Uniform or matched packs

On this topic I agree with Tony Leahy, MFH as quoted in Connecting with the Communal Mind: What Leahy Learned in Covertside (September 2007).

I don't care to have a complete 'type.'  I have no interest in a uniform pack in the common usage of that phrase, because I think the phrase is too often misused.  I d want hounds that are well-matched in physical performance, that will hunt for long periods of time and stay together.  If I start out with sixteen and a half couples running a coyote for ten miles, I want sixteen and a half couples there at the finish.  Sometimes these words -- uniform, matched -- are used too much, and used wrongly.  Many so-called 'uniform' packs are actually very mismatched.

The concept of a uniform pack is poorly understood and the terms are used incorrectly quite a lot.  Many people get hung up on color.  Color is just about the last thing you breed for.  You'd better have an awfully good pack before you start that and you'd better be able to breed a lot of hounds and dispose of a lot of pups.

To my mind a uniform pack is able to stay together.  It would be nice if all the hounds were of similar build but that's not essential.  If you go to foxhound performance trials you will see every physical type put together and they will stay together throughout quite remarkable situations.  Penn-Marydel hounds, American hounds, and Hardaway crossbred hounds can run together at tremendous speed over the course of a long, long chase.  It's astounding.

Strangely enough, unrelated hounds sometimes don't get along in kennels.  It seems as though vastly different hounds can hunt together and hunt well, as shown by the performance trials, but occasionally a drafted pup or even an outcross will consistently stir things up or get picked on.  It's impossible to predict and it doesn't seem too common.  It would be interesting to know whether it happens to specific bloodlines when they're in any other kennel or if it's simply any strange hound put into certain kennels.