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Using scenthounds to track prey dates back to Assyrian, Babylonian and ancient Egyptian times, and is known as venery.

In England, hunting with hounds was popular before the Romans arrived, using the Agassaei breed. The Romans brought their Castorian and Fulpine hound breeds, along with importing the brown hare (the mountain hare is native) and additional species of deer as quarry. Wild boar was also hunted. The Norman hunting traditions were added when William the Conqueror arrived, along with the Gascon and Talbot hounds; indeed, the traditional hunting cry 'tally ho' derives from the Norman French equivalent of 'il est haut' (he is up); ie. the stag has started running. By 1340 the four beasts of venery were the hare, the hart, the wolf and the wild boar. The five beasts of the chase were the buck, the doe, the fox, the marten and the roe.

The earliest known attempt to hunt a fox with hounds was in Norfolk, England, in 1534, where farmers began chasing down foxes with their dogs as pest control. By the end of the seventeenth century many organised packs were hunting both hare and fox, and during the eighteenth century packs specifically for fox hunting were appearing. The passing of the Enclosure Acts from 1760 to 1840 had made hunting deer much more difficult in many areas of the country, as that requires great areas of open land.

Also, the new fences made jumping the obstacles separating the fields part of the hunting tradition.

With the onset of the Industrial Revolution, people began to move out of the country and into towns and cities to find work. Roads, rail and canals split the hunting country, but also made hunting accessible to more people. Shotguns were improved during the nineteenth century and game shooting became more popular. To protect the pheasants for the shooters, gamekeepers culled the foxes almost to extirpation in popular areas, which caused the huntsmen to improve their coverts.

Finally the Game Laws were relaxed in 1831 and later abolished, which meant anyone could obtain a permit to take rabbits, hares and gamebirds.

Although viewed as a typically traditional rural British activity, hunting with hounds takes place all over the world. Hunts in the United States, Canada, Ireland and India are legacies of the British Empire to some extent, although some claim that the first pack devoted to hunting only fox was located in the United States.

According to the Masters of Foxhounds Association of America (which also covers Canada)[6], Englishman Robert Brooke introduced fox hunting to Maryland, America in 1650 when he imported his horses, his slaves (not hunt servants as has been suggested) and a pack of fox hounds. It has also been suggested that he imported 24 red foxes from England[citation needed] (since red fox was not indigenous to North America).

In 2006 the Masters of Foxhounds, Association of America included 168 registered packs in the U.S. and Canada, and there are many additional farmer (non-recognized) packs.

In Australia, the European red fox (Vulpes vulpes) was introduced solely for the purpose of fox hunting in 1855.

Native animal populations of a "critical weight range" have been very badly effected by the spread of foxes. Some state governments have offered bounties per fox to help with the problem. In Tasmania, which until 2001 has been fox free, a large reward of $1000 per fox is offered and $50,000 for information of the introduction. Generally foxes are controlled with baits or spotlighted by farmers, who identify foxes by the eyeshine signature (from the tapetum in the eye), body shape and silhouette.

Many other Greek- and Roman-influenced countries have their own long tradition of hunting with hounds. France and Italy for example, have thriving fox hunts. In Switzerland and Germany, where fox hunting was once popular, the activity has been outlawed, although Germany continues to allow deer to be driven by dogs to guns.