As to smell and tracking ability in blood hounds: given that these same abilities occur in wolves (though to a lesser extent?), my guess would be that these adaptations are relatively simple to acquire, if you have a wolf’s genome as your starting point. Designing smell for the first time would be complicated, but designing a better sense of smell from a wolf’s sense of smell might just require sending more brain cells to the “process smells” brain center, or building more of the kinds of olfactory receptors dogs already have, or some other simple shift.
It’s worth noting that size and shape differences are unusually easy to get from wolves, something to do with unusually flexible genes for skeletal morphology in the womb IIRC.
It’s worth noting that size and shape differences are unusually easy to get from wolves, something to do with unusually flexible genes for skeletal morphology in the womb IIRC.