Largest Litter of Dogs

An American foxhound bore a litter of 23 pups on June 19, 1944 in Ambler, Pennsylvania -- a world record for any breed of dog. Just 10 puppies are pictured above.

The American foxhound is the state dog of Virginia and the Walker Coonhound is named after Dr. Thomas Walker who discovered the Cumblerand Gap and was the second person to import foxhounds to America. Walker was a resident of Albermarle County, Virginia.

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Coonhounds, Ego and the Dog Show Circuit

The Washington Post has a front page story this morning about a fellow and his daughter who raise, hunt and show coonhounds. The piece is part of a series on why folks compete in things, and the title of this one is: Ego

In my opinion, that single word does not entirely sum up why folks attend dog shows, but it's a pretty good one word try, nonetheless.

The reporter details the trophy room:

More than 500 trophies were displayed on the floor, forming a sea of oak and metal that covered all but a four-foot-wide sliver of speckled tile in the middle of the room. The trophies ranged in height from six inches to six feet, and they all bore the names of dog shows held in the last eight years. More than 300 ribbons, plaques and certificates decorated the walls. A year earlier, Amanda had hired a cleaning crew to dust and shine each award.

How did all these gleaming trophies and ribbons come into being? Well, it involved a wealthy father and a LOT of money. A whole lot of money.

To their credit, the Alexanders are not puppy peddlers, and do not breed a lot of dogs, and they take unbelievably good care of the dogs that they have.

Also to their credit, the Alexanders DO work their dogs, though it should be said that with 60 dogs in the kennels, no one dog may see much action in a year.

The Alexander's hounds sometimes chased down possum, deer, bobcats or bears. Other times, like tired athletes, Curt said the dogs gave up and barked at the base of a random tree, just so the hunt would end and they could go home. On the worst nights, the hounds injured themselves while tearing through the woods at 15 mph. A dog once ran out of the woods with a porcupine quill poking into the center of his eyeball -- a wound fixed, by veterinarian recommendation, with Krazy Glue. Another dog tripped and slipped a disk in his back, necessitating 12 trips to a specialist in Columbus, Ohio.

The Washington Post story is ostensibly about competition and what motives people to success in their respective sports. Whatever it is (and let's set aside whether showing dogs is a sport), it appears to be a powerful internal force.

Amanda, 27, spends all but two weekends each year driving to dog shows in places such as Brazil, Ind., and Saluda, N.C. Bob has spent more than $400,000 purchasing dogs and then lavishing them with accoutrements generally reserved for elite athletes: truckloads of performance-enhancing food; a heated indoor swimming pool for winter cross-training; personal drivers to shuttle dogs to distant appointments with nationally renowned veterinarians.

You can do the math: $400,000 for 60 dogs, 500 trophies and 300 ribbons. That works out to about $6,600 per dog, or about $800 per trophy. In fact, those numbers are not too far out of sync; some folks spend more than $10,000 $100,000 a year campaigning a single dog.

In the dog show world, of course, one chooses both a breed and a registry, and young Amanda seems to have chosen the American Kennel Club. I have little doubt that the reason she saddled up with the AKC is that a young female "pay to play" show dog person found the new AKC coonhound cartel more socially promising than the older, more male, and more experienced coonhound club at the UKC. Apparently, it did not hurt a whit that the AKC encourages exhibitors to dress up in nice clothes and put makeup on their dogs.

In her grooming shop a few days earlier, Amanda spent 90 minutes readying the four Plott coonhounds. She trimmed and filed their nails, shaved surplus hair from their underbellies and rubbed the inside of their ears with Q-tips. But as she stepped out of her camper and looked around the infield, Amanda wondered if she'd prepared enough. All around her, groomers sprayed dogs with hair color, lined their eyes with mascara, whitened their toenails with chalk and smoothed their coats with flat irons.

Of course the UKC has had coonhounds forever, and the AKC only came to the show when they needed to bolster their sagging finances. So how do you explain abandoning the UKC for the AKC without it reflecting on the pure ego of a young campaigner who wants to be a big-and-rich fish in a smaller pond? Simple: you blame it on something defective with the UKC.

Until recently, Amanda had competed almost exclusively in the United Kennel Club, a less formal, less prestigious organization popular among coonhound owners. At UKC events, she said dog feces blanketed the ground and hound owners spat chewing tobacco in the show ring. At AKC events, including the renowned Westminster Kennel Club dog show, professional handlers wear three-piece suits in the show ring.

Dog feces blanketed the ground? That's not a description of any UKC event I have ever been to, and it's not one anyone else seems to recognize either. But never mind. What's truth got to do with it? The message here is that there's a "civilized" club for people who put party dresses on themselves and makeup on their dogs, and an "uncivilized" club for tobacco chewing, shit-flinging rednecks who drink corn whiskey from a mason jar. I get it.

