Bluetick Coonhound · Hound Group
The Bluetick Coonhound Wall
The wall is forming · Be among the first families to add yours
Those who have crossed
Blue
March 2013 – January 2024
Night photos surface more than any other breed — this was a dog who worked after dark
Example
Magnolia
July 2012 – September 2023
The ticked coat finds different patterns in every photo, like a fingerprint
Example
Hank
February 2014 – April 2025
A porch and a person appear together in every season
Example
June
November 2011 – March 2023
Creek beds and hollow trails surface across the years
Example
Trigger
August 2013 – December 2024
The nose is down in almost every photo — always working, always tracking
Example
Sadie
May 2015 – October 2025
Three generations of one family surface across eleven years of photos
Example
Pages marked 'example' are demonstration bridges showing what a memorial looks like — not real families. The small lines beneath each are examples of what Memory Weather surfaces over time.
Remembrance
Bluetick Coonhounds were the voice of the Southern night — a deep, musical bay that carried across valleys and hollows and told you exactly where they were and what they had found. No other hound sounded like a Bluetick. You could pick that voice out of a pack of fifty dogs and never be wrong.
They were determined in a way that bordered on stubbornness and crossed into devotion. A Bluetick on a cold trail would work it for hours, methodical and relentless, that ticked coat moving through brush like something painted by the woods themselves. They did not quit. That was not in their vocabulary.
“I could hear her bay from a mile away. I knew exactly what it meant — she'd found what she was looking for. I'd give anything to hear it one more time.”
What to remember
When you create a bridge, these prompts help you hold the details that matter most — the ones that fade first.
Describe their voice. The bay, the bawl, the sound they made when they found something. Could you tell what they meant by how they sounded?
What did their coat look like up close? The ticking, the pattern — did it look different in different light?
What was the most determined thing they ever did? A trail they wouldn't leave, a scent they wouldn't abandon?
Where did they sleep when the work was done? Describe the exact spot and the exact way they arranged themselves.
What did they do with their nose when there was nothing to track? Did it ever really turn off?
What did the silence sound like the first night without them? Was it the absence of the bay that hit hardest?
Words that stayed
“She weighed 65 pounds and her bay could carry across two ridgelines. The valleys are quiet now.”
physical
“He once treed a possum at 2 AM and woke the entire neighborhood to announce his accomplishment. He was not sorry.”
funny
“The silence is wrong. Not just quiet — wrong. The house had a soundtrack for twelve years and someone turned it off.”
absence
“She worked a cold trail the way some people read poetry — slowly, deliberately, with absolute attention to every detail.”
character
“Eleven years of that voice. We recorded it exactly once. We play it when the quiet gets too heavy.”
time
The math
Bluetick Coonhounds typically lived 11–12 years.
Hip dysplasia and bloat were the most common concerns. Ear infections were nearly constant for dogs who spent their lives nose-down in damp terrain. Krabbe disease — a rare neurological condition — appeared in the breed at higher rates than most, and the families who navigated it carry a particular grief. The final years often brought a slowing of the legs but never the nose.
If your Bluetick is in their senior years, this is the right time to start their bridge — and to record the bay, if you haven't already.
Start their bridge now →The shape of this loss
The bay stopped. That is the first and most specific shape of Bluetick grief — the silence where the most distinctive voice in the hound world used to be. It was not barking. It was a deep, musical communication that told you what they had found and where they were and that they were still working. The absence of that sound is not quiet. It is a hole in the air.
Bluetick Coonhound grief is acoustic in a way that other breed grief is not. The house sounds wrong. The yard sounds wrong. The night sounds wrong. People who have never lived with a hound will not understand this, and that is part of the isolation — the grief is legible only to people who have heard the bay and then heard it stop.
The valleys still carry sound. They just don't carry that sound anymore.
The valleys still carry sound. They just don't carry that sound anymore.
Memory Weather
How a bridge deepens with timeOver time, WenderBridge surfaces patterns already present in the photos and memories you choose to keep here.
Your Bluetick's photos reveal nighttime and low-light settings more than most breeds — these were dogs who worked after dark.
Memory Weather notices the ticked coat pattern — unique as a fingerprint, different in every photo's light.
Creek beds, hollows, and valley floors surface across the years. The terrain was part of who they were.
Memory Weather is available with Full settings.
Questions families ask
Add your Bluetick to the wall
Every Bluetick who has been loved deserves a permanent home on the wall. Their bridge is free to create, free to visit forever, and free to share — because the voice they gave the night was never for sale.
Celebrating a living Bluetick?
If your Bluetick is currently baying at something only they can smell in the backyard at midnight, WenderPets is where you'll find the sculptures, lamps, and gifts made just for them.
WenderPets →Bluetick Coonhound bridges are hosted permanently and will never disappear.