It is with great sadness that I report of the death of Patch Cymbrian Hank. Hank was my buddy for a long time and his passing has left a hole in my heart. Hank was bred by Mike Capozzi, out of his fine female Jubalee, by Boquet River Pal Patch. I had the pleasure of watching both of these outstanding hounds run and both are an important part of the lineage of the kennel. I’ve had several of Pal’s offspring. I was at Mike’s when these pups were born but didn’t pick Hank up until the fall. I don’t recall how many were in the litter but it was a bumper crop. Hank and Pella were Mike’s keepers from the litter and that fall, Mike and I did a puppy swap and Hank was headed to Pennsylvania. He fit right in and I kenneled him with Hoss (Cymbrian Hans Blix) and the two made quite a pair. Hoss was about 16” and Hank was 13 ½” at best, Hoss was a chocolate tri and Hank more a traditional black, white & tan tri color. They got along extremely well except at feeding (Hoss was fed outside the kennel) and I ran them together quite a bit. They were close to the same age, with Hank maybe 6 months or so younger, they wrestled and horsed around but it never got out of hand. Hank was a chewer and he destroyed several boxes for me. He actually made a back door in one box. Around 8 months or so Hank was ready to start. I box trapped a rabbit at my mother’s house and Hank took off. I remember as if yesterday, that little bugger ran that rabbit check free across the creek and up the hill and back to a junk pile. I couldn’t wait to tell Mike. Hank continued to progress and he was circling rabbits fairly well so I decided to pack him. His brain was not ready for that & he felt that he had to have the front whether he could handle it or not. I thought I had blown him up. I tried running him braced and again solo. Solo he was great, no problems but as soon as I put him with another hound, he started his racing for the front again. After talking with Mike and several others I trusted, I decided to only run him by himself for a while and even not running him at all for periods of time. In the back of my head, I knew he could do it and had all the talents necessary so I wasn’t about to give up on him (others may have). Finally after maybe a year or so, he was back running with the pack. The more hounds with him, the better he was and soon was a very valuable member of my pack. He was funny about some things, he loved being petted and scratched in the kennel but didn’t want touched out in the field. He was all business as soon as he left the kennel. He was a large pack hound and I regret that when he was in his prime, I didn’t get him to a few LP trials. He loved being right there with a bigger pack. He seemed to have a pretty good nose but he would not open unless he was sure and I can still see him in a tough scenting spot, working the line with it right between his legs but he was silent until he was positive. He did this once at our club fun trial and the judge told me he had it but wasn’t opening. In about 20 yards, he opened and was off. For the next decade or so, Hank was a pack leader and a joy to take afield. Time slipped by and before I knew it, he was old. He wasn’t the pack leader and it bothered him. He wasn’t the alpha male and I could tell he wasn’t happy about it. He was relegated to running by himself and his field time was reduced dramatically. He was always a good boy and I loved having him in the kennel. A few years ago, I believe he started suffering from dementia. He would bark at the wall and go in the kennel and bark at the floor but he never missed a meal and was never at the vet. Pretty remarkable feat. He split his ear once and was covered in blood but he kept running the rabbit. I pulled a 3 inch thorn from his foot and as soon as it was out, he was back in the pack. He was one tough hound. He never opened on anything other than rabbit his entire life. He bounced deer and it never fazed him. The pack got into a porcupine once but Hank never got a quill. I knew the end was coming but I was still not prepared. The night before he passed, he walked the hallway as he did often, remembering that he was once “cock of the walk.” I buried him next to his niece Onwasa and a few tears fell into the cold January clay. Hank will be with me in my heart forever.
