Black and Tan Coonhound Breed Magazine - Showsight

competitions you can talk to your dog, pat your leg, and clap your hands to keep their attention, making it an ideal way to initi- ate the dog into obedience competition.” Two Black and Tan Coonhounds have completed the AKC Master Agility Cham- pion (MACH) title. Th ey are MACH Indigo Mark V Spitfire MXB MJS and MACH Sloopy MX MXS MXJ MJB. Teresa Locatelli who is currently compet- ing in agility writes, “If you want to spend some fun time with your coonhound, try agility. Even if you don’t want to compete, training is fun.” She continues by saying, “Your first obstacle is to find a trainer that realizes a coonhound is not a border collie. Unlike the herding dogs and terrier in my agility class, I can’t send my coonhound through the weave poles three times in a

row. If she does it right the first time, she doesn’t get the point of repeating the same thing and she will get slower the second time and shut down on the third time.” I emphasize the history of the Black and Tan being trainable in both obedi- ence and agility so that people will real- ize that these dogs make excellent family pets. Th ey are excellent with children. Since Black and Tans were bred to hunt raccoons, they are a bit impervious to pain. Th is means that a toddler or small child who accidentally hurts a coonhound is not likely to get snapped at. Samantha, my youngest daughter started showing dogs in fun matches at the age of six. I gave her one of my grown Coonhounds, CH Rockytop Mountain Moonshine CDX to handle. Samantha had to reach

under Shine to set his legs that were not next to her because she could not reach them over his back. She took first place at one fun match—she was the smallest junior with the biggest dog. Shine was very patient with his young handler! Th ey are also excellent watchdogs, alerting you (and the rest of the neigh- borhood) when there is a stranger in the vicinity. I lived in Huntsville for 13 years and I thought we just lived in a good sec- tion of town. Th ere was never any crime on our street. About a month after we moved to Gurley, Alabama several of the cars up and down our former neighborhood were broken into. My coonhounds, who lived in the back yard, kept the neighborhood safe all that time by causing the burglars to find quieter neighborhoods to vandalize.

“Since Black and Tans were bred to hunt raccoons, THEY ARE A BIT IMPERVIOUS TO PAIN.”

S HOW S IGHT M AGAZINE , F EBRUARY 2014 • 279

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