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American English Coonhound

The breeds · tree dog · coonhound

AKC Hound · UKC Scenthound

American English Coonhound.

UKC: a dog of strong build, capable of considerable speed and great endurance; strong hunting instincts. AKC standard: renowned for speed and endurance, a racy body built to look capable of an all night hunt. AKC History article: to track raccoons by night, forcing them up into trees until the hunter arrives, then tree them baying and barking with front legs on the trunk..

Breed sets the odds. The parents set the dog. Every number here shows its source, its spread and how sure we are. Nothing on this page is a prediction about one dog.

0INHeightdogs null, bitches null. An ideal from the standard, not a range.
45–65LBWeight, all linesbreed 45 to 65 lb.

The body

What the breed is built like. Registry standards give an ideal, not a range.

Height at the shoulder

dogs 22 to 27 in · bitches 21 to 25 in

Breed clubAKC breed standard

Low and high span AKC and UKC. No center.

Weight

45 to 65 lb

Breed clubAKC

The AKC page header is not part of the AKC standard; only one source for the numbers.

Coat

UKC: a good hard, protective, hound-type coat of medium length. AKC standard: hard, protective hair, medium length. Colors: AKC red and white ticked, blue and white ticked, tri-colored with ticking, red and white, white and black; UKC redtick, bluetick, tri color with ticking, white and red, white and black, white and lemon. Both disqualify brindle.

Breed clubUnited Kennel Club

AKC additionally disqualifies tri-color with no ticking and solid color with under 10 percent ticking.

Shedding

Shedding 2 of 5 (AKC breed page trait score)

Breed clubAKC

AKC breed page trait score, 1 to 5: a breed-club tendency, never a measurement.

Heat tolerance

4 of 5 · Hard, protective hair of medium length (AKC); good hard hound-type coat of medium length (UKC). No undercoat mentioned.

DerivedAKC breed standard

Derived from the coat description (no undercoat, medium hard coat read as short dense = 4). No measured data.

The dog at home

What the breed asks of a day. The first thing most homes get wrong.

Energy

AKC breed page: Energy Level 4 of 5, Mental Stimulation Needs 3, Trainability 3, Playfulness 3. AKC breed page header lists Life Expectancy 11 to 12 years (the AKC's own figure, not a study).

Breed clubAKC

AKC bands, not measured. Life-expectancy header kept as text only; no Dogs Trust or Teng row.

Grooming load

1 of 5

Breed clubAKC

AKC breed page trait score, 1 to 5: a breed-club tendency, never a measurement.

Grooming

AKC breed page: Coat Grooming Frequency 1 of 5, Shedding Level 2, Drooling Level 1.

Breed clubAKC

AKC bands.

The work

What it was built to do in the field, and what a test or trial asks of it.

Role

UKC: a dog of strong build, capable of considerable speed and great endurance; strong hunting instincts. AKC standard: renowned for speed and endurance, a racy body built to look capable of an all night hunt. AKC History article: to track raccoons by night, forcing them up into trees until the hunter arrives, then tree them baying and barking with front legs on the trunk.

Breed clubUnited Kennel Club

UKC History: first registered 1905 as English Fox and Coonhound, used more on fox then than now. Editorial views are shown beside the standard, labelled; where they disagree both stand (Chad, Oct 8 2026).

Primary game

UKC History: American game: raccoon, opossum, cougar and various species of bear. AKC History article: raccoon, by night. Outdoor Life: popular among coon hunters.

Breed clubUnited Kennel Club

Editorial views are shown beside the standard, labelled; where they disagree both stand (Chad, Oct 8 2026).

Also used on

AKC History article: bear and cougar, where the dog's role is to bay the animal, darting in and out until the hunter arrives. UKC History: opossum, cougar, various bear, and fox in earlier days. Outdoor Life (bear-dog guide): favored by bear hunters; a breeder says the redtick was bred to put a bear up a tree and has the speed the bluetick lacks; the guide also says redticks are hard-driving to the point of ignoring commands.

Breed clubDenise Flaim, 2024

Editorial views are shown beside the standard, labelled; where they disagree both stand (Chad, Oct 8 2026).

Search pattern

UKC: voice is a good hound bawl. AKC History article: used on newer, hot trails that call for speed (blueticks, by contrast, were developed for cold trails); treed quarry is held with baying and barking. Outdoor Life: strong nose, good speed on the track, stubborn and focused. AKC page rates Barking Level 4 of 5.

Breed clubUnited Kennel Club

Mouth is the bawl by the UKC standard; the AKC standard prints no voice. Open versus silent trail is not stated by any source read. Editorial views are shown beside the standard, labelled; where they disagree both stand (Chad, Oct 8 2026).

Field trial standard

UKC Nite Hunt Honor Rules (Jan 1 2023): scored casts at night on raccoon. Strike points 100/75/50/25 for the first four dogs declared struck (the dog must open and be heard opening); tree points 125/75/50/25 for the first four declared treed. A tree call is held three minutes before it is scored; once a dog is declared treed at least one dog must bark at least every two minutes until the cast arrives. A dog not declared struck on or before the third bark after the first minute is minused; babbling (opening three times, or struck where no track is evident) is minused; failing to hunt in any 15 consecutive minutes, or accumulating 400 minus, scratches the dog. Points are plus when a coon is seen in the tree (shining time only); circled when no coon is seen; off game (seen) is minused in the Champion division. Dogs that are spayed or neutered may compete. AKC and PKC coonhound rules were not read. AKC History article: English dogs are frequent competitors in field competitions such as nite hunts; some sources say the first coonhound field trial (1920s) was won by an English dog named Bones. UKC History places the first Leafy Oak field trial win with Bones.

Breed clubUnited Kennel Club, 2023

Source: UKC rule text read in full (pdftotext). The rule set is UKC-wide and does not name this breed. Hunt time length is not stated in the text read; no breed-specific standard published. Date of the Bones trial differs: AKC article says 1920s; UKC history gives no date.

More

akc bands

AKC breed page trait scores (1-5): Energy Level 4; Mental Stimulation Needs 3; Trainability Level 3; Barking Level 4; Watchdog/Protective Nature 3; Good With Young Children 3; Openness To Strangers 3; Good With Other Dogs 5; Shedding Level 2; Coat Grooming Frequency 1; Drooling Level 1; Affectionate With Family 3; Playfulness Level 3; Adaptability Level 3.

Breed clubAKC

Fourteen AKC bands in one row; the selector reads each by name. Breed-club ratings: a tendency, never a measurement.

No KENAI kennel lists the American English Coonhound yet. If you breed them, list your kennel free: it shows on this page and in the hunting dog breed finder, under every handler whose answers land on the breed.

How to read this page

Every value carries a label. Measured means peer-reviewed data on many dogs. Studied means peer-reviewed, smaller or indirect. Breed club means a club or registry states it. Editorial means expert opinion with no measurement behind it. Where two good sources disagree, both are shown and neither is averaged.

Published when the entry rests on the best information available from no fewer than three independent sources, checked by a second pass that did not write it. 5 sources on this page. Found something wrong? Tell us and the correction is logged with its date.

Also called
English Coonhound, English Fox and Coonhound, Redtick Coonhound, English Dog

Every breed, read the same way.

The breed index grows as entries clear the standard. Gun dogs first.

All published breeds

Your american english coonhound, on the record.

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