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Show 1 To The Hounds I I "There were five great white ' I dogs silhouetted against the set- 1 j ting sun watching me intently. ! j I was worried . . . until their owner own-er rode into sight. He was using j the Russian wolfhounds to chase I coyotes thatj had been at-tacking at-tacking his. sheep." j Whenafriend told me this incident, in-cident, it reminded re-minded methat one of man's i earliest uses of his canine friends j was coursing, or chasing wild animals, says Tex Fawcett of the Purina Pet Care Center, in St. Louis, Missouri. I Coursing with greyhounds is probably the oldest competitive sport in which dogs are used. Ancient An-cient paintings and other archeo-logical archeo-logical finds give abundant proof that men who had little need to catch their own food were extremely ex-tremely fond of the sport. Today there are 21 breeds of i hounds recognized by the American Ameri-can Kennel Club that owe their ' development to the chase. They I range from the improbable little Dachshund with his short legs and long body to the distinguished distin-guished Saluki of Egypt, once the companion of pharaohs. j The stately Bloodhound is said to have descended from the Hounds of St. Hubert, patron saint of hunters. Before the Christian era, ancient chroniclers chroni-clers noted the exceptional tracking track-ing ability of the hounds, referring refer-ring to them as sleuth-hounds There are a lot of other , hounds: Foxhounds, Coonhounds, Basset hounds, Elkhounds, Wolfhounds Wolf-hounds and Afghan hounds-ex-; amples all of the selective breeding breed-ing of dogs to fulfill their ancient j role as man's faithful hunting ' omDanion. ,j |
