Hound Hunting
By Steve Fielder | @Stephen.f.fielder
“I know there are other dogs of her caliber, because I have hunted with some, but she was just that one dog for me”- Mark Dufresne
Dufresne hunted with Brin until she was thirteen years old. Here are his thoughts on his legendary bear hound: “Her trailing ability was her strongest strength. Her intelligence coupled with that ability enabled her to do an outstanding job. I believe the bobcat hunting, the way we hunt on foot with the dog, helped to develop her natural ability and made trailing tough tracks look easy. In thirteen-plus years, she went backwards on tracks four times and there were extenuating circumstances on each of those.
Barry 'Bear' Siragusa | @thehuntinghound
Running big brown bears with two hounds may sound counterintuitive to most North American bear hunters. In Scandinavia, due to a two dog rule, two hounds has to be enough. The hunters and their hounds have adapted, and the hounds learn to protect each other while doing it.
It’s somebody who is completely devoted to the dogs and is serious enough that it’s not a passive hobby. To be a big game houndsman and a devoted breeder and trainer of big game hounds, you have to be one hundred percent in.
The older we get the rarer it is to find new experiences that give us a sense of wonder and a moment of surreal stupor. I was recently given a last-minute opportunity to join in on a lynx hunt with hounds in British Columbia that provided that for me.