Hunting dog

A hunting dog is a canine that hunts with or for hunters. There are several different types of hunting dog developed for various tasks and purposes. The major categories of hunting dog include hounds, terriers, dachshunds, cur type dogs, and gun dogs. Further distinctions within these categories can be made, based upon the dog's skills and capabilities. They are usually larger and have a more sensitive smell than normal dogs.

Quotes

• And through the woods, another way,
  Faint bugle-notes from far are borne,
  Where hunters gather, staghounds bay,
  Round some old forest-lodge at morn.
  • Matthew Arnold, "Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse" in Fraser’s Magazine (1855)

• In the olden days they liked a long-legged terrier, able to run with the hunt, but such a terrier found it difficult to get to the fox. Others preferred small terriers, which they carried on the saddle. Hard-bitten little souls, with a peculiarly blunt view of pain. They helped to hold on to the saddle with their small feet, sitting there half asleep, dreaming of foxes.
  • Edward C. Ash, Dogs: Their History and Development (1972)

• Then every nose was busily employed,
  And every nostril was set open wide,
  And every head did seek a several way
  To find the grass or track where the scent lay.
  For witty industry is never slack;
  ’Tis like to witchcraft, and brings lost things back.
  • The Duchess of Newcastle, "The Hunting of the Hare", in Poems and Fancies (1653)

• The dusky Night rides down the Sky,
    And ushers in the Morn;
  The Hounds all join in glorious Cry,
    The Huntsman winds his Horn:
      And a-Hunting we will go.
  • Henry Fielding, "Hunting Song", st. 1, Don Quixote in England (1733), II

• See how the well-taught pointer leads the way:
  The scent grows warm; he stops; he springs the prey;
  The fluttering coveys from the stubble rise,
  And on swift wing divide the sounding skies;
  The scattering lead pursues the certain sight,
  And death in thunder overtakes their flight.
  • John Gay, Rural Sports (1713), II

• Hunting I reckon very good
  To brace the nerves, and stir the blood:
  But after no field-honors itch,
  Achieved by leaping hedge and ditch,
  While Spleen lies soft relaxed in bed,
  Or o’er coal fires inclines the head,
  Hygeia’s sons with hound and horn,
  And jovial cry awake the morn.
  • Matthew Green, The Spleen (1737)

• The dog in the doghouse barks at his fleas, the dog that hunts does not feel them.
  • Jonathan Hole, More Memories (1894)

• Of horn and morn, and hark and bark,
    And echo’s answering sounds,
  All poets’ wit hath every writ
    In dog-rel verse of hounds.
  • Thomas Hood, The Epping Hunt (1829), st. 10

• Don’t you hear the yapping of the dogs—
  The yapping and the yelping of the dogs?
  • Henry Kendall, "After the Hunt", in Leaves from Australian Forests (1869)

• ἦ σεῦ καὶ φθιμένας λεύκ᾿ ὀστέα τῷδ᾿ ἐνὶ τύμβῳ
  ἴσκω ἔτι τρομέειν θῆρας, ἄγρωσσα Λυκάς·
  τὰν δ᾿ ἀρετὰν οἶδεν μέγα Πήλιον ἅ τ᾿ ἀρίδηλος
  Ὄσσα Κιθαιρῶνός τ᾿ οἰονόμοι σκοπιαί.
  • Although beneath this grave-mound thy white bones now are lying,
      Methinks, my huntress Lycas, the wild things dread thee still.
    The memory of thy deeds tall Pēlion keeps undying,
      And the looming peak of Ossa, and Cithaeron’s lonely hill.
  • Simonides, quoted by Pollux, Vocabulary, V, 47, as translated by F. L. Lucas, Poems (1935) and A Greek Garland (1939); variants: "Surely" for "Methinks", "worth" for "deeds"

Proverbs

• A heedless dog is not fit for hunting.
  • African (Jabo) proverb, reported in Wolfgang Mieder, Encyclopedia of World Proverbs (1992), p. 118

• A heedless dog will not do for the chase.
  • African (Yoruba) proverb, reported in Wolfgang Mieder, Encyclopedia of World Proverbs (1992), p. 118

• Bon chien chasse de race.
• A well-bred dog hunts by nature.
  • French proverb, reported in W. F. H. King, Classical and Foreign Quotations, 3rd ed. (1904), no. 230

• The dog who hunts foulest, hits at most faults.
  • James Howell, English Proverbs (1659)