Never owned a blue tick but did most of my hunting with a Redbone - have hunted in Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, and Virginia - the hunts in Virginia were done a lot in the swamps and you needed to have hip boots because of the snakes. I went to a lot of night hunts, never entered my dog but liked to see the treeing contests, and dog shows. There was always a few dogs (if they resembled a coon dog) that guys had picked up at their local dog shelters and brought to the event and sold as first class coonhounds - the BS was always in great quantity and I heard that it was not uncommon for a hunter to mark another hunter's dog during the night hunt, Some of my fondest memories were of chasing the dogs and hoping they were not treeing a slick tree.