Treeing Walker Coonhound
The
stray hunting
dog bounced right back after about six cups of dog food and a long
nap. By his second day on the farm, he was pacing the woods,
following scent trails.
We called every vet and
Hale in a 30 mile radius, the pound, and a hunter one vet
recommended. No luck on finding the stray's previous owner, so we
looked for a new one.
He'll be heading home
with an experienced hunter this morning, who explained to us that dogs
like this are Treeing Walker Coonhounds (or, as he said,
"Walkers"). Wikipedia adds, "Treeing Walker Coonhounds are
extremely fast, agile, and tireless in
the pursuit of 
game.
They are extremely vocal with a distinctive bay
that allows their owners to easily identify their dogs from great
distances." All very true.
I don't know about Mark,
but I considered keeping our Walker at first. However, he wreaked
havoc on our tranquility by his presence alone (despite being very well
behaved) and we're very glad to see him go to a new home.
Huckleberry and Strider went on strike Friday and didn't come to
breakfast until 10 am, and I just couldn't stand another day facing
that picket line.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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I didn't precisely love him --- I just have this deep-rooted need to nurture hurt animals and people. He was sick, so I healed him...then I was ready to send him to a good home.
I actually wouldn't say he had any bad habits that need to be broken. It's just always a lot of work to integrate a new animal into a homestead, and we weren't interested in training him to stay off the garden beds and walk on a leash, training Lucy to let him eat in the same general vicinity as her, and training the cats that he's not trouble. If I'm going to train something, I'd rather it be a kiwi vine.
Awww... Lucy lost her boyfriend. Homewrecker, you! :P
I'm not sure I could deal with a hound either... though that's a bit of a different breed than they have around here. I've heard walkers make great dogs though. And, I'm not sure all bad habits can be trained out... I have a 3 year old lab here that is completely untrainable. However, luckily she doesn't have any habits that are intolerable for me except for her bouts of hyperactivity.
We're just bad people.
I know what you mean about hesitating to take on a hound. I could tell that our stray was tireless. On our farm, where he could run to his heart's content, he might have been okay, but even here I think he would need someone to work with him often to give him jobs to do. In town, a hound would be very high maintenance.
I considered taking him to the vet, but I thought it was very unlikely he'd have a microchip. They're not very common around here, and since the owner opted to save $5 by using an old collar with an outdated phone number, I doubt he would cough up the cash for a microchip.
(Plus, I was too lazy to plan an entire afternoon to take him to town...
)