Hound Dogs - A Hunter's Friend and a Family Pet

Hound dogs are part of a classification of sporting dogs bred to help hunters. They are specialized to track and chase prey. They differ in the way they assist hunters from retrievers and other gun dogs, because they do not point to the animal or retrieve the dead animal. They are instead used as trackers and chasers.

Hound dogs are divided into three major types, each of which is divided into subgroups beyond that. There are several breeds in each subgroup. These groups are generally distinguished by the type of skills that the hound dogs in them use to track their prey.

The first major group into which hound dogs are divided is that of sight hounds. They can also be called gaze hounds. These animals hunt primarily by sight and quick movement. These animals do not normally hunt by smell, and are not known for their endurance over long distances. They are, however, very agile. Sight houngs have flexible spines and long legs, generally possess a deep chest, large heart, and lungs capable of processing the amount of air they need to maintain their speed. Sight hounds' lean bodies are generally light and maintain little fat, sacrificing it all for muscle. These animals are capable of detecting even tiny movements, and then run down their prey, overpowering and outdistancing it. Sight hounds are also used in such sports as coursing and racing, to capitalize on their speed. One sight hound breed is the greyhound.

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Scent hounds, on the other hand, are not know for being fast or agile. They are endurance runners which track their prey by smell. They can follow a trail for many miles without tiring, and have the most sensitive noses among all dogs. Scent hounds usually have long ears, large noses and loose lips. These all help the dog gather the scent from the air and make it easier for this animal to track its prey. Bloodhounds are an example of these hound dogs. For a long time, these animals were famously used by police to track criminals, as well as being used for more conventional hunting. While there are tricks to put these animals off the scent, short of those, they cannot be lured away. The last kind of hound is that which hunts both by scent and by sight, but these are quite rare.

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