Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
he sought rested himself, and found him in an upper room, to the wonder of those that followed
him.
—Robert Boyle, Essays of the Strange Subtilty, Great Efficacy, Determinate Nature of Effluviums, , 1673
Enough of Chihuahuas and German shepherds. Consider the bloodhound. Surely there's no
debate about that nose being the best in the business.
Of course there is. I didn't think much about the bloodhound before getting Solo. What
little I knew about its history, restrictively framed by popular culture, made me uncomfort-
able. With all that loose skin and hulking bone and wrinkle, the bloodhound is a gener-
ous and expandable doggie container into which we can throw all the myths, contradictions,
drawbacks—and yes, even the real wonders of the working dog. It's a pity that there's so much
contradictory nonsense about bloodhounds, and that I briefly bought in to some of it: not
the silly pictures of bloodhounds wearing Sherlock hats and smoking pipes but the more ser-
ious nonsense about the bloodhound nose being the purest and most advanced miracle of
nature, or the claims of bloodhounds being able to follow four-month-old tracks and trail
cars for miles down freeways.
Exaggerations about the bloodhound's nose distract from the truth about a fine single-pur-
pose trailing dog. If you want to watch a working dog's nose do its business, there's no more
beautiful sight than that of a good trailing bloodhound. On the other hand, I've also watched
Belgian Malinois run wonderful trails, as well as Labradors, Plott hounds, one Weimaraner,
and a bunch of mutts. And, of course, German shepherds. Chihuahuas are probably a stretch
for trailing, at least over long distances. Let's face it: None of these breeds is as evocative as
the bloodhound. Or as storied. In Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night 's Dream , bloodhounds
were an absolute vision: “So flew'd, so sanded, and their heads are hung with ears that sweep
away the morning dew.”
Terry Fleck, a law enforcement K9 expert who has had three German shepherds, believes
that a major difference in reputation for trailing is simply that temporal edge: Bloodhounds
have a few hundred years' head start over German shepherds and Malinois. “History is work-
ing against us.”
It's a hound-fulfilling prophecy. People believe that bloodhounds are great trailers and
trackers, that the breed is the only one capable of working old trails. Someone lost? Bring
in the bloodhounds. Combine that with an enduring interest in the breed's tracking ability.
Seventeenth-century philosopher and founder of modern chemistry Robert Boyle described
with both scientific detachment and fascination witnessing a bloodhound following an aged
trial track, four miles long, with great cross-contamination: “[T]he dog, without ever seeing
the man he was to pursue, followed him by the scent . . . notwithstanding the multitude of
market people that went along in the same way, and of travelers that had occasion to cross
it.”
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