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Hello! I apologize in advance if this has been discussed in previous messages.. I did a search for basically the same as my topic title is but most of what I found were just people asking basically whether they should or should not breed their dogs and a lot of other info in between.
I've checked some of the articles and such to see if they really answered anything I'm really wondering about but didn't find anything (they seemed to deal mostly with temperament and physical confirmation.)
I've said so before in a post, but I'll say it again.. I don't own a hound yet. I'd like to get one but as of now haven't gotten one, I'm just learning. Truthfully, I have no intention of breeding, but I still tend to wonder about it so thought I'd ask just because.
I don't expect anyone to type out a long post on breeding or anything like that, I was just wondering a few things.
Firstly, I wondered if there is anywhere I could go and easily find information on basically everything involving hound hunting (I'm mainly aiming for "Styles" i guess you'd call them.. As I've noticed some mention different dogs having different types of hunting like.. Close or deep hunting, loud or silent (hard or soft?) mouth, a stay put dog (I'm assuming this is the opposite of dogs I've heard who will go from tree to tree as a squirrel or coon jumps or "Timbers"? I'm sure there are a lot more but being new to it- I don't know them all off hand.) For example, something that describes each type of hunting style, dominant and recessive traits, etc.
Also.. How much of the hunting style is genetic, and how much can be trained into a dog (i.e. even if the dog may come from a lineage of non-hunters- could you train it to possibly be at least mediocre as a hunter?) I understand you would want a dog with papers that comes from a good pedigree and so on if you were to breed- it's just something I'm curious about.
I am relatively familiar with genetics, it is actually a subject I enjoy studying. But most of my familiarity is with chickens (i.e. I am a fourth generation poultry breeder, I've had birds all of my life) and with those I have found by books and observation almost everything about them is genetic.. The way they walk, stand, how deep or high their voice, their length of crow; their egg laying capability, their health, temperaments, basically everything about them for the most part can be selected for and produce most things naturally through selective breeding.
I'm not sure how much of this would apply to dogs however. I've heard some people say a dog from a good bloodline taken into the woods just tends to "catch on." I've heard other people say that good breeding doesn't just "pop out coonhounds, it takes a lot of hard work an training." But, I haven't a clue who these people were (just people I ran across) and for all I know they may not have known a thing about breeding and could have been new to hounds themselves (they may not have even had a hound. A lot of people on the internet like to pretend to be experts even when they're not.)
Like I said, not really looking to breed any myself (I have no hounds for one reason; obviously I know nothing about breeding hounds so breeding them wouldn't be the best decision; etc.) I'm just curious, I enjoy learning new things and like I mentioned; genetics is a subject I enjoy learning about.
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