Heartbroken about the Hounds

[wendy]

8 or 9 years old is a ripe old age for a large breed working dog!

it’s really really SAD that anyone actually believes this. 8 or 9 is the prime of life for a well-bred, properly fed, properly exercised large breed working dog. An 8 year large dog may not be quite as fast or last quite as long in the field as a 3 year old, but the extra years of experience more than make up for the slight decline in physical ability. In other working venues a breed that took 2 to 4 years of expensive training to bring to full working ability that then “pooped out” at only age 8 or 9 would be considered a really bad deal.

That said, any hunt that just routinely killed their older hounds without make some attempt to re-home them needs to consider some other options. I can’t imagine any other working dogs that would just be killed and replaced; old police dogs and herding dogs generally stay with their owners in a state of retirement.

[LexInVA]

It really depends a lot on what they were doing before they “retired”, their personality, age, and demeanor as well as the environment they are in after they retire. I’ve worked with a lot of rescued hunting-bred hounds who are surprisingly domesticated and aren’t all that different from any other dog you’d find in the suburbs but came from rural areas where they weren’t kept on leashes and roamed about as they pleased and I’ve also worked with a lot of former hunting hounds who don’t understand life outside of a pack or kennel and want to run around chasing everything. Unfortunately, I’ve also seen firsthand how ill equipped and uninformed many of the local rescues and adopters are when it comes to dealing with former hunting dogs when they get loose and either get hit by cars or migrate all over the place looking to “go home”. The rescue group I used to work with has lost dozens of former hunting dogs over the years due to the fact that they adopt/foster to people who don’t have the right kind of home environment or the knowledge to deal with the quirks of a hunting dog and the adopters make the mistake of treating those dogs like your average Golden Retriever. That being said, I would be hesitant to let a former hunting dog free roam around a farm or be off the leash unless it was in a fenced in area with below ground extensions that had sufficient confinement and other dogs to play with.