This dog looks a lot like an old-type bluetick coonhound or American blue Gascon hound. The ears are smaller, but the basic phenotype is of a heavy scent hound that is tricolor with ticking. This particular dog was photographed in County Cork, Ireland, in the 1940’s.
The Kerry beagle is not the same as the small to mid-sized beagle that everyone knows so well.
It is partially derived from the Southern hound of England, and it was developed as a sort of Irish harrier. Its primary use was in hunting hares, but it doesn’t take much imagination to see how these dogs could have been an ancestor of the American coonhound breeds. This breed is the only scent hound native to Ireland, and we have lots of evidence of Irish and Scots-Irish immigration to American colonies and the United States, which makes its relationship to the coonhounds much more likely than any hound of France.
See earlier post:
People in many times make mistakes, when trying to track a breed’s history with the idea of today’s modern dog in their mind.
That ain’t working at all.
One has to understand that dogs really were different then, before the showtime and standards, and before the big game becoming rare and the limits for hunting. The world was entirely different.
It is true, in the 1700s, hounds were not only tall but also heavy to hunt.
Also, dogs were not bred like in a factory then. It makes a lot, meaning they were closer to the original (waddever it was), or lets’ say, more archaic (and also, in a way, closer to the wolf).
It is intresting, that in the USA some breeds have kept their old form.
BTW,
Did you know this about Champlain, the one who mostly influenced the present Canada, but explored also in state of N.Y. and Vermont -areas.
That, his cousin’s husband was a Royal Picard of the King hounds (“pack hunts man”). In 1619, that man had alredy reached the status of ministry of the foreign trades. Thanks to Champlain, I suppose.
Champlain himself told he was born in Brouage – or in Saintongeois. He must have known the truth himself. I’m just pretty sure he must have exported plenty of French hounds to the New World just because his favorite cousin was a very fine (royal) doggy person.
Saintongeois is home to a relative of the Grand bleu de Gascogne, the Grand Gascogne Saintongeois.
It is similar, but less ticked: http://www.voschiens.com/races/photos/im_1183728154.jpg
I don’t know if there are any records of Champlain bringing dogs.
The French settlers to Acadia and Quebec did bring matin-type dogs and herding dogs, but I haven’t seen any records of hounds. The Acadians are the ones who settled in Louisiana after Queen Anne’s War.
We did have some French Huguenots settling in what became the United States, but I don’t think they brought any hounds over either.
That part of France was once under the English crown, so it may have been that these hounds wound up in England from there. And from England and Ireland to the United States.
You seemingly ignore Champlain’s connection to the Royal hounds. His favorite cousin girl was married with the king’s picard. If Champlain gave the status to that man, what did the picard could give back?
Hounds were and are so typical dogs, that is simply stupid to think they were not exported. I’ve seen 1800s -paintings about shipping the hounds on board. LOADS of hounds.
It’s worth noting, but it’s not a revelation.
The French didn’t settle like the Anglos did.
Very few French came over, and those that did were commoners, by and large.
Commoners in France didn’t have access to running hounds.
Anglo-Saxons settlers were only able to bring over hounds once they became relatively wealthy in the colonies.
The French didn’t bring over all their dissidents and those of Germany to settle their colonies. Just a small number came over in relative terms.
That’s why the French take over the continent.
Not talking ’bout the commoners here…
BTW, Champlain’s first settlement was in Nothern-Florida.
But Florida wound up as a Spanish colony and was purchased in different pieces from Spain by the United States in the early 1800’s.
The British held it for a short time.
You need to stop using Wikipedia.
” From 1604-1607, Champlain participated in the exploration and settlement of the first permanent European settlement north of Florida, Port Royal, Acadia (1605). Then, in 1608, he established the French settlement that is now Quebec City.[5] Champlain was the first European to explore and describe the Great Lakes, and published maps of his journeys and accounts of what he learned from the natives and the French living among the Natives. He formed relationships with local Montagnais and Innu and later with others farther west (Ottawa River, Lake Nipissing, or Georgian Bay), with Algonquin and with Huron Wendat, and agreed to provide assistance in their wars against the Iroquois.”
North of Florida is not “northern Florida.”
Sorry, not the cousin, but her husband of course – the “picqueur des chiens de la Chamber du Roy”.
