A rare breed with plenty of character

Everyone is excited for a Styrian coarsehaired hound to join the mix, but the training is slow-going until Cora discovers her nose at last

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Going by the figures alone, our recent recruitment drive for new association members (The new recruits, 24 May) might have seemed like a failure. We'd started out with over a dozen applicants, but the candidates were eliminated one by one, and by the end of the day we only had two dogs that were eligible to take part in our full range of activities. 

But numbers aren't everything, and for us, the day was a real success because it had confirmed an exciting discovery: after 30 years of trying, we were about to welcome a Styrian coarsehaired hound, known as Cora, to our association.

We had deliberately kept things quiet when we were first contacted by Cora's owner. We didn't want to risk disappointing other members of the group if the puppy's claimed pedigree proved to be bogus (as so many of those at the recruitment session had), but inside we were fizzing with excitement. Alongside dachshunds, we only accept typical tracking dogs with proven pedigrees, so we had to check Cora's paperwork before she and her owner could be accepted as trainees on our tracking course. Thankfully, everything checked out.

This means we now have almost a complete set of tracking dogs within our association: Hanoverian hound, Bavarian mountain hound, alpine dachsbracke, Slovensky kopov and now a Styrian coarsehaired hound.

The only breed that is missing is the Austrian black and tan hound, though we did have one previously.