What is your definition of cur

[chilcotin hillbilly]

I been reading a lot of the cur topics and it seems that some people think there is a long history behind the different curs. Others think any dog crossed with a hound is a cur. Some have docked tails others are born with short tails. I have crossed my black and tan male to a mutt bitch that I have, 1/2 border collie1/4 german shepard and 1/4 golden lab. I made the cross for an experiment ,the dam has always hunted with me is fearless on lions and bears , she runs a hot track faster then the walkers and black and tan I have owned and lives to please me. So my thinking was to bring her great dog characteristics and my black and tan cold nose and I might get some easy handling hunting dogs. So far so good the two I kept are working out on lions and lynx, the males a little ahead of the female but has been on more cats. One of the litter went to a friend who guides for lynx and she put up her own 2 lynx at 7 months start to finish. One will only be used on bear, so this spring will tell, the last in the litter is used for blood tracking and finding wounded game. So the question is These mutts I run when asked to do I call them Curs or do I just keep calling them Chilcotin Bred Treeing Mutts. I am interested in what people think.

[Doogie]

according to the UKC they could be registered as Treeing Curs

http://www.ukcdogs.com/WebSite.nsf/Rule ... TreeingCur

as long as they are tree dogs and meet the breed standard, anything can be registerd as a treeing cur

sounds like to me you have your own Chilcotin Treeing Curs

[OB.284]

M

[bigboarstopper]

My personal definition of a cur is a hunting dog that has a lineage that dosent go back to any specific breed. However its lineage must go back to hunting bred lines that performed. (example) A guy who breeds his good hunting dogs to other hunting dogs regardless of their breed. In my opinion thats what I have done. I have bred my best hunting dogs with my own or other peoples best hunting dogs without regard to breed. Some of the dogs bred into my lines over the years are catahoula, plott, kemmer, airedale, ect. I run my dogs on hog and hogs only so I think the room for experimentation is there, as there are different ways to run hogs. As for treeing dogs I think the experimentation stage has been done. The breeds that do it best have been established including some registered "cur" breeds that have a long history of great hunting constistancy. I think to really have an established "CUR" breed there needs to be a documented history so that the "pedigree" of the new cur breed can gain some popularity and constistancy in its breeding. But all of this is just my opinion and im just a hog hunter so really, what the heck do I know.

[Pops]

in the spring of 2004 David Carr did a great write up in the OMCBA column about the history of the cur. i'll summarize it here
1. cur is the english (anglo-saxon) spelling of the celtic word cyr or kyr (briton & welsh respectively, also cu in irish)
2 it identifies a specific type of dog in the same way as terrier, hound & collie.
3. the word for the type of dog existed (in literature) for at least 100 years before the word curtail (so logically the bobtailed dog came first).
4. it was a commoners dog.
5. it herded rough stock like cattle, swine & horses but was also used by commoners to steal game (all of which belonged to the noble whose land it was on or the king directly) and so had to run silent for survival reasons.
6. the cur as a the type of dog described was recorded in literature at least as early as the 1300s
7. one of the writers Mr Carr referenced from before 1600 noted that a superior boar hunting dog was made by crossbreeding the cur w/ either the butcher's bulldog or a mastive (mastiff)
8 several modern cattledog breeds in britain were created from crossbreeding curs & collies (and many inherited the bobtail) including the old english sheepdog (i don't care enough to find out why it's called this when it's always been a cattle dog) and the welsh corgi.
9. the first use of the word cur to mean a mongrel was in the late 1700s but didn't become widespread until the 1800s.
10. there is a strong likely hood the british cur is the direct ancestor of the mountain cur, the blackmouth cur and a strong contributor to the catahoula with the latter two breeds being most like the british cur in form & function.

as a kid my first introduction to curs were blackmouths & leopard dogs in TX. my uncle used them to work cattle & hunt hogs, that is the same dogs that he caught hogs w/ on friday night or saturday he used on his cattle on monday. so for me a cur has always been a dual purpose dog that works stock & hunts. interestingly enough Mont Plott (who would get irate if you called his dogs hounds) was known to use his bear dogs to round up wayward cattle & horses. Mr Carr himself informed me on another forum of at least two old breeders who used their Mt curs to round up cattle. and the Grayfox has told me of a couple of people doing the same w/ leopard curs.
in view of the current climate I won't get annoyed with any breed being called a cur if it hunts like a cur. it must run head up W/good situational awareness. it must be willing to drop a cold track for a warmer or hot one of the same game. it must run silent or nearly so, that way when i hear it open I KNOW it has eyes on the game (even if it's treed). it should be a very rough in your face kind of bay dog but also willing catch if there is back (i count as back up). by that i mean it should bay but when i show up it should go ahead and catch. if it is smaller game or there are multiple dogs they should catch anyway.

[lifreediver]

wow thats a good cur definition PoPs ya the breed should have bulldog cattle dog shepard blood etc once you throw hound in there to me it is not a cur i always thought curs were hunting dogs stock herding dogs with out hound blood in them but the guys tell me there half plott cur crosses are curs well i now think if it runs a track silent its a cur to me hounds bark on track curs run silent because almost everyone paperhangs and cross breeds i guess the word cur sounds better than mutts to those guys not sayin they might not make good dogs but after all the bs i will take my own chances and breed my own bulldog crosses call them hayabusas

[coadycurbow]

Most of the Southern cur breeds' foundation stock is some type of hound.