Never have understood the difference that other people talk about I guess the reason being most of the dogs I have owned that was consistent in field trials were good pleasure dogs, something that could get after a piece of game & run it & had the desire to stay after it. Really can't even think of a hound that was hard to beat every time u ran against it that wasn't like this. I have seen hounds that might win a hunt but may not even get their name called at the next 10 they compete in I don't call that a good field trial hound & more than likeiy not a good pleasure dog either

I've seen some that place 10 times, couldnt run one out of site, stand in the road an head them off. Not a good pleasure hound always messin race up.

Well said LA Hunter. Judges need to be paying att to the numbers that are running beside them in the road evry few mins.

Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about but I'd almost bet u boys can't find 1 outta 10 judges that will score a dog that does this!

Seen them judge this way at Masters!!

Well someone must be doing it. I mean lol come on.

Now come-on u boys don't even know ur own name so how could I believe what u have supposed to of seen! I know what I saw at this last Masters I saw my butt get outrun & probaly yours too!

I'm with Whitey on this one. They better be able to handle the track and do it with a fair amount of speed to consistantly score in the trials I go to. Sure if they get cut on they better know how to get back in but once they get hooked up they need to know how to run a track! I was not at the Masters so I don't know what happened there but I have been to the Big Valley and cutting in the road might get you a crossing at the next judge but it sure won't get you a score where it happened! Have a nice day! Mitch

depends on what you think a good plesure hound is. in a pen if they get in the road they can get back in the race but on the outside where i hunt. if they get in the road they will never get back in the race. if you dont mind them doing that keep them. if you do get rid of them. happy hunting

WHITEY THERE IS ONE BIG DIFFERENCE AND YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS.....A GOOD TRIAL HOUND DONT HAVE TO KNOW WHERE HOME IS A PLEASURE HOUND DOES.... NOT COMING HOME IS A FAULT SOME DIDNT EVEN KNEW EXISTED...IF THEY DONT COME HOME HERE THEY DONT HAVE A HOME....IT IS A PLEASURE NOT TO GO GET ONE.....EVEN IN A PEN..

ONE MORE THING TO ADD I HAVE JUDGED SEVERAL HUNTS FOR SEVERAL YEARS AND NEVER HAVE I EVER SCORED A ROAD RUNNING HOUND A CUTTING HOUND OR A HAZING HOUND IF HE ISNT RUNNING HIS GAME HE GETS NOTHING...AND RIGHT NOW YOU CANT HARDLY GET ME TO JUDGE A HUNT AT ALL BECAUSE I DONT LIKE BEING USED FOR A POOR HOUNDS EXCUSE.....

I guess one example of a good pleasure hound that would not make a good field trial dog is one that is slow but the owner is a good shot and carries a gun. A hound like that may win under national rules but I don't think he could compete at the masters level.
I think that some who are commenting on this subject are confusing field trials with speed and drive hunts. It seems to me that the judges are more liberal with the road runners at speed and drive hunts. Also every Judge has a different opinion and likes a different type of hound which makes it hard to lump them together when commenting on how hounds are judged.

Now Howard, why you whoopin on the Nationals? Just have to stir something don't you, lol.
We have owned some good field trial hounds that wasn't worth a flip at pleasure hunting. My partner Richie owned a gip he called Freak. On Friday night you very seldom ever saw her or heard her, she always ran independent, and was extremely tight mouthed. What made it even worse was she was tough as nails too. She would run all night and the next morning you would have to catch her with the tracking machine because she would be tailgating a coyote somewhere and not saying a word. But, when you put her with 200 dogs and stamped a number on her she would bark every breath and could drive a piece of game. I bet she placed in the top 4 at 4 or 5 3-days and was in the top 2 or 3 at least 6 1-days.

What confuses me about good hounds is the total opposite that Whitey speaks of, an exceptional pleasure hound with lots of speed, nose, sense, and endurance that can't score anything in a hunt with hounds they make look rediculous on Friday night. If Yall figure that one out send me the recipe

Come on PP, I know you can make a poem out of this!!!

