Whether you hunt to ride or ride to hunt, the ability to read hound body language and to understand what hounds are doing when they speak certain ways will enhance your enjoyment and knowledge.

You’ll find trying to figure hounds out and thinking about what they’re about to do next both exciting and fulfilling. You’ll experience pleasure through sight and sound that will enhance the moment and help you understand hounds.

Once you learn to understand hounds, you’ll enjoy hunting more and are more likely to stay with the sport. It can make a bad day good and a good day fantastic.

Once you learn to read hounds’ body language, it adds a new dimension to foxhunting, stimulating your thought process and turning what some would consider a boring day into an exciting, suspenseful day.

To be a successful whipper-in, reading hounds is essential. You can’t react quickly enough or learn to anticipate if you don’t understand hounds or are unable to read their body language. Huntsmen like Larry Pitts of the Potomac Hunt (Md.) believe that understanding what hounds are doing is the hardest thing a whipper-in must learn.

Hounds are like people. There are good ones and bad ones, smart ones and dumb ones, sensitive ones, bold ones, fat ones, skinny ones, cheaters, liars, skirters, show-offs, complainers, dwellers, stars and lovers.

Hounds are athletes bred over hundreds of years for speed, courage, drive, stamina, nose, cry and biddability. Those are not the traits of your average housedog, but they are the ingredients for great hounds.

If you, as a whipper-in, learn individual hounds’ personalities, you will be more efficient. Observing them in kennel and when they walk out is the best way to learn their personalities.

Hounds voices tell us a lot. Their voices, just like ours, are distinct and recognizable. With practice and a lot of exposure, some huntsmen and whippers-in can tell you which hound it is just from the voice, which is not hard for those of us with a couple of dogs but amazing with a pack.

The various barks, yips, whines, squeals, hollers and the pitch of delivery all mean something. Changes in the pitch of a voice can indicate switching to another quarry, riot or getting close to the game. Young hounds have immature voices. Bitches are usually higher pitched than dog hounds.

Hollering can mean, “I’m lost, hurt or caught.” The frequency of the voice or bark can indicate how strong or weak scent is. From full cry to no cry could mean they caught the quarry or lost completely.

If you listen hard enough, you’ll learn the music and language of hounds and be able to piece together what is happening or what has just happened without actually seeing it. During my interviews preparing for this book, the overwhelming number of whippers-in said they depended on their ears more than their eyes to get the job done.

Communicating Without Words
When a hound cocks his head and stops, he’s usually trying to figure something out. Young hounds will often stop and look for you (or the huntsman) before they do something that they’re not sure about or if they are thinking of mischief. If you catch the moment, you can encourage them to continue or stop it with a glance. Hounds will frequently look you directly in the eye and hold your gaze. Gifted hound men seem to know what they’re thinking and communicate with the hound without words.

The position of his stern (tail) will tell you a lot. We all know the tail indicates a happy hound if it wags vigorously when we approach. It also indicates an unhappy, frightened or sick hound when it’s sullen or carried very low without movement.

When a hound is hunting and has not found game, his tail will be moving back and forth fairly level with his back. When a hound starts to smell faint traces of the quarry, his tail will normally start to drop and do longer, faster sweeps. As the scent increases, the tail sometimes drops lower and moves faster and may actually sweep across the ground.

This feathering usually happens just before he opens (speaks, gives voice, throws tongue, barks). He’ll begin to give voice and work the line, feathering with his tail as the scent improves. The stronger the scent, the more voice, and tail, while continuing to move back and forth, will rise with less motion. In full cry, as scent gets stronger and the pace faster, the tails are carried straight back or up over their backs, with little or no motion.

In the best hounds, the voice will increase in volume and frequency as scent gets stronger and the pace quickens.

There is a theory that too fast a hound doesn’t give good voice. From my observations, that is true, but a great hound that is really fast will still give voice when he’s going flat out, just not as frequently or as loudly.

Watching a hound’s tail can tell you a lot: if he is happy or upset, how strong the scent is, when he thinks he smells something or when he loses it, when it’s not right and how hard he is working.

