Live Life Team
While once a popular hunting dog, the Southern Hound, originating in Great Britain, is now extinct. It was called the Southern Hound because it originated from the southern half of Great Britain, where most of its population lived. There was a Northern Hound that looked similarly to the Southern Hound that inhabited the northern half of Great Britain.
One of the most notable traits of the Southern Hound was its hunting capabilities. While they could have been bred as pets, most people owned a Southern Hound so that they could have a leg up when it came to hunting. Southern Hounds were scent hounds. They had a far superior sense of smell compared to a lot of other dog breeds, including other scent hounds. They would use this sense of smell to find and track their foes. Unlike a lot of hunting animals, the Southern Hound was slow. Instead of running after the game, it would continue to slowly follow the scent trail. Because of this, they were most often used to hunt bigger game that had a hard time hiding. The Southern Hound would be tracking them for so long that the animals would grow tired, providing a good opportunity for the hunter to catch these animals.
Although this method of hunting worked well for the Southern Hound for a time, people eventually preferred a swift hunt rather than a drawn-out affair. These dogs fell out of favour and were eventually extinct by the eighteenth or nineteenth century.