I agree Mr Whitey...... Seen some of the best home plate judging at the Masters this year that I have seen in a while. A judge that beat the bushes to score what was running the game. As with all trials, crossings are going to be missed. Just a fact of life..... Hope the SC boys have recovered from the whooping down there and don't have hard feelings... Happens to everybody at some point

Pleasure hunting is great sport and to the Hunters that still have a place to do this I envy you. In talking though I would like to mention this. When you are hunting in your favorite hunting area you may hunt a dog for 3 yrs in the same spot, he knows every crook and nanny, every short cut, every steep hill, every gulley to skirt. He was born there and ran his life there, maybe you have two are three spots like this to hunt him all his life.
Dogs that go cross country to Trials don't have this advantage, they are thrown into some of the greatest competition in the World, with a few dogs having a home pen advantage, and they have to perform. If they get thrown out, they don't know the nooks and cranneys, they have to get back to the front best they can.They have 3 days to understand things and beat the home town hounds in the process, quite a feet to accomplish. Learn the pen, in three days and beat the Top competition. Think about it.
You have heard old timers say when they bought a new dog you had to give him a few hunts to get use to the territory, that meant let him learn your huting grounds.
I would venture to say, take hounds from the Green Swamp, Red Hill, Grenada Ms. Blackwater Preserve, and some of the other better outside places, take these good pleasure hounds, put them in a strange pen with some of the best field trial hounds in the country, and you will see them in the road in three days more than you want to. does this mean they are bad dogs, no, run them there a month and you want see the good ones in the road nearly as much.
Just my experiences

btt

Sorry Mr. Whitey maybe your hounds are that good. But I have seen what we call " A field trial special" lots of times around these parts. As a matter of fact I hate to say it but we owned one before. His name was Lil' Mama's Shadow D. he was FAST and hardly ever opened his mouth. For field trialing he was great to quote ol Mr. Ox Edge "Boys that can't cover what they can't hear". That was Shadow. He won for us little over $1500 in one years time. If you took him to an all night Fox Race you would never even know he was there till morning.

On the other side there was a hound one time Uncle Earl had called Blaze. He had a good hard course chop mouth and could smell one in a dust pile. He had good speed with plenty of heart. I know Uncle Earl took him to Four 3day hunts and never HGA'D him. Now you give me pickings choice and I will choose ol Blaze anyday of the week and 3 times on Friday night!

Now yes I have seen a few hounds that could do both, Yes I have owned a few hounds that was born with that gift to Field Trial and be a good Pleasure hound. But I would say the odds of this is very slim.

On the judges scoring dogs I will say the hound that wins the little (f) beside there name 75% of the time the hound that gets 3rd to 7th place in the field is probally the better hounds, (there the ones driving the yote). I have seen judges score dogs that snatch in the road ahead dogs get the 35 lots a times.

I realize that I have not been in the game as long as you but I have been around hunting all my life I have seen a bunch of hounds and judged lots of hunts and seems to me like this " HYPOWERED" breeding has just about runt foxhunting, or at least the way we try to foxhunt here. I was raised ol School and plan on staying ol school. TO quote Mr. Don Willis " Fieldtrialing today is the biggest crap shot to judge hounds in the world" Very true in my humble opinion. We don't really judge for the best hound we judge for the one who can run the quickest to the crossing, which bring another quote to my mind from Joe Gibson " I had rather beat you away from the crossing".

With all this said I do feel there is a differnce in Field Trial Hounds and Pleasure hounds as a Whole.

