Honoring comes in when the hounds are searching and one strikes the trail of a rabbit and gives tongue. It should take no more than a few seconds before every hound in the pack is working the same line and "honoring" the efforts of the hound that claimed it. Once these two elements are combined with individuals that perform up to the hunter's standards individually, you should have a pack that runs and works well together -- one which runs together closely that, as the old timers used to say, "you could cover them all with an Army blanket."

A good rabbit dog, a fellow hunter once advised, along with a good rabbit dog pack, both lie in the eyes of the beholder. In other words, the hunter picks his hounds and builds his pack with the kinds of dogs that suit him personally. Or, as another put it, "Never feed something you don't like."

Once you have a pack of hounds with the traits you favor, it's up to you to give them the tools to perform well in the field. That means adequate housing, health care, parasite control. It means feeding a dog food that is high enough in protein and fat content to provide the energy and stamina they need for chasing rabbits all season.

Then, like high-performing athletes, the hounds need training and exercise. Some hunters set their dogs up for the summer, allowing them to loll in the shade to escape the summer heat. Others try to keep them in shape by taking them out one or two afternoons a week for a walk and, with any luck, to find a rabbit for a brief chase.

Whatever route the pack owner takes during the summer, it is imperative that his hounds are in shape before the season begins. Some hunters begin as soon as summer temperatures wane by taking their hounds out for several hours of hunting without guns at least once or twice a week until the season opens. Even then, a pack will probably not work itself into prime shape for about a month into the season. As one hunter put it, "A hound needs a lot of rabbit tracks under his nose to stay in top shape."

Most states' rabbit gun hunt seasons open in late fall, around Thanksgiving, which means the pack should be reaching its full potential about Christmas. And in most areas, that is when the best hunting is available anyway, as the colder weather causes the thick vegetation to die back and become less dense. The hounds perform better as it gets colder, since the heat affects them more than cold. It's hard for a hound to keep his nose down and smell rabbit tracks while his tongue is hanging on a hot day in the early season.

The ground and the vegetation often hold more moisture during colder weather, too, and moisture is essential to a hound's ability to smell the rabbit and track it properly. If the humidity is down and the dew point is low, you can count on having a hard day of rabbit hunting.

One group of hunters I know hunts cutovers and farm fields early in the morning while the dew is still on the ground, then moves to the bigger woods and heavier cover in the middle of the day. Once the sun gets up and the wind begins to blow, even a slight breeze, the moisture will hold better in the thicker places than it will out in the open.

In many areas, pressure by predators, especially coyotes, has driven rabbits from some of their traditional habitats, such as fields and terrace banks and brushpiles in wood lots into thicker cover like big, overgrown briar patches. Here, especially on cold days, the rabbit will hole up and not move around much, so the dogs have to get in there and find him and jump him up. While some hunters prefer a pack of slow- to medium-running hounds, when you get into these thickets of briars and brambles, you need hounds with more drive and speed to keep the rabbit moving in the thick cover and eventually run him out past the guns.

For some rabbit hunters, the best hunting is from daylight to about lunchtime, preferring not to hunt later in the day when the temperatures warm up and, in some areas, the rattlesnakes come out. For others, it's not a real hunt unless they go all day long, stopping only long enough at midday, as my Uncle Earl and my Dad and I used to, to enjoy some bologna, cheese and crackers and a cold soda bought at a nearby country store.

After such a royal repast, it was back to the woods and the exhortations of my Uncle Earl to his hounds: "Whoo-be, whooo-beee!"