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Onwasa passed peacefully Saturday October 14. She had been fading for several days. I went to check on her about 7:30 Saturday morning, she didn't come out of her box but wagged her tail for me and looked to be at peace and by 9:30 she had passed. She was an awesome hound and sort of an end to an era. Onwasa, which Mike told me meant "Good Water" was the product of a half brother/ half sister cross (Ambe X Pella). Wasa was always a gentle hound with a very sweet disposition. She was started by Bert and Rita Hakey in Vermont (I believe) and was a very solid rabbit dog. After I brought her to PA and after her settling in a bit, I took her out for her first sniff of cottontail in my friend's enclosure. Within 5 minutes she had a cottontail on the move and looked like she had been running them all her life. She was by no means my fastest hound but she was very dependable and a very good check hound. Wasa also was a very good mother. Off hand I do not know how many were in her first litter, but her second, she had 11 and raised 9. Her third litter here she had six and raised them all. Her offspring are all through my kennel, Paco, Lola, Chandra, Taya, Izzy and Pria all descend from her. Her pups are all throughout the country, several are in California and from Indiana to Maine. A couple years ago, some of the younger bitches started picking on her so she was moved to her own kennel. Last year I decided to kennel her with Gadget and they got along great and seemed to enjoy each other. Last year her voice changed to a horse, gruff chop as her age was beginning to show. Right up to the end, she was a very clean hound and just a joy to have in the kennel. I've said before that I bury a piece of my heart with every hound and that is definitely the case here. I still look to see her and the kennel seems different without this grand dam of the kennel. Rest easy girl! Added a couple photos to the "Hounds" pages. I had John out with me snapping pictures and it is indeed difficult to get a proper pose on these hounds, especially the younger hounds. I've had folks asking for pictures of the younger hounds so these will have to do for now until I can get some in a natural pose.
Been getting some miles on the hounds as we have had a nice cool spell but we have returned to the humidity of August here in September. Going to breed Taya here in the next few days, keeping my fingers crossed! My garden is winding down. Had a very good year with some things and a pretty poor year for others. We had a nice blueberry crop but not a single apple. It is trial time at my beagle club. I am not a big fan of the trials but I do enjoy seeing other hounds and talking with other houndsmen. Our miserable July is coming to an end. I love cold fronts from Canada ! Hounds are getting anxious to get some big time running in.
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I really have been slipping in the blog posts, I didn't realize it had been so long since I've posted anything. Time has a way of flying by. We have been stuck in a humid spell and I don't enjoy running the dogs in the heat. Been busy cutting grass, working in the garden, and a host of other things. Hopefully we will have a new litter of Patches next month. I would rather have winter pups than summer pups but nature didn't cooperate with us this year. Hounds and Hunting Magazine has been rerunning Willet's articles the past few months. I have the originals but it's always nice to see. I will try to do more site updates soon. Have some hounds I need to update. Like Mike told me: " you have to keep moving forward." I have been intending to do a new blog entry for some time but have been busy with one thing or another for quite a while. Between work, the family and the hounds, little time is left for much else. Our weather has been crazy. We had a fairly nice autumn and I was able to do a good bit of running. Then came rifle deer season and the hounds have to be put up for those 2 weeks. After that it seems as though winter came swiftly. Our temps dropped to the single digits with high winds and today we had snow, then sleet, then freezing rain and finally plain rain. If conditions don't improve, there isn't much point in running the hounds. While Blair was home for Thanksgiving, we got to do our annual pheasant hunt. The boys had a blast as this is an event they look forward to each year. After Blair headed back after Thanksgiving, he called and said he had a 96 hour leave the next weekend and was coming back home to deer hunt. We saw a lot of deer and both boys passed on several doe. Christmas is fast approaching and we will be lucky enough to have everyone here again. Blair has a 2 week leave and hopefully we will get to do some more gunning. Below are some hound pics. Merry Christmas! ( left: Bindi working the line. Center: Taya, a complete hound in all aspects. Right: Gadget on the trail along a dry, dirt road)