Most working hounds use a lot of tail movement. Watch other hounds that go over the same area he has just covered. Do the position of their heads and tails mimic each other, or is there a completely different reaction? All are indicators of the likelihood of either finding or losing the quarry.

More Than A Pretty Face
Conformation is also an indication of a hound’s abilities. That said, some of the physically worst put-together hounds have outhunted or outlasted some of the best physically put-together hounds. There is no equation for heart, but surely these hounds, while rare, have huge hearts that overcome physical flaws.

Just as you would admire an attractive woman or horse, hounds are attractive. But a pretty face is not the emphasis. Hounds with good conformation, similar to what you look for in a good horse, tend to last longer and are better hunters. The best way to learn hound conformation is to attend hound shows and help show hounds.

Color makes it easier for a whipper-in to recognize a particular hound. Many people confuse uniformity with color. Uniformity is the body type. A pack of hounds should be bred to have similar conformation, thus enabling the pack to stay together as they have similar physical capabilities. Once you have uniformity of body type, then color may become a consideration. It is more pleasing to the eye when a pack looks alike, but this is only the frosting on the cake.

Once the pack has only slight variations in the same body type and similar color, identifying individual hounds becomes difficult. This is when knowing a hound’s personality can help you identify hounds. Also there will usually be variation in shape of head, ear or tail set or movement to help sort it out.

The type of hound your pack hunts is an indication of its behavior. I’m not going to go into detail, but suffice it to say that breeds of hounds were developed to capitalize on certain predictable, desirable traits.

For example, you wouldn’t expect a German Shepherd to act like a Cocker Spaniel, or vice versa. Knowing those strengths and weaknesses can help you read a pack of hounds.

Happy hounds are the best hunters and the easiest to control. They want to hunt and please their huntsman. It is part of the whipper-in’s responsibility to do everything he can to encourage this behavior. The only way you can help is to know hounds and be able to anticipate what they will do.

What Does It Take To Gain A Hound’s Trust?
Many years ago, when I first started hunting the Mells Hounds (Tenn.), huntsmen who were friends of mine gave me some steady hounds to help me get started. I drove around the country filling my trailer with hounds.

The last stop was Larry Pitts. I drove to his place and spent the night. In the middle of the night his daughter Laura ran to my room and yelled that the barn was on fire. My truck and trailer with the hounds I had gathered at other hunts were in the trailer parked near the barn. As I ran for the truck, Larry was already moving it. The barn was huge and entirely engulfed in flames. My hounds were safe–upset but OK.

The Potomac kennel was only about 100 yards from the barn. Hounds sat in the yard quietly watching the inferno. The barn was full of hay and the stalls were under the barn. Luckily, all the horses were in pasture. There was nothing anyone could do. I sat there in silence with the Pitts family watching the barn go up.

The next morning, I got ready to leave and to put Larry’s hounds in my trailer with the other hounds I already had in it. I was prepared to pick them up and carry them in when Larry said, “Just stand by the door and keep your hounds from coming out.”

His pack was milling around him in the open, and he had no whipper-in. He said the name of each hound he was giving me, pointed to my trailer, and they just walked in, no pushing or shoving or yelling. We never touched them. A wonderful example of trust, after an extremely hectic night.

But even more impressive was that these hounds were getting into an unknown trailer with strange hounds inside.

A whipper-in can learn a lot from the way a huntsman gains a hound’s trust. Walking out with hounds every day is the start. Sometimes a huntsman will just sit in a room with a timid hound, talking and playing with it to get some rapport. Feeding and caring for them has an effect as the huntsman satisfies their needs or makes them feel better when they’re hungry or not well.

Consistency in the way you treat hounds is very important. Don’t be too stern or too weak. Always reward or punish for the same things. Hounds need to know your parameters. Most huntsmen will tell you that the most important consideration is your honesty and consistency.

Never lie to your hounds, as you may fool him one time, for which he’ll forgive you, but if you do it again, you lose his trust.

