Questions Over Drought, Deluge, and Hounds’ Noses

Martin Scott, leading foxhound breeder, discusses how far changing weather patterns should be taken into account when seeking a future outcross

DRY scenting autumns followed by glutinous wet winters have become the norm over the last 30 years. In my hunting diary for autumn 1976, I wrote that not a drop of rain had fallen since June 26. The land was bone-dry and dusty, the wind whistling in from the north-east. Apart from a little light drizzle, the drought was not broken until September 11. I was hunting then in a well-foxed country, the Tiverton, and hounds had caught 29 foxes in the first 14 days of the season. After the rains that number nearly doubled; after 40 days it trebled.

Last season was been even more difficult, for two reasons. First, the drought did not break until after the Opening Meet (and what rain did fall made little difference to scent until mid-November). Secondly, many countries were reporting a lack of foxes. When the rains came and scenting improved, lack of foxes could not be blamed on poor scent, and, if it continued, would be a serious concern. But really good hunts are not expected until travelling foxes are found—those amorous, straight-running dog foxes out courting far from home.

Since this weather pattern of dry and difficult scenting autumns followed by heavy rains seems to have set in, hound breeders are discussing whether they should change their breeding policies to reflect it. Should they, for instance, attempt to improve hounds’ noses for the autumn, at the expense of other qualities? It is an interesting question, and deserves investigation.

Packs of hounds hunt as a team, rather than as individuals. So it is that some attributes are essential to all packs as a whole, but not to every hound—among them nose, voice, stamina, pace and drive. However, if any one of these attributes were to be placed above the others in importance by breeders, then the whole pack could risk losing one of its vital ingredients. Say, for example, breeders were to neglect cry. The result would be a mute pack filled with individual, jealous animals, each doing his, or her, own thing. As England’s Rugby Internationals have stressed, despite the prowess of Johnnie Wilkinson, success was due to teamwork—and so it is with a pack of hounds.

What is important for hounds in difficult scenting seasons is to be allowed to learn their work, and to gain experience and sagacity by being allowed to hunt unaided. Then, when scent improves, as it generally does, they will really shine. A huntsman who bustles his pack along, lifting them rather than leaving them to work things out for themselves, will find that even hounds with superior noses will fail to use them.

Before World War Two, Hunts bred large entries of hounds, mainly because only one-third survived the ravages of distemper and other canine diseases. Inoculations, and the resulting survival figures, have almost guaranteed that the best workers will be available for breeding. Thus the foxhound has improved and, in particular, its nose has coped with the changes resulting from modern farming. However, this improvement in breeding may have created it own problems, increasing infertility in particular.

One reason for this infertility could be that, during the last 50 years, more and more packs have line-bred back to the same blood, and thus the foxhound gene pool has been much reduced. Line-breeding lets breeders maintain a level pack which can run up together, but it is in fact a form of inbreeding. Whether the two are connected, I am unsure.

Nevertheless, the decreasing gene pool has stimulated the search for new blood to use as outcrosses—and in trying these outcrosses foxhound breeders have looked especially for hounds with superior nose. The late, great, Captain Ronnie Wallace MFH recognised the first signs of this problem more than 25 years ago, and began to experiment with outcrosses to increase the gene pool.

From my own experience in breeding the Vale of White Horse hounds, I have benefited from three different outcross sources. Hounds with the best noses, especially in dry conditions, have come from Virginia with the blood of Old Dominion Gorgeous 68, sent to Captain Wallace at the Exmoor in the 1960s by an American MFH, Bill Brainard. My second outcross came from Blencathra Glider 76, introduced to the South of England by Tim Unwin, then Joint Master and huntsman at the Cotswold, and from this the blood of Cotswold Glencoyne 84 has spread to many kennels today, notably the Heythrop.

My hill hound blood came from the College Valley, two outstanding bitches being entered in 1969. More recently I have bred from offspring of College Valley/North Northumberland blood (one hound having both an American line to Old Dominion Gorgeous 68 and a line to Blencathra Glider 76). In Yorkshire, the Middleton has also found this blood useful. At the Duke of Beaufort’s, Captain Ian Farquhar (wary of allowing his Welsh crosses, which have performed brilliantly, to mate with the hill hound) has returned for a fresh infusion of Welsh blood. Recently he has used David Davies Bouncer 94 with great success.

Several English packs now have the American blood of Ben Hardaway’s Midland hounds, from Georgia in the Deep South. This is an amazing pack, every type of hound having been tried over the last 35 years. Hardaway’s eclectic blending of the old July strain with hill hound blood from West Waterford and College Valley has produced some wonderful crossbred hounds—and over here the Cottesmore, Bicester with Whaddon Chase, Cotswold and Cattistock all seem to have benefited this season from their unusual outcross, as have many packs in North America and Australia.

What is to me a worrying development is that, since the coyote has spread all across the American hunting countries, most packs of hounds there are now crossbred (mixing American and English blood). Literally only a few true American packs remain—11 at the last count. Will they lose the nose for which they are noted? The threat is real.

Our own Old English lines have also been used in the present-day search for an outcross, and can now be found in pedigrees at Exmoor, Heythrop and Berkeley, among others. Captain Wallace used the Old English blood of the Limerick to add toughness to the Exmoor. Hounds having new infusions of French blood have also been a success, notably in the Duke of Buccleuch’s pack, which has shown that their Dumfries-Fell crosses have the extra ingredient of voice and nose as well as drive.

Which of these outcrosses will ultimately be the most successful can be discovered only in time. What is certain is that, if experienced Masters and huntsmen fail to experiment, progress cannot be made and the foxhound breed will suffer. Of course, using an outcross by no means guarantees success—in my opinion only 50% are likely to work—but they are essential to the future of the breed as a whole.

Choosing blood for an outcross is not easy; it involves long hours of study, visits to other Kennels, and a large element of risk. Those who take the plunge should not be condemned for their efforts, no matter how odd they might seem at first. Failures will happen. But where would our present-day foxhounds be without the blood of Carmarthenshire Nimrod 1924, himself a double outcross? Every blue mottle foxhound in an English pack today will have at least one line back to Nimrod, and probably more.