What is the smartest Coon dog you ever ran across. Not a Coon dog in the normal way but years ago there was some coon hunters here that used to get together on Sunday afternoons and run water races. Guy had great setup, pond of about a acre longer than wide with a pole on the dam with a cable ran across the pond on a crank spool deal to a tree on the other bank. There was some serious money bet on races there I was told. My grandfather use to run his dogs there and our grandmother had made many friends with the wives of those guys who came to race and a cousin and myself took her over to visit them that day since my grandfather had passed away a while before, I was just a spectator had never seen water races before. One dog a guy brought out was the smartest dog there that day. Looked to be a Lab/Coonhound cross, yellow like a Lab but built like a Coonhound. He had stood with the dog on a leash for a couple races with his dog watching. When it got to his turn to run a race they got all lined up and away went the coon in a cage down that cable. Just as it got real close to the water where it would just skim it they turned the dogs loose. Every dog but this yellow dog hit the water running and took off swimming and barking after that coon in the cage. Yellow dog ran to waters edge , took one look and took off around the pond on the bank. It got to the tree on the other side before the coon did and was sitting there howling when it hit that end point....I thought to myself now that's one smart dog that guy has there.
That's what I was thinking, Cur or a blonde Plott hound. Back when I coon hunted I had a Black & Tan that thought he was a black lab. I'd put him in a couple water races every summer. The other hounds would run down to the edge of the water and wade in. He would go at a dead run and take a big flying leap like a lab. He'd usually be out of the water and treed on the other side by the time the other dogs got 3/4 of the way across the pond. If you hunted him near a river you'd better have a way to get to the other side, he'd swim it just to check out the other side.
When I was a kid they would chain a coon to a log in the river, and try to get their dogs to swim out and pull it off. I would think they no longer practice this sport.
