Red Fox Is the Only Quarry at Keswick---By Choice!

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Hounds

By Norman Fine

Keswick huntsman Tony Gammell  /  Liz Callar photoHuntsman Tony Gammell at the Keswick Hunt (VA) has developed a pack of American foxhounds that hunts the red fox and only the red fox. No gray fox, coyote, deer, or any other woodland creature.

Why wouldn’t he want to hunt gray fox? I wondered. Yes, they run short and tight with more jinks and double-backs, but they make hounds work for every inch of sport. It can be fun to watch. And even assuming he has good reason for not hunting gray fox, how does he teach hounds to ignore the line? I collared him at the recent MFHA Staff Seminar and asked, and I got more hound wisdom than I bargained for.

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Southern Hound Show

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Hounds

By Daphne Wood, MFH

Grand Champion Live Oak Hannibal 2009 (Live Oak Hasty '06--Their Asset '03)   /  Jim Meads photoThe sixth annual Southern Hound Show, held on April 28, 2012 at Live Oak Plantation, Monticello, Florida was once again blessed with perfect weather. Ten packs from as far away as Tennessee and Palm Beach competed under the watchful eyes of Richard Sumner, MFH of the Heythrop Hunt in England and Dennis Foster, Executive Director of the MFHA. Robert Ferrer, MFH of the Caroline Hunt was apprentice judge.

English, American, Crossbred, and Penn-Marydels all show in one ring against each other. As there are two Crossbred rings at the Virginia Foxhound Show (based on number of hounds in kennel), this is the only occasion that Fox River Valley, Live Oak, Midland, and Mooreland go head to head in every class.

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How Maryland Prepares Hounds for the "Big Time"

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Hounds

By C. Thompson Pardoe, MFH

Penn-Marydel Champion Mount Carmel Mandolin with (l-r) kennelman Nancy Morris and handler Allen Forney  /  Karen Kandra Wenzel photoFor thirty-seven years now on the “first Sunday after the first Saturday in May,” foxhunters from the Mid-Atlantic region have gathered to display and compare the results of their breeding programs for the past year. Initiated by Dr. Roger Scullin, MFH, Howard County-Iron Bridge Hounds (MD) in an effort to better prepare young hounds for the *big* shows in Virginia and Bryn Mawr, the Maryland Foxhound Club Puppy Show has grown to now having representatives from nearly all Maryland packs, both recognized and private, several Virginia packs, and many from Pennsylvania. This year the show even attracted hounds from as far away as New York state. In all, nearly two hundred hounds were entered.

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Brazos Valley M-Line Is Unbeatable

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Hounds

By Norman Fine

Sandy Dixon, MFH and huntsman and Brazos Valley Meadow 2006  /  Greg Germann photoWhen Sandy Dixon put her Brazos Valley Catfish 2006 to a Potomac-bred bitch that she entered as Brazos Valley Meadow 2006, it was no chance encounter. Dixon knew what she was doing. She is Master and huntsman of the Brazos Valley Hunt (TX), and her success as a breeder of hound show winners was already established.

With this breeding, Dixon was starting with good material. Catfish was Grand Champion of the Southwest Hound Show three years running: 2007, 2008, and 2009. On the distaff side, Potomac-bred Meadow brought a few credentials of her own.

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