Marty Wood, MFH, Live Oak Hounds (Fla.), adds this: “Never cheat a hound; don’t ever cut him short when he’s trying, always give him his just reward, and once you trust him, give him the benefit of the doubt.”

That advice, coupled with spending time with hounds, will result in hounds trying hard to please you.

Why Certain Packs Hunt Better Than Others
A question that haunted me for years. Hounds have been bred for centuries to hunt. The answer is aligned closely with understanding why hounds trust their huntsman. Put aside other influences for the moment and concentrate on the huntsmen.

I’ve been out with huntsmen whose hounds absolutely loved them. In kennels and walking out, they were biddable, happy, adored their huntsman, and would respond to his/her every wish. These huntsmen walked and fed their hounds daily. Yet a few of these packs, when out hunting, would not draw or did not hunt well.

I have also been out with a few packs where the huntsman did not walk out with his hounds very often or personally feed them. Usually a kennel huntsman or whipper-in did this. Many times, the only time they spent with their hounds was when they went hunting; yet these hounds seemed to also love their huntsman, hunted like demons, drew well, and consistently provided good sport.

Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not suggesting that hounds draw better when the daily caretaker is not the same person who hunts them. I’m saying that daily walking out and feeding a pack is not necessarily a prerequisite to good drawing and hunting.

Another consideration for gaining trust comes from Mason Lampton, MFH and huntsman of the Midland (Ga.). He believes, “When a huntsman lifts hounds to a view or casts them forward where the line is fresh for them to scent the quarry, hounds learn to trust the huntsman and hark to the huntsman as he has become as much a part of the pack as the best strike hound.”

Eidon Letts, jt-MFH and whipper-in for the College Valley/North Northumberland (England), when asked, “How does a huntsman get hounds to trust him?” answered in three words: “By being right!”

She meant that hounds learn that when their huntsman takes them hunting, they’re likely to find a fox. It builds a strong bond between them. She also means that if, when hounds have an unsolvable loss, the huntsman steps in and makes a brilliant cast that sets them right, trust is forged as a result.

Couple Eidon’s answer with an understanding of a hound’s priorities and it becomes clear. Hounds have a “hierarchy of needs.” They include: water, food, shelter, health, comfort, love and sex. But topping that list is hunting. Hounds will forgo all else to hunt.

The huntsman who consistently does everything he can to ensure that his hounds find something to chase when hunting will win over the fellow who has great rapport with his hounds but doesn’t have the country or the game.

Hounds trust their huntsman to give them the opportunity to find game. The greatest reward for a hound is to chase and account for something. If you want to motivate him, take him hunting. If there is never game to chase, hounds will eventually quit hunting and lose trust in their huntsman.

If a huntsman can draw coverts where hounds find regularly, hounds will hunt and draw like demons. Hounds seem to know that the harder they try, the more likely they are to find something. They transfer the pleasure they feel hunting to that huntsman. He gives them the ultimate pleasure and reward–hunting! If you understand a hound’s motivation, you will gain insight into what to expect from him.

Watch The Body Language
A hound’s body language can tell you what he’s thinking or what he’s about to do.

How he carries his head out hunting (is his head on the ground, level with his body or higher?) will indicate scenting conditions.

If he keeps his nose to the ground, he can’t run as fast. If he is running with his head relatively even with his shoulder, then scent is probably good and it will be fast. If he keeps his head high when running or at a check seems to stand up on his back legs or jump into the air trying to wind the quarry, scent is too high and you shouldn’t expect much.

Understanding A Hound’s Brain
In great packs, hounds trust their huntsman and do his bidding–and he trusts them. We can understand what it takes for a huntsman to trust his hounds: past performance, reliability and knowing the capabilities of the individual hounds.

Tommy Haney, professional huntsman of the Mooreland Hunt (Ala.), had a philosophy with hounds: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”

Reprinted with permission from Whipper-In, published (2005) by Lt. Col. Dennis J. Foster (P.O. Box 394, Millwood, VA 22646).