Registered: Jun 2008
Location: Burlington, CT
Posts: 1758

Ok, this is a real question in my mind, so I hope some people can hold back and keep it mostly serious!

I like most, have hunted with more good walker dogs than any other breed (not all are good, but more), and that's probably because there are quite simply way more Walkers out there, than any other breed. There's no denying the sheer number of them, as well as the number of World Champions, NtChs, GrNtChs, etc. but my question is how did that happen???

Were there just more English Walker Foxhounds available, way back when? Did other breed owners keep their dogs to themselves, or ask too much money for them, so Walkers became more prevalent? Is it because they were more high strung, and therefore more adept at competition, and that drove their popularity???

It's not because of the age of the breed, as there are much less prevalent breeds that have centuries on the Walker! And again, I'm not asking this out of bias or belief in some genetic superiority, as the finest coon dog I ever owned was a Bluetick-Cur mix!

So... anyone out there with more "seniority" or historical understanding than me, know how we came to have so many Walkers than anything else? I just don't believe it's as simple as, they were better so we bred more of them! There had to be something else.

A prime example that comes to mind, is that anyone that knows anything about video, knows that Sony's Beta format was far superior to VHS, but VHS was cheap and made more readily available and so it dominated the market until DVDs came along. Was it a similar situation with Walkers?

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I don't carry any seniority and I'm no historian but from what I understand, there were other breeds such as the Plotts, B&T, Redbones And Blueticks that existed well ahead of the Walkers when they were first registered in '45. Into the 50's and 60's, the Walkers were not a leading breed in terms of numbers registered. And yet they quickly, in the space of a couple decades, managed to catch, pass and completely blow away all the other coonhound breeds in the UKC registration numbers. So the "why" of all that is a very good and legitimate question. My answer, for what it is worth, is this. They won, early on, right out of the box, with such dominance that coonhunters had to go out of their way to come up with reasons to try out or stick with the other breeds. And for those of the majority that had no specific breed allegiance, looking at the results of comp hunts left them with a " no brainer" response to choosing a dog. It quickly became a situation where you choose a Walker unless you just wanted to be different. I think the competition hunts were almost totally responsible for this because even tho pleasure hunters have hugely outnumbered comp hunters, the comp hunter have always seemed to hugely out influence the choice of breed. Those meat/ hide/ pleasure hunters may not give a hoot about nite hunts but they all want the best and seeing one breed come out of nowhere to totally dominate competition was just too much to shrug off. And I think that is what got us to where we are today. I think the overwhelming popularity of the Walker breed today is largely the fault of the nite hunts.

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Registered: Mar 2008
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Which came first "the chicken or the egg"
Are there more walkers because they are better OR are they better because there are more.

I dont know, but once they became the breed of choice among the serious breeders and competitors in the sport they pulled away from the other breeds. The versatility of the different lines within the breed offers a somewhat predictable result that the other breeds cant offer.
No matter where in the country a guy lives,or what game he hunts, there is a line of walker dog that will get the job done.

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Registered: Aug 2006
Location: milan,mi
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If you look at any old pictures from the early 20's and up all you see are blueticks, B&T's, curs and mixed. The first registered treeing walker was in 1932, Lester Nance bought for $13 and two bags of pig supplement. The dog was from foxhound stock.

In the late 50's and early 60's walkers won the acha world hunts. One sold for $5000. As they say 'the rest is history"

The need for track driving speed with a actual coon at the end sealed the deal. Along with advertizing and great promotion. JMHO

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Registered: Sep 2011
Location: indiana
Posts: 236

I've always wondered the same thing. I wonder how much of has to do with the color standards. Color seems to be a non factor for the most part. Seems like you could cross about anything with a walker and still end up with most of a litter that meets breed standards for a walker. Other breeds are limited by color and therefore the breeding pool is greatly reduced. As Long as it looks fairly houndy and has some white it looks like a walker. I've always wondered how much that had to do with it.

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Posts: 618

quote:

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Originally posted by JiM
I don't carry any seniority and I'm no historian but from what I understand, there were other breeds such as the Plotts, B&T, Redbones And Blueticks that existed well ahead of the Walkers when they were first registered in '45. Into the 50's and 60's, the Walkers were not a leading breed in terms of numbers registered. And yet they quickly, in the space of a couple decades, managed to catch, pass and completely blow away all the other coonhound breeds in the UKC registration numbers. So the "why" of all that is a very good and legitimate question. My answer, for what it is worth, is this. They won, early on, right out of the box, with such dominance that coonhunters had to go out of their way to come up with reasons to try out or stick with the other breeds. And for those of the majority that had no specific breed allegiance, looking at the results of comp hunts left them with a " no brainer" response to choosing a dog. It quickly became a situation where you choose a Walker unless you just wanted to be different. I think the competition hunts were almost totally responsible for this because even tho pleasure hunters have hugely outnumbered comp hunters, the comp hunter have always seemed to hugely out influence the choice of breed. Those meat/ hide/ pleasure hunters may not give a hoot about nite hunts but they all want the best and seeing one breed come out of nowhere to totally dominate competition was just too much to shrug off. And I think that is what got us to where we are today. I think the overwhelming popularity of the Walker breed today is largely the fault of the nite hunts.

