4 THE AMERICAN FOXHOUND 



They will thus become familiar with the country and learn to 

 take care of themselves. They should have been taught by this 

 time to come to the horn, which can be done in a few lessons by 

 blowing a few blasts when starting out for exercise, or at 

 feeding time. The horn should never be used except when it 

 means something. Some hunters keep up an almost continuous 

 tooting of the horn. This I consider very objectionable, as the 

 liounds sooner or later are apt to reach a point where they pay 

 no attention to it. When the trainer is moving and the hounds 

 are casting about the country for a trail, an occasional blast 

 from the horn may be given that the hounds may know the 

 direction the trainer is taking. As the puppies grow older and 

 stronger they should be taken over a wider territory until they 

 liave become familiar with the country over which they will 

 soon be expected to run. If this is done young dogs are not apt 

 to get lost when hunting, as is almost sure to occur when inex- 

 perienced hounds are hunted in a strange neighborhood. In this 

 way a great deal of trouble and worry may be averted, as all 

 ti-ainers have more or less experience looking up lost puppies, 

 some of which are never found. 



When eight or nine months old their training on gray foxes or 

 a drag may begin. This should be done with a pack of trained 

 liounds not too fast. If a drag is to be used it should be a fresh 

 fox hide, and experience has taught the writer that this is a very 

 satisfactory way by which to start puppies to running. It 

 should be dragged in circles about as a fox would run. A great 

 many trained hounds will not run a drag, but in a pack there 

 will generally be found one or more that will, and these should 

 be taken out with the puppies. They should have from one to 

 tliree hours of this kind of work two or three times a week. 

 Quite a number of fox-hunters advocate the training of puppies 

 on rabbits, but I think the gray fox or drag (fox liide) preferable, 

 as breaking young hounds from chasing rabbits, when the time 

 comes to train them on foxes, is usually the most difficult task 

 and trying experience the trainer will encounter in training a 

 pack of young hounds. True a small minority will stop chasing 

 rabbits of their own accord as soon as they become familiar with 

 tlie scent of a fox, but the vast majority will give all kinds of 

 trouble till they are two or even three years old. But I have 

 found that if given their first lesson on foxes — or fox hide — they 

 i-arely care to chase rabbits ever afterward. 



