Emily
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Feb 2004
Location: West Kill, NY
Posts: 2043 |
All of mine have lived indoors and slept wherever they wanted, usually in the bed with my husband and me. They know who hunts them, but they are spoiled pets in the house and eat table scraps and do the prewash on the dishes before they go in the dishwasher. But when my hounds see the light and the boots and the tracking collar come out, they want to hunt and know how to make me feel guilty if one gets left behind.
I don't insist my hounds be particularly obedient, and they will steal human food if they think they can get away with it. Teaches you to put things away. Most hounds can climb on most any counter if no one is supervising.
I have a large fenced yard, and I think they get more exercise running loose in it than they would if they are penned up. All of mine have been unusually fast at field trials, and I think that's why--its not like they were all genetically related. They go in and out whenever they want within reason.
Indoor hounds like to rearrange their bedding a lot. They spin around and move pillows and steal the blankets if you let them sleep in your bed. Helps to give them washable "nesting" material, like towels or old pillows to toss around so they don't rearrange the good stuff or leave you cold in the middle of the night.
They can get some habits that are inconvenient in competition dogs, but that can be curbed if that's what you want. Make sure they get used to a dog box and associate it with getting to hunt so they don't complain about having to ride in one. Make sure they know when they're hunting and when they're not so that they don't tree the Christmas roast smelling good in the oven for hours or bring that fresh killed squirrel from the yard into the bed or steal dirty laundry and bring it in for the dinner guests.. And remember that hounds are loud, so they may make noisy contributions to family conversations if you don't teach them not to.
Hounds learn to read you and you learn to read them if you're a decent houndsman. The more you are around each other, the better you understand each other. Even sitting on the couch with the old hound asleep next to me, its fun to hear the ghost of his dying bawl locate as he's dreaming. You'd never hear that if he was in the kennel.
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