The History of the Bloodhound

The bloodhound has a long and noble history. The breed was first recorded in Britain in the 1300s but may have appeared much earlier, with William the Conqueror believed to have brought several hounds with him to England in 1066. These hounds were descendents of Le Chien de Saint-Hubert, St Hubert’s hound, bred by the monks of St Hubert’s Abbey, in what is now Belgium. The monks would present the King of France with two of these black and tan hounds every year. St Hubert lived in the early 700’s and became the Patron Saint of hunters after he encountered a vision of a stag with a crucifix between it’s antlers whilst hunting in the forest one day, and vowed to convert to a better life.

The bloodhound is a large scent hound, and was originally bred for hunting deer and wild boar. By the Middle Ages, the hounds were used to track human scent and are still used widely for law enforcement and in search and rescue operations. In Scotland, the breed was known as the “sleuth hound” and was used for tracking cattle thieves or reivers, over the Anglo-Scots border. John Barber wrote a description of Robert the Bruce being tracked by a bloodhound in 1307. He escaped only by killing one of his party and leaving the corpse to distract the hound. The breed almost died out in Britain during the second world war but was exported extensively to America and Europe. Some of these lines have now returned to Britain.