northern dog thick undercoat that sheds profusely.
• The sight hounds are pictures of grace and elegance with their long legs, slender bodies, and long noses. They are Afghan Hound; Basenji; Borzoi (Russian Wolfhound); Greyhound; Ibizan Hound; Irish Wolfhound; Pharaoh Hound; Rhodesian Ridgeback; Saluki; Scottish Deerhound; and Whippet. Rhodesian Ridgebacks are also used as guard dogs, and Greyhounds still race at tracks in several states.
• Many sight hound owners participate in lure coursing, a chasing sport that mimics the hunts for which their dogs were originally bred. In lure coursing, the dogs chase a plastic bag pulled along a wire on a marked course.

Sight hound used in chasing sport.