I live in rural Virginia where hunting deer with hounds is tradition. I am respectful of my neighbors that hunt and have had no problems with the hounds or the hunters. Hounds do occasionally run across my property and sometimes hang around. I always contact the club/owners as in most cases the dogs have collars with tags/names of club/contact numbers In fact the dogs often have tracking collars and I regularly see the owners/clubs out tracking the dogs.
A dog appeared today and unlike most she has no collar. She is also a blue merle/blue speckled with very large ears unlike most deer hounds I have come across, which are liver/brown and white. She also seems taller and has longer ears. In addition she has a very deep ‘Bay’ versus high pitched howl or keen I am used to with the deer hounds. She is very friendly and came to me enthusiastically tail wagging, vs most of the deerhounds, which are all very sweet but usually quite shy.
I contacted my neighbor who has a private pack and he said he would contact the local hunt clubs to see if anyone is missing a dog. But I am thinking she may be a coon hound rather than a deer hound? Any thoughts?
She is very sweet and I don’t want to take her to the local shelter (only one for 4 counties) except that if someone is looking for her that is where they would likely look first. I will give it a couple of days to see if my neighbor’s contacts are looking for a dog. Then I could take her to the shelter and leave my name in case no one has claimed her in the required time, or I could contact one of the rescues in the area. The local dog rescue won’t take dogs until they have gone to the shelter but they assured me that many rescue groups monitor and pull dogs. In this area, hounds are the most common breeds in shelters.