True Grit Kennel,
Etowah Co.
Kyle Blakeley

After reading all the replys sounds to me that cunning running needs to be put back in. But a lot of hunters will not vote in based on their hounds.

steve, i understand what you are saying and i do not have a problem with a dog taking a road to get back to a race. i do have a problem with a dog staying in the road and heading off the game, run it 200 yards maybe and back in the road to head off another pack. we do not scatch these hounds at major hunts. i think that should be change in the rule book or if it is in the rule book then we need to enforce it. also, how are you and your dad doing. hope everything is good. lh

I wonder if we are good enough to be able to sort out the dogs that are using the road to get back to the race and the ones that are in the road trying to catch the game in a vulnerable position.

In Steve's example about a hound taken to strange hunting grounds, this hound should naturally be in the road alot trying to get back to the race after he is cut on by the hounds that know the pen and know where the crossings are. I don't thnk that hound would be in trouble for gettng scratched.
The hounds in their "home pen" would be in danger of getting scratched because they are prone to run to a crossing to get in the race instead of running to the race.
For example, I saw Lakehill's Ike several times busting through the woods at the Carolina Running Pen during the World Cup when it was there. You could hear him coming a long way off like a deer busting through a thicket. He was going straight to the race because he didn't know the roads or trails that would take him where he wanted to go. A lot of hounds will just run the road and hope to end up near the race but he ran straight to the race without using a road or even a trail. Even if he had used a road, he wouldn't have been "pen smart" enough at that pen to know how to try to head off the game ahead of the pack.
On the other end of the spectrum, we had every single one of our hounds scratched at the Heart of Dixie in Elba, AL one year for "Failure to Hark". These hounds had been run in that pen just about every week of there life and sometimes twice a week. They knew how to get ahead after they got cut. As best I can remember, the judges at that hunt marked down every time they saw a hound going down the road "away" from a race and if a hound had three strikes they scratched him. All we can figure is that the hounds were going to the next crossing to meet the game instead of going to the pack. They were going to where they knew the game was going, not to where the pack currently was. I think that is what some folks would like to see scratched. I'm not against it, but if you do it I think you instantly turn a "home field advantage" into a "home field liability". If you scratch the hounds that try to hit the scent of the game ahead of the pack (cutting) then you will most likely wipe out the majority of the hounds that have been run regularly in the pen where the hunt is being held. What will save the others is that they don't know the pen well enough to cut the race ahead af the pack.

Just to make it clear,
I was not bad mouthing the National hunts. Just saying that a slow hound can win a National rules hunt with hunting and trailing by scoring enough speed and drive to get endurance. Using Masters rules, a slow hound is unlikely to win.
Both sets of rules have their place.

ps. Bird......I can get in enough trouble without your help

Whitey, Good post. Food for thought AND indigestion.
Got to agree with you that the best competition hounds are generally the best pleasure hounds. That's been my experience. I'm a pleasure hunter who field trials a few times a year (and my field trial record will attest to that}. However, what success I have had in trialing, has been with the hounds that ran best all night or all day with my buddies.
Trialing works against track running hounds unless they are very fast or there's a lot of game and yes, occasionally there's a hound that does great in one but lousy in the other, but most times your best hound is your best hound under all circumstances.
Thanks for kicking off a good discussion.

heath, i help judge a few hunts every year and it does not take you very long into the hunt to see the dogs that stay in the roads or opening to head off the game. they are comeing by you on a regular basis and not trying to get in a race. in my opinion these need to be scatch.

Hillbilly, Thanks for taking 25 years off my life. Back in the day, before pens and tracking collars, the first question you asked about a hound was ' Will he come home?'. No other qualities justified keeping a poor homer.
Never minded a 'one-man dog' because they were a lot less likely to get intercepted on the way home. Probably why you've stuck with Julys.

I've never had the pleasure to be able to turn out from my pens. But you can bet I learned long ago about carrying an extra heavy shirt to leave where we did turn out, if I had to leave one.

Is " Flanking" considered a fault worth scratching for in these big hunts. I hunt on the outside mostly running deer. My best ones can make one change zipcodes and they do it this way. One or two will have it and the others are on either side waiting for it. Never any slack.

Pound Puppy I'm always willing and ready to help my freinds in a time of need.