Alayna Myers and Tiffany Evitts are all smiles with the winning Crossbred Pack on the lawn of Morven Park, Photo by Judith Wilson.
Practicing for the Pack Class starts with handling hounds daily in the kennel. It’s about creating trust and boundaries. Teaching them to have manners, discipline, and respect without being overbearing. Knowing how to manage their attention span – how to extend it, and when to let them relax. Not letting them bowl you over or stampede through gates and interacting with them more than just feeding and hosing down. Spending extra time bonding with the aloof or shy ones. And, of course, choosing the hounds who will be the most comfortable and responsive in a stressful, public environment.
Belle Meade Hunt won the Crossbred Pack at the 2023 Virginia Hound Show. Masters Gary WIlkes and Epp Wilson with Judith Wilson, Alayna Myers, and Tiffany Evitts.
In addition to the daily routine, a couple of months out from the show, I’ll start training the hounds to do the specific things I know they’ll want to see in the Pack Class. I will practice several times a week up to the show. As for how long I practice per day, like any training, doing shorter stints more frequently and working up to longer practices works best. You want it to be fun and easy and not burn them out.
I like to play around with transitions – walking, trotting, stopping abruptly, and so forth in different combinations, keeping them on their toes and paying attention. I have the whip run around making sure nobody is off eating manure or marking bushes, as opposed to letting them mess around a bit like on walk out. Then after a few minutes of that, I will try holding them up while the whip comes around to the front of them as I walk away. I usually practice this on walk out as well, so they already have all the pieces of the puzzle. It can be a little tricky practicing in the Hunt yard, especially when someone comes down the driveway with a truck full of retired hounds hanging out of half-open windows. But having distractions like that is ultimately helpful since there will be plenty of unforeseen occurrences at the show! Then it’s just a matter of training whoever will be whipping in.
Tiffany Evitts with Belle Meade’s Junior Alayna Myers showing off their win at the 2023 Crossbred Pack Class.. Photo by Judith Wilson.
I had a very talented Junior, fourteen-year-old Alayna Myers, helping me this year show hounds. Honestly, they looked so good this year because of her! She was subtle but firm, knew their names, and did everything I asked of her. When I walked away from them, she kept them there seemingly effortlessly. But in fact, it takes some skill to make it appear that way. For instance, if a hound’s attention started to drift to the crowd, she would need to bring its focus back without overdoing it and disturbing the rest of them. It’s organized chaos most of the time. She even showed one of the hounds in the ring by herself, helping me juggle the show while starting the Professional Development Program. We wouldn’t have won the Pack Class without her.
I did also practice a little on the way over to the lawn, using transitions to put them in an attentive mode. Once you get to the lawn, keeping them packed up while waiting for the other packs to get there creates yet another challenge. By the time your turn comes, you hope that they aren’t so frustrated with the whole thing that they don’t want to listen anymore. And there’s no way to know when everyone will be ready. It’s very much a hurry-up-and-wait situation. Last year, I arrived as soon as possible and almost missed our class. This year, I did the same and ended up waiting for what felt like an eternity. But that is simply the way it goes, and you just cross your fingers that your hounds love you enough to put up with it!
Ultimately, the Pack Class should show off the work you do with your hounds year-round. It’s not about getting them to do tricks one day out of the year. How your pack performs out hunting is directly correlated to their handling and routine in the kennels, as well. You start with a controlled environment to teach them good habits so that, when you’re in an unpredictable situation, they should still be biddable even though they don’t have to be. Expose them to new situations while keeping consistency from the bottom, up – kennels, walk out, exercise, hunting, and the Pack Class. But always remember that they are animals with personalities and quirks, just like us. You can’t predict, or get angry at, how they will respond to the situations you’re throwing at them – whether a bold hound turns squirrely after a few days in a strange kennel, or one of them jumps on top of the trophy table during the show. But that’s all part of the adventure!
Editor’s Note: The weekend following her win at the Virginia Hound Show, Tiffany took the Belle Meade pack to Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. The Belle Meade pack won second place in the Crossbred Pack Class at the Bryn Mawr Hound Show.
Tiffany Evitts won second in the Crossbred Pack Class with the Belle Meade hounds at the Bryn Mawr Hound Show in Pennsylvania. Photo by Karen Kandra
Tiffany Evitts is going into her third season as a professional Kennelman at Belle Meade Hounds. She started fox hunting in California at Santa Ynez Valley Hounds as a field member, but quickly decided there was nothing else she’d rather be doing. She left her vet tech job to become a barn worker and whipper-in at SYVH, with plenty of ranch maintenance mixed in. However, even though she had been raised around horses, her true passion became working with hounds. She followed a fellow hunt servant to Essex in New Jersey, and Live Oak in Florida, where she had non-hunting jobs but continued to be involved in many ways. She worked in various types of kennels, including private quail hunting plantations and a Labrador Retriever training facility, and also managed a county shelter. It was during this time that she took a job advertised as “the trip of a lifetime,” working as a groom for Epp and Judith Wilson on the Western leg of the Hark Forward tour. It certainly was as great an adventure as described and turned out to be a personality match, with the Wilsons inviting her to help again on more trips, including the Performance Trials held at Midland’s Fitzpatrick fixture. Eventually, she decided to make the leap and get into professional hunt service again by working as Kennelman at Belle Meade, where she could focus on improving her skills with hounds instead of horses. She had never shown hounds before her first year at Belle Meade, and Belle Meade hadn’t had hounds at Virginia in many years, so each ribbon was very special no matter what the color. This year she started the MFHA Professional Development Program and is keen to learn all she can to become a better asset to Belle Meade.