Just over on JR Absher’s “The Outdoor Pressroom” and saw this news from the American Kennel Club.
Apparently the club has added three new breeds to the registry. Of special interest to houndsmen across the country, the list includes the Redbone Coonhound and the Bluetick. Both of these dogs are well known to eastern deer and coon hunters, and they’ve seen some acceptance out here in the west as well.
While I never owned my own pack, I had the pleasure of hunting over them many, many times. I cut my teeth on deer hunting with hounds, and I can still remember those frosty mornings in a North Carolina swamp, listening to the baying and bawling of these dogs on the trail of a whitetail deer.
The third breed is the Boykin Spaniel, a dog I’ve also had some very positive experience with back in South Carolina. The Boykin combines the spirt of a Springer, the nose and pointing ability of a Brittany, and the retrieving instincts of a lab in a compact little bundle of bird hunting mania. It’s a beautiful dog, and well-suited to hunting “Gentleman Bob”, as many outdoors writers have called the bobwhite quail… but his true calling is waterfowl.
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Well Phillip!
There goes the integrity of those three breeds! The AKC has ruined more good bloodlines than a mass genocide (petocide?) could accomplish, and single handedly at that.;-)
With their ridiculous standards (a good working dog is just that! he don’t have to be pretty to be an efficient worker) the AKC have ruined more breeds than you could shake a stick at.
The Jack Russell Terrier is the most recent which comes to mind as the Jack Russell had their own registry, and were excellent working dogs till the AKC got ahold of them.
Things may have changed since I last looked at the registry and if they have changed a little, I hope it was for the better and that they have relaxed some on their breed standards.
I have personally owned Red, Red Nosed Great Danes and all were in excellent physical condition and worked all the way up to the end of their lives.
The AKC will “Not” register a Red Dane! Too bad because besides living a longer life than the average Dane (12-14 years as opposed to the current average of 5-8 years of the AKC model’s) The Reds seem to me to be a bit more intelligent and tractable!
In all fairness to the registry though, the breeders themselves must shoulder the lions share of the blame due to the almighty dollar being more important to them than the overall integrity of their bloodlines.