Mudhol hound dog breed is best known for its stamina, sharpness, and agility. Mudhol Hounds are also known to be fiercely loyal to their owners and are excellent hunting dogs. These agile all-weather dogs that enjoy good health and require minimum grooming, have already been recruited by the Indian Army, CRPF, CISF, BSF, SSB, ITBP, and the police departments of a few states in India.
The Indian Air Force (IAF), for the first time, inducted the Mudhol Hound, an Indian breed of sighthound from Karnataka, to chase away birds and animals from the runways and reduce the risk of bird-hits.
Four Mudhol hound puppies, including two females, were brought to the Agra airbase on Sunday.
These were handed over to the IAF by Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka, Govind M. Karajol, on behalf of the Canine Research and Information Centre (CRIC) in Bagalkot district of Karnataka.
Mudhol Hounds are similar looking to Greyhounds with a slim built and a smaller head but tall legs and body overall. Their breed is known for their endurance, stamina and agile movements along with a razor-sharp bite. They are very well suited for tropical climates, however, they are not very well adept at handling cold weather conditions. They have also earned a reputation for being fiercely loyal to their owners and also for being great hunting dogs.
The RVC has also trained the hounds to sniff out explosives. Apart from the Army, the National Security Guard (NSG) also have taken in the hounds and are training them to track enemy movements along the border, search and rescue and infantry patrolling among others.
Also recently, the Central Reserve Police Force had also said that they will be inducting local dog breeds including the Mudhol hounds and Belgian Malinois in the canine force to strengthen their squads.
These dogs come from the region bordering Karnataka and Maharashtra. According to several popular beliefs, these hounds were originally bred in the Middle East and accompanied traders on their travels through the Indian subcontinent and this is what inspires one of their early names- Caravan hounds. Some legends even say that the hounds became popular with the Indian royalty too, so much so that Maratha warrior Shivaji Maharaj got them trained and made them a part of the Maratha army.
The dogs were also interbred with Persian and Turkish dogs that gave rise to the feathery Mudhol Hound, which also came to be known as Pashmi hound. With the introduction of the European breed of canines, however, the Mudhols began to grow lesser in favor of the Indians. But in the 1920s, the hounds were revived once again by Shrimant Rajesaheb Malojirao Ghorpade of Mudhol.
He observed that the local tribe of Bedar used the dogs for hunting. Sensing their agility, he helped restore the royal Mudhol hounds and while visiting England in the 1900s, presented it to King George V, who christened them as Mudhol hounds, thereby bringing them into prominence once again.