The power of the dog/The Bloodhound
"I have seen all things pass and all men go, under
the shadow of the drifting leaf."
Fiona Macleod.
BLOODHOUND
"Cui Bono"
Owned hy Mrs. Burnett Burn
THE BLOODHOUND
And hark! and hark! the deep-mouthed bark
Comes nigher stilly and nigher;
Bursts on the path a dark bloodhound,
His tawny muzzle tracked the ground,
And his red eye shot fire.
Scott.
OF all the Saints in the calendar the sportsman has most reason to remember the goodly Abbot of the Ardennes, St. Hubert, after whom were named two strains of mighty hounds, the black and the white. Devotion to the memory of the founder of the Abbey induced successive Abbots to cherish the hounds, from which are descended the line varieties found in France and Great Britain unto this day. William the Conqueror had the honour of introducing the bloodhound into this country, where he has remained ever since under several styles—-lyme hound, sleuth hound, etc. Right down the pages of history we find him popping up, sometimes with sinister import, as when he nearly succeeded in bringing Robert Bruce into the hands of his pursuers. The fugitive escaped by the familiar device of wading along a burn:
Rycht to the burn thai passet ware,
Bot the sleuth-hound made stinting thar,
And waueryt lang type ta and fra,
That he na certain gate couth ga;
Till at the last that John of Lorn
Perseuvit the hund the sleuth had lorne.
So hard a-dying are old prejudices that unto this day this noble hound, gentlest of his kind, is regarded with a kind of awe. Time after time have I known a lady pet and fondle one, with the the remark, "What a beautiful creature. What kind of dog is he?" and when she has heard the dread name she has recoiled in fear. It is useless to tell her that one rarely sees a bad tempered bloodhound, that they are the kindliest mannered gentlemen that ever walked. She thinks of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and associates the name in some way with a thirst for blood. That is sufficient.
In modern times the uses of the bloodhound, when properly applied, are wholly beneficent. Those marvellous scenting faculties of his, which astonish all who see them at their fullest development, may aid in bringing a criminal to justice or in discovering the whereabouts of a wanderer lost in the wilds. The hound little recks of the task to which he is being put. His not to reason why. Ask him to unravel the intricacies of an invisible track left by the body scent of a person who may have passed many hours earlier, and, if he be well trained, down goes his nose, and he will follow yard by yard until the missing one is found. This is no imaginative picture conjured up by excessive devotion. That the thing can be done has been demonstrated times without number, and if there are failures, as failures there must be, we should not blame the hound so much as those who have had his education in hand. The instinct is present in practically all, although, naturally, it is more fully developed in some than others. All that is needed is for man to draw it out by his knowledge of hound work, aided by patience. It would be just about as stupid to expect a beginner to work a line eighteen hours cold as it would to chide a year-old infant for tumbling in his earliest essays to stand alone. Line upon line, precept upon precept. First a short distance, hot upon the footsteps of the runner; then further afield and with a longer interval elapsing, until you may despatch the quarry over night and ask the hound in the morning to show you where he has been. As a further refinement in the educative processes the line may be crossed here and there by strangers, with the intent of teaching the tracker to discriminate between the true and the false. If he is worth his keep his sensitive olfactory nerves will have stored up impressions of the original scent which never can be effaced by any attempts to foil the track.
One of the great advantages of keeping a bloodhound is that the delicacies of hound work may be observed without the infliction of cruelty upon another animal, and at a small expense. At the same time one has the pleasure of feeling that in his possession is an agent that may on occasion aid the police in tracing the whereabouts of a criminal, or in restoring a lost child to his home. Country gentlemen especially, with large estates, might find a couple of bloodhounds more potent protection against the depredations of poachers than several keepers. I have heard of an estate in Ireland being entirely freed from this nuisance at very little cost. For companionship a bloodhound is more suited to the country than a town. Unless to the manner born, he is not as handy in avoiding traffic as dogs which are in the habit of relying upon their eyes and ears. His nose instinctively is near the ground, and unless your attention is on him he might easily blunder under motor or cart. If taken in hand when young he is as amenable to discipline as any other breed, and, owing to his affectionate disposition, he will become deeply attached to master or mistress.