On The Washington Post web site, a commentator on the article notes that:

"Coonhounds are uniquely American. Dr. Thomas Walker was one of the first breeders of coonhounds in this country. Hence the name, Treeing Walker Coonhound. Walker also introduced horse racing and was one of the first settlers of Kentucky to go through the Cumberland Gap."

Well yes, that is all true ... maybe.

Without a doubt Walker was one of the first breeders of fox hounds in America, but there's some question as to whether the Walker Coonhound is named after him or another Walker that came many years later.

For anyone interested in reading more about Dr. Thomas Walker and his discovery of the Cumberland Gap, I suggest "Gateway: Dr. Thomas Walker and the Opening of Kentucky," by my father, David M. Burns. It's not about dogs, but then (suprisingly) not everything is.


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America's Founding Terrier

George Washington fox hunting in Virginia.

The case can be made that America might not exist today were it not for "our Founding Terrier."

Robert Brooke of Maryland introduced foxhunting to the United States in 1650, and imported the first pack of foxhounds from Great Britain.

Dr. Thomas Walker of Virginia (who discovered the Cumberland Gap and for whom the Walker Coon Hound is named) imported another pack to Virginia in 1742. The first fox hunting pack maintained for the benefit of a group of foxhunters rather than for a single owner, was instituted by Thomas, Sixth Lord Fairfax, in 1747 in northern Virginia.

Walker and Washington were good friends and business partners, and were co-owners (along with Washington's brother-in-law) of the "Dismal Swamp Land Company" (1763) which was to develop land near present-day Norfolk, Virginia. Walker was probably the person that got Washington started in fox hunting.

Washington moved to Mount Vernon, on the Potomac River just below Washington, D.C., after marrying Martha Dandridge Custis in 1759. It was at Mount Vernon, while still in his 20s, that George Washington first began fox hunting in earnest, setting up a rather lavish set of kennels and carefully breeding a new line of American foxhounds that were faster, lighter and less pack-centered than their English brethren.

In 1768, Washington was appointed as a delegate to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia and managed to fill his need for fox hunting at the Gloucester Hunting Club across the River from Philadelphia in New Jersey near present-day Haddonfield.

It was largely because of social and political connections made while fox hunting that Washington's social prominence rose, and in 1775 George Washington was Congress's unanimous choice as commander of the new Continental Army that was to lead the American forces against the British.

In truth, Washington did not have the forces and equipment to wage a successful fight and hold ground, and his chief battle-field opponent, General William Howe of Great Britain, was a master tactician.

Howe defeated Washington time and time again. In August of 1776 Howe landed on Long Island, captured New York City and defeated Washington at White Plains.

In 1777 Howe defeated Washington again, this time at the Battle of Brandywine (near present-day Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania) and took Philadelphia.

In October of 1777, the Battle of Germantown was waged. This battle took place near Philadelphia, and it too was a defeat for American forces, but it was a turning point in the war.

The turning point occurred when a small fox terrier was found wandering between the battle lines. The little dog was scooped up by American soldiers and the dog's collar identified it as belonging to none other than General Howe.

The dog was brought to Washington as a war prize -- a taunt to use against the British -- but Washington was having none of it.

A true dog-man, who missed his own fox hounds and terriers at Mount Vernon, Washington personally wiped the little terrier clean and brushed its coat. He then dictated a short note to his aide-de-camp, Alexander Hamilton, and secretly tucked a private note of his own tight under the collar of the dog. The dog, and both notes, were then returned to General Howe under a flag of truce.

Washington's private note has not survived, but Howe was extremely pleased by it. The public note, a copy of which has survived (see picture below), reads: "General Washington's compliments to General Howe. He does himself the pleasure to return him a dog, which accidentally fell into his hands, and by the inscription on the Collar appears to belong to General Howe."

After his terrier's return Howe praised Washington's actions as an "honorable act" and historians note that although he continued to win his battles, he never pursued Washington with quite the same vigor.

In fact, when ordered to fight harder and show the rebels no compassion, Howe resigned in protest.

Howe was replaced by General Henry Clinton, who was a poor tactician, and General Charles Cornwallis, who was a poor field commander.

In the end, the United States won the war and Washington returned to his beloved Mount Vernon where he continued breeding fox hounds and chasing foxes at least once a week.

Shortly after returning to Mount Vernon, Washington imported massive hounds from France with the help of his friend the Marquis de Lafayette. American hounds were crossed with these new French imports, and some of the progeny were sent to the Gloucester Foxhunting Club, outside of Philadelphia, where they proved extremely popular due to their speed.

In 1787 Washington headed the Virginia delegation to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, and again his friends at the Gloucester Foxhunting Club lobbied for his election as the first President of the new country.

After the Constitution was ratified, Washington was unanimously elected President and in time the new Capitol was constructed just down river from his Mount Vernon estate.



Draft of note from George Washington to Howe, in the handwriting of aide-de-camp Alexander Hamilton.
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