This is our son Cameron with a two-year-old Bloodhound bitch we adopted today. She came to us with the name Ritz, but I have chosen to denominate her Ophelia because I can’t stand for dogs I like to have dumb names. Her original owners were not able to take her along when they moved, so Ophelia became dog number five for us.
During the French Revolution, the worthy humanitarians who brought us the Reign of Terror took it into their heads that Bloodhounds were insufferable symbols of the nobility. In consequence, they set about to exterminate the breed. They were so successful that, when a semblance of sanity was restored in France, breeders were forced to mix other lines with the surviving Bloodhounds to bring back the breed. If you look closely at Ophelia, you can see that she is much closer to her Coonhound forebears than is the much larger, much deeper-chested Odysseus. The white on her chest and paws is another throwback to Coonhound ancestry.
We have an English Coonhound named Desdemona, and it’s amazing to see how similar these two dogs are. Ophelia is smart and fun-loving and eager to please. We’ll see if she has a future in advertising…
Amending this: We haven’t seen the papers on this dog yet, but we’re convinced she’s a Redbone Coonhound.
Kris Berg says:
>During the French Revolution, the worthy humanitarians who brought us the Reign of Terror took it into their heads that Bloodhounds were insufferable symbols of the nobility.
Welcome, Ophelia. Louis Vuitton would be pleased.
January 10, 2007 — 8:15 pm