Talk:English Foxhound

Worldwide view?

I am puzzled by the statement in a header "The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject..." The page could perhaps make it clear, if a suitable source can be found, that there are very few English Foxhounds beyond the shores of the British Isles; but quite apart from that fact, the article simply addresses the nature of the breed, without dealing with any particular country at all. Moonraker2 (talk) 01:43, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

History

There are no references to sources here, though there are links. Late 1500s seems an extraordinarily early date for the beginning of the foxhound. There was foxhunting in Medieval Times - one is described in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (14thC), - but the fox usually had very low status as quarry - 'a beast of warren'. George Turberville (16thC) uses the term 'foxhound' but probably only as a nonce word = 'a hound you might happen to use if you were hunting a fox'. The actual creation of a specific breed seems to be of uncertain date, but it must surely have had its main origin in the medieval Raches which were (mostly) of the type of the sagaces in body shape, square lip, hanging ears. Anyone wanting to create a new breed of scent hound - harrier, which is earlier than foxhound, or whatever - would start with hunting dogs they aleady had. Most writers seem to assume a greyhound was crossbred to an existing scent hound. Sir Henry Dryden in the the 19th century who had read a vast number of sources on hunting, places the change in the character of the chase in England to the early eighteenth century, and credits Hugo Meynell with developing at least the modern variety of fox-hound. In the seventeenth century Gervaise Markham mentions many kinds of hounds with different qualities in different parts of the country which could have been used in creating a new breed. The foxhound shows none of the physical characteristics of the bulldog, making one wonder what the evidence is for the part attributed to it. The same applies to the Fox terrier. The link page suggests that it probably came into being after the foxhound.--Cleanboot (talk) 16:26, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Dearhound

"The English Foxhound was then created by a careful mixing of the Greyhound, for speed, the Fox Terrier, for hunting instinct, and the Bulldog, for tenacity in the hunt."

This is not an accurate statement. The foxhound is descended from dearhounds/staghounds and while it may have been bread with various other breeds (but I would question those specific breeds that are mentioned for various technical and form reasons), the English foxhound will quite happily hunt dear if allowed to. An experienced huntsman can tell by the the hounds giving a different tongue (cry) when they change from following the sent of a fox to that of a dear/stag and will then call them back and recast them onto the likely trail of the fox. That foxhounds will hunt stags is clearly demonstrated by the Devon and Somerset Staghounds which use hounds descended from foxhounds to hunt stags. -- PBS (talk) 13:29, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Alternate images

Woukd either of these work for the requested images?

• File:English foxhound.jpg
• File:English Foxhound.jpg

SpookMew (talk) 20:40, 4 September 2023 (UTC)