This is of course only one little piece of the history of the dogs in the big new world. But take a 300 hundered year period and try to figure out, how many stories like that must have happened during that.
I don’t think Champlain was in Florida.
Mobile, Alabama, was settled by the French originally as part of Louisiana, and it was purchased from Spain as part of West Florida.
But I don’t think the French were in Florida.
Well, how come seems that we are near to the home places of the Blue-ticks – with his Champlain – Spanish – waddever discussion.
The Frenchmen who settled in Quebec, for the most part, are poor, and sought to find wealth in the fur trade. They were competing with the more successful Scotsmen.
There were no incentives for the Catholic aristocrats and titled members of French society to immigrate to Canada. The Protestants however saw the profit margin. For the most part, the only highbred blood that made it to New France were women unable to find a husband. These are not the people who would be hunting with their dogs. Besides, the Quebecois intermixed with the First Nations due to lack of European wives available to them.
The coureur des bois never really gained anything more than a modest means. Only the Scots, contracted by the Hudson Bay Company, saw quite a few golds in their hands.
The French couldn’t afford to import their dogs; the Scottish could. That’s why we see English breeds on this side of the pond. None were actually of French origin.
“Les coureur des bois”, yes, Dave.
About half of the French in the New World were poor fishermen. The dog they needed was a powerful draft animal and a water loving retriever.
The fishermen never waiste their dear time on hunting with hounds. If they hunt, they go shooting the water fowl. I’m from a fisherman family.
If you look at the old photos from the old time Quebec (most availeble in the net as postcards from early 1900), you’ll see many of their dogs look houndish with their long & strong lengs.
While we’re mentioning Champlain, here are 3 names that everyone west of the Appalachians should know – Marquette, Joliet & Duquesne.
Marquette and Joliet, French priests who discovered the Mississippi in the late 1600’s.
The Marquis Duquesne was the governor-general of New France prior to the French & Indian War.
The French had a wide sphere of economic ties with the Native Americans and were “cramping” the English expansion plans for westward movement across the Appalachians. George Washington surveyed most of Pennsylvania for the English.
Did the French traders breed dogs here, not likely. The Scots-Irish & Irish who settled there (officially after the war) and established farms either brought a dog with them or picked up strays as they journeyed west.
And. . . Here’s a link for the French in Florida, http://www.keyshistory.org/FL-Fla-Fr.html
That sounds like the Roanoke colony.
The area around Mobile was called “West Florida.” I didn’t know the French had tried to colonize the area we call Florida today. They were kind of like horse manure for a time– all over the place. All of those dates are well before widespread Anglo-American colonization in the interior South. And Florida isn’t in the interior South, though it was eventually settled by people from that area. In fact, for much of Florida’s history, people lived mostly to the north near the Alabama and Georgia borders. Too much malaria and too many swamps to manage. There was no real technology on how to control the flooding that happens when one builds on land that suddenly can produce a gushing stream of water. Florida is really notorious having a porous water table, and it’s only been in the second half the twentieth century that this factor could be controlled in a cost effective manner. That porous water table is the source for all those wonderful springs, where you can go swimming with manatees.
Supposedly, the Catahoula has the proto-Beauceron at its base, but I’ve seen no real genetic evidence that proves this.
But I still don’t see how French trappers and fur-traders get the very expensive and hard to procure pack hounds from France and take them to the New World en masse, and then the dogs last for decades on their own after the French leave, only to be picked up by Anglo settlers, who turn them into coonhound. I don’t see how that could be a very good explanation.
No, it’s not Roanoke colony, but apparent;y the French were better traders than colonists. Here’s another link on French history in Florida – http://richardservis.tripod.com/thenonfictionreadermagazine/id12.html.
I think they had a few dogs, not enough to create new breeds and any dogs left when the French were removed from the English or Spanish settlements.
I don’t see the French / the Spanish / the British hounds were very different from each other in the past centuries. There were no strict standardized type. The hounds of Saintongenois -type could have well spread to Northern Spain too, because people shared the same langiage there and were actually – Basques.
HTT told about some French clergy men – no wonder if they had gone wild hunting with the hounds since it was a free big world for them.
And the Minister of State for foreign trade for French was an ex-pack hunts man, so hounds, s’il vous plais? No problem!
1700s French picard and royal hounds:
http://saint-pons-de-thomieres.pagesperso-orange.fr/piqueur.html