This article was originally published in Showsight Magazine, February 2014 issue.
Black and Tan Coonhounds are very good family dogs. They are very laid back and will be equally happy taking a walk with their owner or keeping the owner company while watching TV. Being a hunting breed, Black and Tan Coonhounds do equally well living in the house or living outdoors in a fenced area. Their short, dense coat requires minimum maintenance. They can be vocal if you have squirrels in your yard, or if your neighbor has cats that tease them. If they are not kept in a fenced area, they will tend to follow their nose which can get them into trouble. Black and Tan Coonhounds are a versatile breed developed primarily for hunting raccoons. However, their desire to work with man makes them suitable for companion events such as tracking, obedience, and agility. Bob Urban states, ‘The traditional “Old Fashioned” AKC Black and Tan typically has a distinctive hunting style that is different from that of the “hotter nosed”, foxhound-based coonhound breeds. They tend to be more deliberate in their scenting style and are not typically the type of hound that “hits the ground running”.
They are willing and capable of working an older (colder) track and sticking with it to its conclusion, even to the point of passing up fresher (hotter) tracks they may run across. While this tendency may not endear them to the competitive “nite hunter”, they can excel as a pleasure hunting hound, giving free voice with a deep “bawl” as they work to unravel the path that their quarry has taken. This type of hound has the added benefit of picking up their lessons thoroughly, once learned and seldom need refreshers in the field to remind them of what they are there for. They tend to be easy hounds to handle and call in, seldom requiring high tech gadgetry such as GPS tracking collars and the like to keep tabs on their whereabouts while in the woods. As with many hounds, they can be jealous and possessive at the tree and may attempt to “own it”, to the exclusion of other hounds that they may have been cast with.’ I would like to present a couple of examples of notable obedience coonhounds. The first was CH McDaniel’s Sugarfoot UDT who was owned and trained by Jim McDaniel.
Sugarfoot earned her UD in 1981 and became the first Coonhound to earn a UD, the first AKC Champion Coonhound to earn a UD and the first Coonhound to earn OTCH points. She earned at least 1 High In Trial at an all-breed obedience trial along the way. Another Coonhound to earn the UD title was Schudaben Kodies Kid UD, ‘Ben’ who was owned and trained and hunted by Mable Ziegler. While Ben was not an AKC champion, he was actively hunted proving that one dog can do both hunt and compete in obedience. In 1995 Ben was invited to AKC’s first National Invitational Obedience Championship which was held in St. Louis on June 17 & 18, 1995. Ben placed 3rd overall in the Hound group at this event. Karen Winn states, ‘Rally Obedience is an ideal way to start competing with a Black & Tan Coonhound. The introductory level, Rally Novice, is all on leash, and has simple obedience exercises that any well-behaved dog should be able to do—heeling at various speeds, turning, circling, sitting and staying, lying down on command, and so on.
In Rally Novice competitions you can talk to your dog, pat your leg, and clap your hands to keep their attention, making it an ideal way to initiate the dog into obedience competition. Two Black and Tan Coonhounds have completed the AKC Master Agility Champion (MACH) title. They are MACH Indigo Mark V Spitfire MXB MJS and MACH Sloopy MX MXS MXJ MJB. Teresa Locatelli, who is currently competing in agility, writes, ‘If you want to spend some fun time with your coonhound, try agility. Even if you don’t want to compete, training is fun.’ She continues by saying, ‘Your first obstacle is to find a trainer that realizes a coonhound is not a border collie. Unlike the herding dogs and terrier in my agility class, I can’t send my coonhound through the weave poles three times in a row. If she does it right the first time, she doesn’t get the point of repeating the same thing, and she will get slower the second time and shut down on the third time.’ I emphasize the history of the Black and Tan being trainable in both obedience and agility so that people will realize that these dogs make excellent family pets.
They are excellent with children. Since Black and Tans were bred to hunt raccoons, they are a bit impervious to pain. This means that a toddler or small child who accidentally hurts a coonhound is not likely to get snapped at. Samantha, my youngest daughter, started showing dogs in fun matches at the age of six. I gave her one of my grown Coonhounds, CH Rockytop Mountain Moonshine CDX, to handle. Samantha had to reach under Shine to set his legs that were not next to her because she could not reach them over his back. She took first place at one fun match—she was the smallest junior with the biggest dog.
Shine was very patient with his young handler! They are also excellent watchdogs, alerting you (and the rest of the neighborhood) when there is a stranger in the vicinity. I lived in Huntsville for 13 years, and I thought we just lived in a good section of town. There was never any crime on our street. About a month after we moved to Gurley, Alabama, several of the cars up and down our former neighborhood were broken into. My coonhounds, who lived in the backyard, kept the neighborhood safe all that time by causing the burglars to find quieter neighborhoods to vandalize.
