Bloodhound prevails over bobcat? It’s not what you think.
The post title comes from a Yahoo headline in 2021 in which the Brownsville St. Joseph Bloodhounds picked up two home wins over the Rio Hondo Bobcats. And that leads us to the topic of mascots.
A simple search for “mascot” on these pages will make it quickly obvious that as dog breed mascots go, the Bulldog rules. One source estimates that around 1,243 entities have the Bulldog as their symbolic public face. The Bulldog, however, isn’t the only “game in town.”
One can find a Bullmastiff, Fox Terrier, Saint Bernard, Boston Terrier, Catahoula Leopard Dog, Saluki, Alaskan Husky, Great Dane, Irish Wolfhound, Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Bluetick Coonhound, Collie – even an Otterhound, as a mascot. If it’s your breed, however, you’ll wonder why a Bloodhound isn’t anyone’s mascot. In fact, a Bloodhound is the mascot of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, as well as for Auburndale High School and and Fort Madison High School.
The “Fighting Bloodhounds” can also be found at the college-prep school, St. Joseph Academy founded in 1865 as a school for boys (it went co-ed in 1971).
The school embraces its “Bloodhoundness” as evidenced by the bronze Bloodhound sculpture located at the school. Why a Bloodhound? Well, as they say, “Always be yourself unless you can be a Bloodhound, then always be a Bloodhound.” Note: They don’t always say that, but they could. Just saying. We are still investigating the answer to “why” this breed, but we came across this image on the school’s website:
While we wait to hear back from the school about why the Bloodhound was chosen as the school mascot, we believe we know the origin of the sculpture. It is identical to a sculpture offered by Metropolitan Galleries cast in the traditional lost wax bronze casting method, though St. Joseph’s version is considerably larger. We have “Cat’s” permission to share a photo of this lovely piece which breed owners can purchase for themselves at this link. As an aside, other breed owners will want to explore the Metropolitan Gallery’s site as the gallery offers many other breeds.
As dog people, we get a chuckle out of reading material from a website in which a breed is a mascot. To wit: “Our trained counselors begin working with our students as soon as they become Bloodhounds.”
And finally, it’s a coincidence, of course, but St. Joseph Academy is located in Brownsville, TX, and “Trumpet,” the Bloodhound who won Best in Show in 2022 at the Westminster KC Dog Show, was born in St. Joseph.