Since the dawn of time, man and dog have been living among each other, each side helping the other out. One major task that dogs helped to fill early on was helping in hunting. Developed for these tasks were sight hounds and scent hounds, dogs in the same family, but with very different strategies. The older of the two is the sight hound,
developed in the middle east over 5,000 years ago to hunt antelope and other plains creatures across vast expanses of field. The scent hound, however, was first used 3,000 years ago by the Celtics, tracking animals through thick forest and rugged terrain with dogged determination.
Being able to catch something on the high plains would require speed; the lack of cover would make ambush impossible and prey sneaking away equally as hard. These ideas manifested themselves in early versions of dogs like the greyhound: great vision, muscular, but extremely lightweight- great at running short distances extremely fast, but
couldn’t maintain it much longer than a mile, using their eyesight to direct them through the open expanses of the middle east. These characteristics contrasted the scent hound. These dogs were built sturdier, a trait that allowed them to not move as fast, but for much longer through steep territory easier, following their noses, which in turn were following the scent of their prey, with dogged persistence to wear down the game and eventually catch up to it. A common example of these is the Beagle, a dog renowned for its deep-rooted stubbornness. While both of these groups have the same goal, their methods are very different.
