Basset hounds... an eye on the future

It was interesting to hear Jessica Holm on the Crufts TV coverage maintain that the ears on a Basset and Bloodhound are so long in order to channel scent into their nose.  This is, I believe, a breed myth that would not stand up to scrutiny. I have spoken to scent experts who say it makes no sense and, of course, there are a great many excellent scent-hound breeds that do not have them.  Certainly Bassets do not need ear leathers so long that they trip on them (as I have seen in the show-ring).

So what of the Bassets at this year's Crufts? The picture above - of a dog that won his class at Crufts on Friday - shows that there is a lot of improvement still needed in terms of eye anatomy (and the same goes for the Bloodhounds' eyes (every Bloodhound I saw had red haws showing).  But overall, I believe the Bassets are beginning to ease away from the excesses we documented in Pedigree Dogs Exposed.

I was particularly pleased to see this 22 month old Basset bitch (above). She had such good eyes that I stopped to talk to her owner who told me that she had been bred specifically to meet the new breed standard (which discourages excess). Good news.

There is, however, a way to go yet. Here's the dog that won Best of Breed:

CH RIBBLERIVER SHOW ME OFF AT SEDONIA © The Kennel Club

He looks fit and in glossy good-health but he is much lower-slung than Basssets that actually do the job for which they were bred, and there really is no benefit to the dog to have this wrinkling/excess flesh on their legs.  Here, by the way, are two top showdogs considered to epitomise good breed type in 1964 - before the modern show-ring moulded them into something chunkier and wrinklier.

Picture: Mary Evans Picture Library/Thomas Fall
From The Basset Hound, by E. Fitch Daglish, a Foyles handbook, first published in 1964

And, of course, you can still see dogs like them  - just not in the show-ring. Here are the wonderful Albany Bassets - sadly considered mongrels by most show-breeders (who talk darkly of a cross to  harrier...)

Edited 15/3/11 to replace the picture of the 1960s-vintage Basset. The pic I first used (now below) was not a Basset - but a Basset Artesien-Norman - in fact a dog behind many of today's Bassets, brought in post-war to increase the Basset gene pool.

Picture: Mary Evans Picture Library/Thomas Fall

From The Basset Hound, by E. Fitch Daglish, a Foyles handbook, first published in 1964

Interesting to note, btw, from a Google image search, how very little this breed has changed over the years in comparison to the Basset.