They can be gentle, affectionate family dogs, but you probably wouldn't really want one for a pet. Due to their stubbornness and independent qualities, a bloodhound can be an overwhelming challenge. They generally live for 10–12 years with minimal health problems although they are notorious for drooling, howling and snoring!
Although they are calm and gentle by nature, bloodhounds are also tough, stubborn, cunning and independent. They have been known to sniff out for treats chew furniture and escape from any yard that is not extremely secure if they catch an interesting scent and decide to follow it. Also, bloodhounds are very sensitive creatures and do not respond well to stern training. A puppy will cost you between $400 and $1,200 with the average being around $750.
Bloodhounds shed a lot. They're messy eaters and at 80-100-plus pounds they eat and defecate a lot. Being friendly critters, they also like to sit on their owner's laps. They are also born sniffers...they sniff everything. They are smart, too. Some learn to open doors and some like to hide things.
They were originally bred for hunting large game such as deer and wild boar and are thought to be descendants of Belgian hounds kept at the Abbey of Saint-Hubert in the Ardennes region and, as a breed, may be nearly 1,000 years old.
They have skills no other dog has that makes them extremely valuable when it comes to nose work. For nearly 200 years, bloodhounds have helped law enforcement track missing persons and criminals. Even though today's police forces have a lot of high tech equipment available many believe bloodhounds are still the best option for tracking.
Bloodhounds have a very, very good sense of smell. Researchers estimate that their sense of smell is at least 1,000 times stronger than a human's.
Experts say they have as many as 300 million scent receptors, which enables them to follow scent trails up to 300 hours (12-13 days) old and they have been known to follow a scent trail for more than 130 miles.
By comparison, German shepherds are pretty sniffers, but they only have approximately 230 million scent receptors. We humans only have about 5 million receptors, or about 2 percent of what a bloodhound has.
When a bloodhound sniffs the scent such as a piece of clothing, air passes through its nasal cavity and the scent creates an “odor image" in the dog's brain...a sort of smell photograph.
The odor image is created from smells humans can't detect, things like sweat, breath and skin which when combines enables the bloodhound to pick out the exact scent trail it's looking , or rather, sniffing for. Once the bloodhound finds a scent trail matching the odor image, it can follow that specific smell despite all the other odors in the environment.
The nose isn't the only part of bloodhound's anatomy that makes it a good tracker. Their wrinkly skin helps trap scents and their long, droopy ears also act as sweepers, dragging the ground and sweeping scents toward their nose. They also have very muscular necks that allow them to keep their nose to the ground for hours at a time without getting cramps.
A bloodhound’s sense of smell is so reliable, it is even admissible in court. Their “testimony” is considered admissible in many American courts which allow the results of a bloodhounds nose work to be entered into evidence:
“Evidence of the trailing of human beings by Bloodhounds is admissible as a circumstance to corroborate other testimony offered by the state. The Bloodhound in question must be shown to have been trained to follow human beings by their tracks and to have been tested as to its accuracy in trailing upon one or more occasions.”
The term bloodhound refers to the fact that early breeders went to great lengths to record their ancestry and preserve the purity of their bloodline. “Blooded Hound” would be a more apt name.
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