Ringside scenes from the world’s most important show for working pack hounds! Thanks for your patience!
To see Part One of our coverage, click here. Two see Part Two, click here.
The show’s modern foxhound results are here. Old English foxhound results are here.
And the houndbloggers offer many hearty thanks to Creative Commons, the Free Music Archive, and composers Kevin MacLeod and Jonah Dempcy for use of their wonderful music.
Full Cry: A Hound Blog 
I’m purty far inland, so “Irene” is not supposed to do much where I am in N. C.(midstate) luckily. And “functional” is healthier? WHAT a concept! If only the AKC conformation gang could get that! I have been to some UKC trailhound “shows”, where the emphasis is definetely more on function than the “bench shows”, so I guess all us Uhmurikans ain’t quite so useless yet. How long that will last since the AKC conformation folks have finally discovered their country’s own indeginous hound breeds is anybody’s guess, though……
Functional Bassets AND Bloodhounds AND Otter/Mink hounds; and they all look WAY better, in my opinion, to U. S. conformation show hounds of the same breeds. But I think the only way this could ever get through to the show folks in America, is by hostile takover. In which case, call me a Tory!….L.B.
Hey, great to hear from you, Lane! I agree with you. I much prefer the looks of the working varieties, and I like that these animals are bred for function, which I think tends to make them healthier. Delighted to see you here and hope you’ll keep sending in thoughts on hounds. Also hope you’re battening down the hatches and staying safe for Irene–I seem to remember you’re in my home state of NC?
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Two things immediately struck me, having never even heard of this kind of dog show before reading your blog.
1) I love the more relaxed atmosphere with dogs running all over the place and even jumping out of the ring without penalties or incident. They look like they’re having a great time.
2) The working bassets are so different from the pet ones I see at work (vet clinic). They can run! And have a sparkle in their eye! Not like they want to sleep all the time.
Very cool. I’d like to go to something like this one day.
Hello and welcome, Suzy! You’ve hit on two points that often strike first-time visitors to a working hound show. Regarding the bassets, it’s truly remarkable how different hunting bassets generally look as compared to show bassets or the Hush Puppies basset–most notably, their legs tend to be longer and straighter. If you’re interested to see the bassets in action, you can find some videos on this site of the Sandanona Harehounds working in a pack. They’re understandably slower than the foxhounds, but they can MOVE.
To me, the great thing about the working hound shows is just that: they’re for working hounds. Conformation matters, but you can see that, to judges and huntsmen alike, the emphasis is on form for function, not just for form’s sake. Anyway, we like hound shows–but admittedly not as much as we enjoy being out in the country with hounds!
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