I have received quite a few requests asking for some updates and a new blog post. I have been so busy that some things get put on the back burner. Earlier in the summer, I had been running the hounds nightly. The last 3 weeks I have only run sparingly. As many know, I’m not a fan of the heat and humidity and we sure have had a lot of that this summer. It looks like next week will bring some cooler nighttime temps. My garden has been a challenge this year as well. From fighting the lack of rain, to the critters, the garden has been a struggle. Groundhogs, deer, bugs and rabbits all have bothered my plants this year. My beans have been mowed down three times now. My tomatoes have all had a bite taken out of them and now my cucumbers (which I’ve never had issues with before) have had their vines nipped and now the cucumbers themselves are being nibbled upon. Add to this several varieties of lettuce seed that I grow never came up and one beautiful patch that did come up (inside a fence!) was raided by an angry woodchuck. The spring pups have gone to their new homes. They were some absolutely gorgeous, energetic little buggers. The time flies when you are taking care of young ones and before you know it, those 8 weeks are gone and the kennel is quiet again. **************************************************************************************************************************************** Many have asked about the boys. I have been told they feel like they know them from my writings. John has spent the summer working in Ocean City, MD. He came home for 2 days at the end of his annual National Guard Drill and then went back to OCMD. This is the first summer since he was 5 that he hasn’t played baseball. He is supposed to be back the end of August. Blair has been all over the country for his Marine training and is now stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina as part of the combat logistics regiment. He was at Parris Island, SC, Camp Geiger, NC, then Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri and now back at Lejeune. He surprised us with a visit on Memorial Day and then headed back to Missouri after 3 short days. In his travels, he met Trace Adkins at Dulles airport. Many know Trace Adkins as the voice of the Wounded Warrior Project commercials but as anyone who has a Marine knows, he also sings “Arlington” and “Semper Fi” which both mean a lot to us. Blair said they played “Semper Fi” every week after church services and when we were at Family Day at Parris Island, they played an awesome slide show to it. (Semper Fi video) It has been strange being “empty nesters,” it is SO quiet here and I miss the boys but they are out seeing the country and living their lives. It leaves me with a lot of time to run dogs and do some other things that I haven’t had time to do in the past. **************************************************************************************************************************************** One of my pet peeves is the oversized beagles being produced. According to AKC, a hound over 15” is the only automatic disqualification for a beagle (everything else is just a fault to some degree). Now I have had a few hounds that have gone slightly over but it is something that I am always on guard against. A beagle is not a harrier or a foxhound. The standard is very clear. I have had folks from real snow country (Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine) that prefer the smaller hound that stays on top of the snow. It’s all about the HEART! Also many of these oversize hounds are out of proportion. The necks aren’t long enough to comfortably reach the ground (beagles are scent hounds, not sight hounds). Once a hound goes over the 15” mark, it is tough to keep all other aspects of the hound in the proper ratio. Legs and elbows, shoulders, spine, head and ears get out of whack on these oversize hounds. A beagle is a compact hound that should look like a beagle, not a pony with flop ears. The paper breeding and looking only at certain traits (e.g. color) and not evaluating the entire hound will lead folks into trouble. Indiscriminate breeding will leave many with health issues down the line or faulty hounds that aren’t worthy of carrying on the legacy. The standard was written by very knowledgeable houndsmen and every part of the conformation standard has a practical application to the hunting hound. Stamina, durability and efficiency all play into the conformation of a well put-together beagle. They all also play into the longevity of the hunting hound. As a critical observer, the most common fault that I see, without a doubt, is faulty feet. So many hounds have splayed, long toes. In the field, a widespread liability is swinging and blindly charging the front. Again we are talking efficiency in running a rabbit, and many hounds cannot circle a rabbit on their own. Take the pack away from a hound and you will see what you really have. I haven’t bred the perfect hound yet, but that is what I’m striving for. Lastly, I see some people on the internet claiming “Patch this” or “Patch that” but then they exclaim that their hounds swing and skirt, run trash, go over 15” or have other faults (physical or running) that would never have been perpetuated by Willet, Mike or myself. If you are promoting hounds that are direct opposite to what the Original, AKC Registered kennel stands for and has always stood for, why are you claiming the Patch name on your hounds? Just because your hound carries in his/her ancestry hounds named “Patch”, does not make the hound worthy to be bred. Been extremely busy! Too much to do, not enough time in a day! I have several blog posts ready to go, just have to put some finishing touches to them.
Below are our 2 keepers from our fall litter. Bindi, on the left, is a sweet, sweet little hound. She reminds me of her grandmother Eunice, hopefully she will turn into the hound that Eunice was. On the right is Maury (Maurice). He is one of the most athletic hounds we have ever bred. It appears that he is barely moving but he sure can cover some ground. He is very fluid. I watched him clear a 3 foot ditch by 2 feet on each side, not missing a stride. Very pleased with both of these pups so far. |
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