Bloodhound history: From Monastery to Border Trail
On the Scottish border, raiders known as Border Reivers faced pursuit by dogs John Caius linked to the sleuth-hound. Caius described this tracking work in the sixteenth century. Bloodhound history reaches further back: English references from the early to middle fourteenth century suggest an established breed, believed to descend from hounds kept at the Abbey of Saint-Hubert in Belgium. Hunting deer and wild boar on a leash and following human trails were both part of its early working life.
The monastery connection leads into a long relationship with French royalty. From about 1200, monks at the Abbey of St. Hubert sent several pairs of black hounds each year to the King of France. Royal enthusiasm varied. Charles IX preferred white hounds and the larger Chiens-gris, finding the St. Huberts too slow for hunters eager to finish a chase. In 1561, Jaques du Fouilloux characterized them as strong-bodied dogs with low, short legs. Both men considered them useful only as leash hounds. A white St. Hubert variety disappeared through crossing with another white hound, the greffier, to produce a favored royal pack dog.
In medieval British hunting, the dog's job began before the pack's chase. A handler worked it on a leash to locate a hart or boar by the lingering scent of that individual animal. This leashed specialist was called a limer or lyam hound. It usually stayed out of the kill, but received a special reward from the carcass. Whether the Normans brought the breed itself or only its ancestors to Britain remains disputed. Medieval Scottish stories also tell of Robert the Bruce and William Wallace being followed by sleuth hounds, though those particular pursuits remain uncertain.
Bloodhound history becomes more tangible through the work of John Caius in the sixteenth century. He portrayed dogs with hanging ears and lips that followed blood in game parks and tracked thieves and poachers by the scent of their feet. When a trail disappeared at water, the dogs searched for it again. Caius also connected them with pursuit of Border Reivers, the raiders crossing the Scottish frontier. His English Bloodhound was essentially the same dog as the Scottish sleuth-hound, though slightly larger and more variable in color.
A picture published in Zurich in 1563 gives these working dogs a visible form. It appeared in Conrad Gesner's Thierbuch and was drawn by Caius or under his supervision. The illustration was reportedly made from life, with the softly hanging ear suggesting close observation and the collar and long coiled rope reflecting leash work. Later, the scientist Robert Boyle described an early test of its tracking ability: a hound followed a man for seven miles along a well-used route and located him in an upstairs room.
Across the Channel, the old monastery hounds were dwindling. They had become rare by the end of Louis XIV's reign in 1715. The annual gifts stopped with the French Revolution of 1789, and French hunting declined until the Napoleonic Wars ended. When hunting revived, huntsmen seem to have had little interest in the St. Hubert. Baron Le Couteulx de Canteleu searched for St. Huberts and reported scarcely any in France; he said those in the Ardennes had lost their breed characteristics through crossbreeding. Bloodhound history then turned toward preservation: during the nineteenth century, British dogs helped restore the French Chien de St. Hubert after the older strain had faded away.
French enthusiasts imported fine British hounds, exhibited them, and bred them under the St. Hubert name. Le Couteulx himself bred more than 300. Whatever few original St. Huberts remained either died out or were absorbed into the new population. This rebuilding helped spread the name Chien de Saint-Hubert for the Bloodhound in parts of continental Europe. Meanwhile, the use of the Bloodhound in Britain had diminished as fox hunting grew, deer hunting declined, wild boar vanished, and society became more settled. Aristocratic deer-park owners and enthusiasts kept it going until nineteenth-century dog shows renewed interest. Very few British dogs survived the Second World War, and American imports later helped replenish breeding stock.
Another chapter of Bloodhound history opened in New York in 1888, when English breeder Edwin Brough brought three hounds to the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. A partnership with J. L. Winchell helped bring more British breeding stock to America. There, tracking missing people and criminals became prominent work, with Nick Carter among the celebrated dogs. The National Police Bloodhound Association began in 1962. In Britain, owners also developed national working trials for following human trails. In the town of Saint-Hubert, handlers wearing period dress now parade their hounds during annual celebrations.