Starting pups, another view

I was reading Foxhunting with Melvin Poe by Peter Winants and came across information about how Melvin has started his hounds.  This book was written when Melvin was approaching 80 years old so we're getting the benefit of a tremendous amount of hands-on experience.  Peter started with a short note that's worth including here:

This chapter describes how Melvin runs his kennel.  It includes his ideas about layout and design and his mtheods of feeding hounds, breeding and culling and training puppies.  I'm certain that some of Melvin's ways are controversial, notably his feeding program, and others may be described by some as old fashioned, behind the times.  However, Melvin's ways worked for him with great success over a long period of time, so "listen up," as the saying goes.

So, we can expect some controversy.  We'll skip the part about kennels and feeding for now and get right to the book's discussion of pups.

Melvin bred an average of 10 bitches a year at Orange County.  "It's best for bitches to raise litters of six," he said.  "When more than six, I'd usually cull to six.  If a bitch had only three or four pups I'd usually keep them all.  When culling, I'd first cull for color, then for size and character traits.  If they're little as pups, they're going to be little later on, and you can pick the shy ones and the fighters out of litters.  After culling, we'd end up with 35 to 40 puppies.

The subject of culling really ought to get several entries of its own but we'll give it a brief examination here.  Truly, culling pups is essential.  A too-large litter will benefit tremendously from having its numbers reduced.  The pups will all suffer if there are too many of them and many bitches will never get back to good form if they raise a large litter.  Most houndsmen will only breed a bitch twice simply because it's so hard on them.  And certainly if there is almost any kind of problem with the delivery or with the puppies after delivery, the bitch will never be as good a hunting hound as she was before.  That is not an unusual thing at all.

When we talk about culling, plenty of litters would be small and require no culling or not much.  Occasionally, there may be disease which will wipe out an entire litter.  (Pick up a veterinary text book and you'll wonder how any of them survive.)  Most hunts don't cull at all for color.  When Melvin was there, the Orange County pack wouldn't require much culling for color because the desirable color was so well-established.  He was generally starting with the desirable color in both parents so the pups were all highly likely to have that color.

Almost every litter has a runt and that doesn't mean one pup that's only slightly smaller than the rest.  For whatever reason with foxhounds it's not unusual to have one pup that is substantially smaller than the rest.  And that pup tends to lag behind and seem smaller all along.  As the others gain weight and grow (at an astounding rate), that pup will grow at a slower rate and it will quickly become much smaller than the others.  These runts may survive but it's a common case that they simply never thrive and that they are prone to illness their entire lives.  They are good candidates for culling.

Every experienced houndsman has asserted that it's easy to recognize certain characteristics, such as extreme shyness or extreme aggression, in very young pups.  Again, if a litter is big, these are logical choices for culling.  Behavioral extremes lead to difficulties in handling particular hounds.  Again, this isn't really a problem in the kennels but when you turn loose a pack of hounds to hunt, every single one of them has got to be under control.  Each hound has got to have the right temperament to handle getting shipped to various fixtures, occasionally getting separated from the pack in a strange place, and returning to the trailer and loading up at the end of the day.  Temperaments that seem to be borderline really aren't.  Most individuals with that borderline temperament get worse under stress and it's the huntsman's job to recognize those individuals as early in their lives as possible.

Yes, a borderline temperament can be helped by judicious handling.  In these times of minimal staffing and the expectation that hunt servants will do a tremendous variety of work, some judgment is required.  Again, each hunt is different.  Are there plenty of good hounds in kennels?  That makes it less important to retain and deal with borderline pups.  Some huntsmen really like this kind of hound.  They consider these to be "sensitive" hounds and actually prefer to deal with this kind of temperament.  Even the physical layout of kennels and the amount of supervision available are factors in these decisions.

Next time:  going forward with Melvin's training program for those 35 to 40 puppies -- every year!