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In the 1st episode of season 6 of Game of Thrones, what happened to the hounds used by the search party when Brienne of Tarth came to rescue Sansa? They were there for a moment and then disappeared. The dogs should have at least tried to attack Sansa or Brienne.

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    You can see them standing with their masters in a fight sequence in the background... at a distant. I assume they ran (the masters) with the hounds back to from where they came when they saw the knights being butchered.
    – Deepak Kamat
    Apr 25, 2016 at 17:52
  • and also what happened to the sixth Bolton man? There were 4 riders and 2 walking men, Brienne killed 3 riders, Podrick killed 1 rider and Theon one walking man :-) PS: @DeepakKamat one of the masters as you say was killed by Theon :)
    – Tomas
    Nov 6, 2020 at 12:12

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Those were rescue hounds, not the same kind of dogs Bolton used last season to chase down and kill his target. The dogs most likely got frightened and decided to bail since their trainers just got killed by a large intimidating soldier (Brienne).

Remember, Bolton needed Sansa alive, Bolton never would have sent dogs to find and kill her.

The dogs' mission was to find them, which they certainly did. Maybe the dogs, happy with their findings, decided to go back to their owner and get their "good boys" steaks. We won't know for sure what happened to them, maybe in a future episode they will address this matter but for now we can only assume they ran away after the fight.

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  • Is there any evidence of Ramsey having 'rescue hounds' that are distinct from his 'hunting hounds'. As far as i know, there is one pack of hounds and they are bloodthirsty...
    – kuhl
    Apr 26, 2016 at 12:17
  • Ramsey's balls are on the line here, he kills Sansa he just killed himself and all of his goals. It would make zero sense to send some bloodthirsty dogs after Sansa.
    – Alexandre
    Apr 26, 2016 at 13:10
  • @Alexandre when has Ramsey been rational? Beyond that, I'm asking for evidence that this is the case. Without a quote from someone (book, show, writers, etc) this is just your speculation being presented as fact.
    – kuhl
    Apr 26, 2016 at 15:04
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    Did you wtch the same episode as I did ? His father clearly states whats in line for him if he doesn't get Sansa back. Clearly he should send dragons to kill her. It's just logical.
    – Alexandre
    Apr 26, 2016 at 15:07
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    +1 It'd be perfectly normal for any noble house to keep hunting dogs that are trained to chase prey then hold back (so the hunters can do their 'sport'). There are many, many references to hunting being popular among lords. Ramsay, unusually, has some dogs of his own trained to hunt humans, but even, then the dogs wait for a command before attacking.
    – user56reinstatemonica8
    Apr 28, 2016 at 14:40
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The continuity is even worse than the dogs disappearing... these are not the same hounds at all, Rasmey's "girls" that appear in the other episodes and then again tonight in Episode 2 are some kind of mastiff or pit bull type breed and do a VERY good job of acting vicious like they would tear someone to pieces. The ones in Episode 1 last week are clearly a totally different breed... bloodhounds. Which don't have a mean bone in the body, and didn't act at ALL like they wanted to hurt Sansa, their barking as well doesn't have nearly the same scary "rip you apart" tone to it. Yet Theon's remarks seem to make it out like we are supposed to think these are the same hounds that Ramsay uses in his hunts. They so clearly weren't I found it very distracting to that scene.

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    ... that's because these are scent dogs not hunting dogs. Ramsey can't kill Sansa... he needs her... so he sends people out with tracking dogs, not killing dogs.
    – Catija
    May 3, 2016 at 18:07
  • @Catija The author correctly states that according to Theon's words they are the killer hounds, so the viewers are probably expected to think the same.
    – Chanandler Bong
    May 5, 2016 at 8:52
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    Exactly. If these were supposed to just be "rescue" hounds, why make Theon so fearful of them and telling Sansa about what he'd "seen these hounds" do? As long as he had been with Ramsey he certainly would have recognized the baying of bloodhounds which sounds considerably different than the barking of the other mastiff-type dogs in other episodes. I think HBO just didn't think most viewers would notice... or care... which is probably true.
    – Mary Jo Sminkey
    May 7, 2016 at 4:07
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Last time seen in the show they stood there with the two dog handlers watching the fight:

enter image description here

Then, one of the dog handlers came to help. He attacked Podrick (after Podrick killed one of the Boltons). The other dog handler was the only survivor (five Bolton men died in total) and he apparently disappeared with the dogs after the fight. Apparently, he didn't even report to the Boltons, as in the next episode, Karstark reports to Boltons "We came upon the bodies on our way here."

Hard to say if this was intended or if the writers (D&D) didn't pay so much attention to this detail of the story...

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