The Definition

According to Wikipedia, Coonhounds are treeing dogs. They were developed for their keen sense of smell which especially included air scenting animals above them in trees. They have the ability to track, chase and corner the animal both on the ground and in trees. A trained coonhound will bark and keep its prey treed until the handler/hunter arrives.

The Evidence

We went out for our morning outing this morning. Kara did her thing like usual and then went over to the side of the yard where our shed is. She started barking single barks and stood her ground looking like this:

Kara Looking

I tried calling her to come in the house but she kept rooted to the spot barking. It wasn’t a crazy frantic barking. It was a different kind – like an alert. She didn’t move forward so I went to see what she was barking at. Here’s what I saw:

Virginia Opossum

He didn’t seem the least bit concerned about the barking dog and just sat motionless watching us. After I came and acknowledged what she saw I was able to get her into the house easily. She’d done her job by getting me to come see this creature.

The Conclusions

OK, we know she’s pure Poodle with no part of coonhound in her. But she definitely has scenting ability. So the conclusion is she’ll do great when we start Nosework class next week!

Maybe we should think about tracking. What do you think?

P.S. For those of you interested in wildlife, this is a Virginia Opossum commonly found in North America. He was young and cute and not at all harmed by our encounter. He was no doubt hanging out waiting for a mouse to come by.