Emily
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Feb 2004
Location: West Kill, NY
Posts: 2047 |
Here's my thoughts. So you know, I have two redbones that live in the house. They're our pets, but I hunt them. I am also part of a group call Coonhound and Foxhound Companions www.coonhoundcompanions.com that tries to educate pet hound owners, and potential pet hound owners, about what they are bred to do and how that affects their behavior as pets, with the aim of trying to settle unwanted hounds into pet homes and keep everyone happy with the arrangement.
Coonhounds make great pets for the right people. The primary deal breakers for pet owners are noise and containment.
1 Noise
The first issue has to do with hounds in suburban neighborhoods, where most pet homes are. There's always some neighbor who doesn't like listening to a treed hound, and there's always some wandering house cat that sets them off. That's fine if you live someplace really noisy and no one cares (mine lived in a second story apartment in Brooklyn NY for awhile and did just fine), but you have to work hard to train a hound to not make a racket in the back yard. Not every pet owner is up to that.
2 Containment
Very few pet owners are willing to tie a dog all day. So, they need very good fences in their yard. Most coonhounds will break out to go hunting and are very good at escaping, especially if they have no other job to keep their nose busy. Accordingly, any pet coonhound owner needs to invest in a sturdy fence around the yard. That is expensive and not necessary for most other hunting breeds, like bird dogs. I spend a lot of time sending emails to people about how to fortify their fence to keep their pet hound in. I also advise ones that don't want to hunt to play "scent games" with their hound so they aren't so inclined to hunt without a human partner.
As for selling pups to pet homes, I don't have a problem with it, but I think most breeders want to give every hound puppy a chance to prove itself as a hunter. I know a number of reputable breeders who won't sell a pup to a pet home but will place a year old hound in a pet home if it hasn't shown an interest in hunting yet. That may be too soon--some very good hunters are late starters. But, there's lots of adult hounds that are better off as pets than being culled.
I got my first hound from a "rescue"with the intention of keeping him as a pet, but he needed to hunt, so I took up coon hunting, but I am the exception. I got him as an adult and he had so much drive that I couldn't hang onto his leash when I took him to the woods. That made me curious and charmed me. My previous dog, a Rhodesian Ridgeback was easy to keep on lead in the woods. All it took was once as a spectator on a UKC hunt and I was hooked. I chase bears with the ones I have now, and like stumbling around in the woods at night chasing dogs chasing coons. Not every pet owner has the time or finds it fun.
In my experience, an adult coonhound makes a better pet than a beagle. Their voices are more melodious and they are calmer when they aren't hunting. And who can resist those ears? I had a pet bloodhound when I was a kid, and he was way more work than my coonhounds have been. Certainly, if greyhounds can be turned into excellent pets, so can coonhounds, but I don't like the idea of breeding them to be pets.
I don't breed hounds--two are plenty for me and there are more than enough decent breeders out there. I don't like the idea of coonhounds being bred as show dogs, either. I do think that hounds going to pet homes should be spayed or neutered, and the breeder should be willing to offer plenty of advice to the frequently overwhelmed pet owner.
Shelter hounds that would otherwise be euthanized deserve a chance as pets, and I think that ultimately, it is good for our sport. [See the Coonhound Rescue Network facebook page if you don't believe there are a lot of purebred coonhounds and coonhound mix mutts in kill shelters.] But few pet homes expect to invest in tracking collars and other equipment that we consider routine. And many pet owners want to be able to see their dog when they let it off lead in the woods, so they need to be told what is going on when their dog disappears, and what to listen for.
I hate the waste of life involved in culling hounds, and it doesn't help our sport's ability to survive in a world where more and more people live in suburban developments rather than in the country. Better to let those who don't know about our traditions learn about them by loving a hound than to let our sport become a caualty of changing values. And, when I lived in Brooklyn, I can't tell you how many people stopped me when I walked my pair on a coupler to tell me that they had an uncle or a pappy that ran hounds back home, and how they loved listening to the music. My hounds are great ambassadors. for our sport
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12-30-2010 05:54 PM
