Walker Coonhound

The Walker Coonhound is a breed of dog descended from the English Foxhound, first recognized as a separate breed in 1945. Walker Coonhounds are extremely fast, agile, and tireless in the pursuit of game. They are extremely vocal with a distinctive bay that allows their owners to easily identify their dogs from great distances.

Walker hounds stand between 20 and 28 inches at the withers, weighing between 50 and 70 pounds and their markings are bicolor or tricolor with smooth short haired coats. They are extremely powerful, especially throughout the shoulder region, and have large ears compared to head size. Their legs are straight and lean, not well muscled. Some people have mistaken them as being very large beagles.


Walker Coonhounds are great with children and get along well with other dogs. They love to nest and cuddle. Getting a walker hound out of your bed,off your couch or away from your fireplace will be a feat in itself. They love to sleep after a long day and are the perfect dogs for watching television. Generally easy to train with little trouble, they make excellent pets if well exercised. Because they are eager to please, loving, intelligent and confident, they make a splendid companion dog for an owner willing to give them proper exercise. Because this breed requires intense exercise to match its energy levels, this breed can not settle for mere walks in the neighborhood.

Training must be consistent as Walker hounds are extremely intelligent and will take full advantage of loopholes in the training regimen. These hounds have been known to use objects as levers/tools and often manipulate their environment to accomplish a task (e.g., moving furniture to climb over gates, using household objects to manipulate kennel mechanisms, etc.). They love to carry plastic soda bottles.

Most Walker hounds are capable of scaling fences in excess of 6 feet so a proper yard system whether fence or electric fence is a must. They bury bones and dig if they are on scent. In general, they are oblivious to commands when trailing a scent, much like a beagle or basset hound so it is imperative for a walker hound to have serious training and a safe running area free of cars or other potential dangers. They have strong tracking instincts, which is why they are popular as hunting dogs. They can be quite adept at catching small varmints such as squirrels, roof rats, opossums, and skunks. They are also known for their ability to tree raccoons, bobcats, cougars and bears when hunting in packs of two or more.

Walker dogs are best known for being a coon hound. They chase a raccoon until it is forced up a tree to hide from the dog. The treeing part of the walker coon hound is that it also stops at the tree and barks so the dog handler can find the tree that the game is hiding in. Once the game can be found in the tree the dog is rewarded. This is all done after dark, since coon are naturally nocturnal. Hunting is a hunting dogs exercise. When it smells a track a coon dog typically begins to bawl a long carried out groaning bark. The colder/older the track the less frequent and more of a crying carrying out bawl. As the track gets warmer the excitement causes the dog to speed up the bawl. The dog then follows this track and it eventually ends up at a tree. The dog then literally follows the track up the tree, stands on its hind legs, rolls over a big whiney bawl as a "locate", and begins a chop bark. Your typical woof woof woof bark if you will. All this time the handler is standing where they turned the dog loose listening to all of these different barks understanding what the dog is doing and where the dog is going. Once the dog is "treed" with a solid chop the handler walks into the dog, looks for the game, and rewards the dog as necessary.