Southern Hound Information & Dog Breed Facts

The Southern Hound was a breed of scent native to England. It is a very old breed and goes way back before even written records were kept of dog breeding and as a result of this, people are unsure about the breed’s exact ancestry. However, what we know for sure is that the Southern Hound was developed in Southern England and Wales and that it was already widespread by the end of the renaissance. The breed was the most traditional and possibly oldest of the British scent hound breeds, but how and when it developed are matters of intense debate.

Furthermore, during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, as we already know hunting with hounds was the primary pastime of the European nobility as at the time they were the only ones who could afford to keep hunting dogs. Eventually, hunting became more than just a sport, it became a focal point of aristocratic society. Countless personal, dynastic, and political relationships were formed on the hunt which impacted the people’s lives. Although it was popular all over Europe, hunting with packs of scent hounds reached its pinnacle in England and France. As a result, there are several theories and possibilities to describe the origins of the Southern Hound. According to historians, the most widely held theory is that the breed is descended from hounds that were brought to England by William the Conqueror and his Norman armies in 1066. William and the other Normans were the descendants of Viking raiders who had settled in Northern France and had become assimilated by the French culture. At the time, the French were regarded as having the best hounds in Europe. There have been several types of pack hounds in France, among them the Grand Bleu De Gascogne probably being the oldest one. While these dogs bred true, they were not purebred in the moderns sense. It all changed when the monks at the Saint Hubert Monastery started up a breeding program to develop the perfect hunting dog, and they began to produce pure-blooded scent hounds sometime between 750 and 900 A.D. These so-called Saint Hubert Hounds became very famous and sought after their keen sense of smell. Every year the monastery sent a number of Saint Hubert Hounds to the King of France as a tribute and this went on for several centuries. The King of France kept a few of these dogs but gave most of them away as gifts to his nobles. William the Conqueror received a few as well and many believe that as he took them to England, they were crossed with other breeds such as the Grand Bleu de Gascogne, the Talbot, and other local British dogs which laid the foundation of the Southern Hound.

However, another interesting theory is that some researchers believe that the Southern Hound is actually far older, as in fact the original British Hound breed. This position was first taken by William Youatt in his work called ‘The Dog’. He argued that there is some evidence that dogs very similar to modern scent hounds were present in England well before the arrival of the Roman Empire in 43 A.D. However this evidence if far from definitive, but it can be quite true that the pre-Roman Celts had high skilled hunting dogs.

According to experts, the truth can probably be found between the two theories. The Southern Hound was probably the result of crossing dogs imported by the Normans with the existing scent hound population of England. These dogs themselves were probably an amalgamation of Celtic, Roman, Germanic, and Scandinavian dogs that freely crossed throughout many centuries of conquest and migration. The Southern Hound was definitely in its ultimate form by the end of the 1400s, and probably at least 300 years earlier.

Moreover, the Southern Hound was popular across Wales and in England south of the River Trent. The breed was known for its extremely keen sense of smell and it is also said that the dog was able to follow trails that were several days old and it would not stop until its located. Apparently, the breed was also known to be a slow tracker as it trailed very methodically, which was necessary to trail deer through a forest. Until the 1600s, the preferred quarry of the British nobility was always deer, so deer hunting became the breed’s specialty. Furthermore, the Southern Hound would probably still exist today if it were not for the dramatic environmental changes that took place in England. As time went by, new technological improvements and new crops were introduced by the Americans. This meant that the wild places remaining in Britain were converted to agriculture. This further led to the populations of those species which depended on the woodlands, for example, the deer, began to rapidly decline. The small area also made traditional deer hunting less enjoyable even when the game was available. However, there was still a job for the Southern Hunt as instead of deer, fox hunting became popular which eventually turned into major social events. The British nobility began to hunt foxes, using their own packs of Southern Hounds to do so. Unfortunately, the breed proved to be less than ideal for the new sport of fox hunting as it was a slow hunter. Hunters wanted to create a more suitable breed so they used the Southern Hound as a base and crossed it with Northern Hounds, Harriers, Greyhounds, Terries, and possibly with Collie type of dogs. This is one of the reasons wh the Foxhound’s primary ancestor is the Southern Hound. Eventually, by the end of the 1700s, as other more suitable dogs took the breed’s place, the Southern Hound was a breed without purpose and had become very rare.

There are several disputes between experts about what became of the Southern Hound after the 1700s. Some believe that they continued to live in isolated pockets of Wales well into the 19^th century, and on the other hand, some think that the breed was entirely extinct prior to 1800. Overall, the breed has been extinct as a distinct breed for between one and two hundred years for sure, but the blood of this dog continues to live on in a number of breeds. It does not appear that there are any attempts made to recreated the breed and given that hunting with dogs is now illegal in England and Wales, it is very unlikely that any will be attempted in the future.