Hunting the clean boot

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Hunting the clean boot in the United Kingdom means using packs of bloodhounds to follow a real human scent. Clean boot means no artificial scent (like aniseed) and no animal urine. Today, bloodhounds are the most common, but other breeds can be trained for it too, with varying success. Hunts are run much like fox hunting (which is now prohibited in Great Britain), with riders on horseback following the hounds as they track a runner. These hunts usually take place in autumn, winter, and early spring. To improve speed, agility, and pack instincts, some packs used the Dumfriesshire Hound as an outcross.