The phase of the search for the workable stash (the so-called search) is nowadays more and more passing into the background, often due to the work tests for followed dogs, in which the single, the couple or the pack are released on areas where the hare's pasture is already present (and this often happens also in the case of zootechnical checks on boar). This affects not only the ability to evaluate the dog's ability to search for the useful food until it has found it, but also that same dowry: we are increasingly witnessing packs of hounds that must be led on pasture, precisely because they are unaccustomed. to an autonomous research of the same, being often loose on land where there is the certainty of the point from which to start the combination.
Often hunting in the mountains, where the presence of hares is very small, it often happens that the pack must explore the territory for more than an hour before finding a workable pass. I find this aspect very useful for testing the stubbornness and venativeness of younger subjects, who at times tend to show less interest in working on the ground when they realize that there is no smell; forcing them to search for groundbait before starting the combination is useful to give them that willpower which will then prove useful in the days of poor smell. It would be good from time to time to untie the hounds in a point far from the useful past, to force them to work on the ground, to open up in search of the eager, in order to develop an important phase that of the search.
Look for that in the case of the Italian hound it should show autonomy and vivacity: clearly, as soon as a member of the pack has detected the useful past and has highlighted it with his voice, all the others must join and start working it. From the moment the handler realizes that the dog has found a correct pass, from that moment it would be good if he left the hound work by oneself; the combination is in fact a very delicate phase; continually calling the pack or trying to help her in solving a foul on the juxtaposition could invalidate the whole job. Losing even just 50 meters in the wrong direction could imply the failure to find that hare. Then letting the suit reach the spot without the help of the canettiere has a considerable relevance as to the value of that work.
I have often seen in some zootechnical checks very skilled conductors resolve faults in juxtaposition instead of the pack, perhaps on the conviction (later found to be correct), supported by prior knowledge of the territory or by the advice of others, that the hare was put back in a certain area: this not only should it find an adequate penalty in the trial phase by the judge, but it should also lead to a reflection on the value of that hare found.