Bassets return to hunting dogs

PIKEVILLE, Ky. -- They're the puppies that trip over their extra-long ears. The lazy hounds that would rather be pulled along in a wagon than walk. The couch potatoes of the dog world that dream their lives away on the porch.

They're the lowly basset hounds, but their lazybones image is beginning to change.

A nationwide group of basset hound lovers has been largely successful in restoring some of the wrinkle-faced canines to the tenacious hunting dogs they were when the breed was developed centuries ago in France.

They still have the same short legs and the trademark loose-fitting skin. The difference is attitude. They will chase rabbits through tangles of briars and vines for hours, then go home and play fetch with the kids.

Names like Droopy and Sleepy no longer fit. Anthony Schmidt, one of some 600 members of the American Hunting Basset Association, said Speedy and Flash are better descriptors.

"Some of these dogs are fast as rockets," said Schmidt, who has six bassets on his 100-acre farm in Falmouth. "They keep getting faster and faster. They're not the bassets that most people are familiar with."

For many people, perceptions of bassets as lazy hounds are based on their Hollywood image. In sit-coms such as "The Dukes of Hazard" and "Coach," they had intermittent roles, always sitting or lying around.

Don't look for such inactivity at the Schmidt household. His bassets are athletes that participate in competitions to determine if they can outsmart and outlast other bassets in chasing rabbits. His family often spends Saturdays taking their dogs to competitions in small towns in the Midwest.

"At some point, the same thing started happening with bassets that happened to several other breeds," said Gerald Bailey, president of the American Hunting Basset Association of New Salisbury, Ind., which sponsors the competitions. "Over the years as people got to breeding away from hunting ability and more toward various unusual physical characteristics, they started to lose their ability to hunt."

Bailey said the cocker spaniel and the French poodle, which were originally developed as hunting dogs, suffered the same fate.

Through the generations, bassets have retained their keen sense of smell and at least some desire to hunt. Bailey said their bodies simply needed fine tuning.

"We want a hound that can go all day in the field," he said.