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Location: New Paris, Indiana
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quote:

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Originally posted by john Duemmer
Which came first "the chicken or the egg"
Are there more walkers because they are better OR are they better because there are more.

I dont know..

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My Granddad had foxhounds since he was young .. back as far as the 40's .... he always told me that those foxhounds that got older and fell out of the race to tree coon were the best coonhounds you could ask for and bred into coonhound lines .

I think that is what Lester Nance did .... while the other breeds even back then were breeding for color or ear or mouth ... some Walker men just bought their dogs off the tree , lol .... and built a foundation on that.

Although foxhounds are gaited , they are built to run tracks .. not just trail like the bloodhound based coondog breeds .... so that is also a factor .. those old Walkers were running dogs that also treed ... how can you compete with that unless you have some of it yourself.

That said , we can't use that as a crutch this many years later.... the off breeds just naturally attract pleasure hunters who value looks ,nose and a certain pedigree above nite hunts .... and why worry about hunt wins if you don't even hunt in them ?

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quote:

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Originally posted by JiM
I think that is answered. The breed was seen as better long before there were more of them. History shows, if you go back and look it up, that the Walker breed was dominating the hunts before they were the majority breed. So I think the answer is, there are more because they are better, not because there are more of them.

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Registered: Oct 2013
Location: Purdy Mo
Posts: 75

If you look back pre spring creek rock I don't think they dominated like they do today he was what changed everything look at old pictures rock didn't look like a lot of the walker breed he was blanket back lot better looking than most hounds he was that dog that propelled the breed forward unknown a lot of people probably think i'm full of it but I grew up just a few miles from him my uncle hunted with him I know duane personally he the one who should get that's for pushing the breed to were it's at today

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Registered: Jun 2003
Location: Central Michigan
Posts: 6544

I think Dirtdevil was on the right track. Sorry about that.lol

I also believe it had to do with how a fox hound runs track. The older breeds were selected to track the few tracks slowly. Walkers ran their tracks with their heads up.

The difference is the coon populations increased. Between good running gear, running to catch, and an increase of available tracks made the walkers shine.

The walker numbers increased due to their success in the World Hunts and nite hunt success.

Then through the last several decades the older breeds started to select for faster track dogs.

That is my hypothesis.

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I would say the big jump for the walkers was johnsons banjo. he thru some tree style in the running dogs.

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I think a lot of factors combined to propel the Treeing Walker in popularity...mostly it was timing. No doubt the success of Walkers in competition hunts had a lot to do with it, but why didn't the other breeds get this popular back when they were winning???
When Walkers started to get popular, for the first time in America, people had a little spare money to play with. Communications thru media was getting better. There was a road system in this country and vehicles were being built for longer range travel.
Prior to these events I doubt too many guys found dogs advertised in another state halfway across the country and thought nothing of jumping in the 4wd pickup with a hunting buddy or two and taking a few days to go pick up a promising pup.
I would also bet that back then there just wasn't multiple coon hunters clubs having hunts in every state either, again because who could afford it??? All this came at a time when a coon hunter could afford and had the ways and means to try something different, something new.
No matter what reason or reasons you assign to the popularity of the Treeing Walker hound once they took off they were gone...and the other breeds will play hell catching them now!!!

Last edited by msinc on 03-17-2014 at 02:00 AM

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quote:

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Originally posted by msinc
I think a lot of factors combined to propel the Treeing Walker in popularity...mostly it was timing. No doubt the success of Walkers in competition hunts had a lot to do with it, but why didn't the other breeds get this popular back when they were winning???

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Location: West Virginia
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quote:

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Originally posted by micooner
If you look at any old pictures from the early 20's and up all you see are blueticks, B&T's, curs and mixed. The first registered treeing walker was in 1932, Lester Nance bought for $13 and two bags of pig supplement. The dog was from foxhound stock.

In the late 50's and early 60's walkers won the acha world hunts. One sold for $5000. As they say 'the rest is history"

The need for track driving speed with a actual coon at the end sealed the deal. Along with advertizing and great promotion. JMHO

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