Sandy Dixon

The adventures of Sandy Dixon and Mystic, shown here at the Virginia Foxhound Show, were just beginning. / Lix Callar photoThe Brazos Valley Hunt is back home in Texas now, having returned from this year’s Virginia Foxhound Show. That may not sound like a great achievement, but traveling to hound shows has been one adventure after another over the years.

Returning from the Central States Hound Show in 1995, we drove into a tornado. The hound trailer was flipped over on Interstate 35 in Ardmore, Oklahoma, spilling sixteen hounds onto the highway. We had two kennels strapped down in the bed of the pickup, both of which were sucked out. I actually saw Melody, a pregnant bitch I had just picked up from Tommy Jackson, fall out of the sky and hit the ground running south down the median.

Brazos Valley Meadow, shown by Sandy Dixon, MFH and huntsman, is Grand Champion. Standing (l-r): Dr. Robert Smith, ex-MFH, Ringmaster; Bobby Dixon; John (Jake) Carle, ex-MFH, Judge; Terry Olsen, MFHIt was Mom’s day out on Mother’s Day weekend for Brazos Valley Meadow 2006. She was judged Best Hound of Show at the Central States Hound Show on May 7, 2011. Among the other division champions over which she prevailed was her son, Brazos Valley Mystic 2010, who just a month earlier had been judged Grand Champion at the Southwest Hound Show.

(l-r) Dennis Foster, judge; Sandy Dixon, MFH; Nancy Jones, presenting trophy / Bryan Hall photoThe Master’s Cup for the grand championship of the Southwest Hound Show was awarded to Brazos Valley Mystic 2010. Mystic is a Brazos Valley-bred American dog hound with strong Potomac bloodlines on the dam’s side. Mystic’s maternal grandfather was the knockout-handsome Potomac Jefferson, Grand Champion of the Virginia Foxhound Show in 2007.

“Mystic was a bit exuberant when he entered,” said Sandy Dixon, MFH and huntsman at the Brazos Valley Hunt (TX). “He had a tendency to run too fast without taking the time to search for scent. However, by the end of his first season [2011], he had learned what a coyote was and how to slow down until he had the line before turning on the speed.