The American English Coonhound.

A nitpicky, fastidious person might ask: “Well, which is it? Is it American or is it English?”

A southerner who has hunted over the dogs would shrug their shoulders and say: “Well, it’s the English dog, of course.” While it’s more complicated than that, the answer reflects habit, a colloquial term handed down by southern hunting folk who for generations knew the breed as the “English Fox and Coonhound,” and later, just as the “English Coonhound.”

They weren’t wrong, of course. The breed descended from English Foxhounds brought to American shores by settlers in the 17th and 18th centuries, but the heavier boned breed struggled in the colonies. The wide open, diverse American landscape was dramatically different from England’s smaller fields bordered by hedgerows. Hunting on varied terrain called for a dog with greater speed, and hence, more endurance than English Foxhounds had. To add to their challenge, these dogs were expected to hunt for critters that didn’t live in the home country, namely, animals like raccoons, bears, and cougars that could climb trees to escape dogs. Not bred to “tree” their quarry, one can imagine a pair of English Foxhounds screeching to a stop at the base of a hickory tree, look up and think, “What the heck?”

Hunters “helped” the hounds adapt by selectively breeding them to be better suited for local hunting conditions, and when the AKC recognized the breed in 2011, it insisted on including “American,” in the breed name. Why? In part to differentiate the hound from similar hounds still existing in England, but also to clarify the breed’s development in this country. Put another way, the name acknowledges the breed’s English ancestry while being a nod to its American development.

That said, you’ll find hunters particularly in the Southern United States who still refer to the hounds simply as “English dogs.”

Image: American English Coonhound by wirestock_creators/Dreamtime