In praise of the Plott

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

1

I love this Slate story about how the Plott hound breed is making its debut at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. The Plott hound has a storied history in North Carolina, as the story notes:

The Plott hound, one of four breeds making its debut on the green carpet this week at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, is unlikely to melt the hearts of television viewers. In pose-offs against bassets and dachshunds, two of its cuddlier rivals in the hound group, it will be hard for the high-strung animals to look anything but ill at ease. Weighing 50 to 60 pounds, with a homely mien, a thin, brindled coat, and a sinewy profile, they aren’t noticeably prepossessing or much good as indoor pets.

But those who can appreciate a more rural, less homogenized America should be rooting for the Plotts whenever they step into the ring. One of only a handful of breeds recognized by the American Kennel Club as having its origins in this country, the Plott hound has been the state dog of North Carolina since 1988 and a common sight for more than a century in eastern Tennessee, where, by one owner’s estimate, “about every third dog tied up back of someone’s house is a Plott.”

Unless you’ve hunted black bear or wild boar, or you’ve spent a lot of time in the Smoky Mountains, you’ve probably never heard of, much less encountered, a Plott hound. Not withstanding the newfound respectability afforded Plotts by the Westminster initiation, dog encyclopedias seldom give the breed much ink.

Its reputation for courage and stamina, however, is anything but regional. Outdoorsmen from as far away as Africa and Japan hold the Plott in near-mystical esteem as perhaps the world’s toughest dog. Bred to track, run down, tree, and, if necessary, grapple with a baying 500-pound bear eight times its size, it is often overmatched but rarely chastened by that fact. Inspect the coat of one that has worked in the woods for a year or more, and you will likely find slash marks from a bear’s claws or a hog’s tusks. Plotts routinely will stay on game, alone or in packs, for days at a time. Willing to sacrifice themselves before they’ll run from a showdown, they are the ninja warriors of dogdom. By comparison, the beagle is a layabout, and the pit bull a pansy.

Writer Cormac McCarthy first told me about the breed. He has hunted with them in Canada, and some 20 years ago he attended the annual Plott Days festival with his brother. This celebration is now a family-friendly affair held in the Midwest. But back then, the event was in the Carolinas and semi-illegal, as the organizers tested the dogs in various controversial ways, most notoriously in the Elizabethan rite of bearbaiting.

“It wasn’t particularly gory,” McCarthy recalled. Although he estimates that some 300 Plotts hurled themselves at a staked bear over the course of a day, the result was that “the bear got chewed on a bit, and the dogs got cuffed around.” His admiration for the breed is expressed in a terse judgment: “They are just without fear.”

The cult of the dog is best sampled in back issues of the annuals published by the National Plott Hound Association and the American Plott Association. Along with photos of deceased bear, boar, mountain lion, and raccoon draped over pickup trucks, the pages are filled with moving encomia to the mettle of old Plotts, living and dead. Owners will often boast about their dogs when they’ve “pulled hair” (bitten a bear). Breeders may hyperbolize the tracking nose of a beloved stud (“able to cold trail and jump a bear, after the track has been boohooed, foot raced and gave up on”) or relate harrowing tales of a season just past. (“I had four dogs injured before the bear was killed. Susie, Betsy, and Chuta … were all bitten badly. The bear had Chuta’s whole head in its mouth but she survived.”) Fans write in from five continents, and breeders advertise from pockets throughout the United States.

These are not the sort of people who frequent Westminster. The hunter’s needs for performance are not easily aligned with those of the dog-show world. The AKC cares about tracking a strong breeding line, however, and the pedigrees of the Plott are clear enough through centuries of North Carolina history.