Hounds
Sleek, agile, and sometimes loud!
Hounds are a dog breed category that includes sight hounds like greyhounds and Irish wolfhounds and scent hounds like basset hounds and bloodhounds. Hounds have been used as hunting dogs for centuries and while hunters still head out to the field with their baying gun dog companions, hounds make great family dogs as well.
Popular Hunting Hound Breeds
Beagles
Beagles have a reputation for being house dogs, but beagles, under the command of even young houndsmen, are great for hunting rabbits. They love to chase and flush bunnies to give hunters a better shot.
Foxhounds
Amazingly, American foxhounds are great at chasing deer. Unlike treeing or baying hounds, foxhounds are bred to run and to keep the quarry running. While foxhounds do still love to bay, they love the chase too!
Plott Hounds
Plott hounds are also part of the coonhound family descending from foxhounds. Though they’ve only been an official American Kennel Club (AKC) breed since 2006, the plott hound has a long history of hunting in America. Plott hounds are courageous with good stamina, making them great when face to face with bears and boars.
Cross-Bred Hounds
Cross-bred hounds are a mixture of various hound breeds bred together with the focus being on creating a well-performing dog to a well-performing dog, versus staying within a single breed. This is more popular in the western U.S. for big game hounds versus competition raccoon hounds seen on the east coast.
Bluetick Coonhounds
Coonhound breeds like blueticks are known to be great at pursuing big game like cougars and bears due to their amazing capability to pick up scents that were left by animals days before (cold noses). Original descendants of the English foxhound, bluetick coonhounds can track mountain lions for long distances before catching them on cliffs or in trees. They are still used in raccoon hunting competitions as that’s what they were originally named after!