Judging a dogs nose

[pup42]

I'm sure this topic has been talked about before, but I'm just curious as to how you can tell the strength of your dogs nose (cold,hot, etc...)?

[pegleg]

Run it with a known dog is easiest. The only other guide is experience with conditions and track age.

[pup42]

Ok but what I'm wondering is how to determine what strength of nose your dog has. how do you know if it's cold nosed, medium nosed or hot nosed? Is it determined by the age of a track or is it by how long it takes your dog to actually see the animal from the time you put the dog on the track? So if the race is two hours long before your dog sees the animal, is it cold nosed? Or if the race takes 5 minutes is it hot nosed? Obviously on either scenario the dog is really working the track. I guess what I'm getting at is when people say their dog is cold nosed, how do they know that and come to that conclusion?

[pegleg]

Well typically if the dogs only able to tree game five minutes or less from the strike its probably not cold nosed. Track speed plays a role here also as does how open the dog is. However if a hound trails at a trot or lope all day and doesn't jump a critter its probably cold nosed. But actual strength of the track plays more of a role then age in most cases. In general most hounds run medium-hot nosed. There are strains bred for more nose out there but its not as important in some areas / species as others. Where and what are you hunting? What breed /strain of dog are you hunting with? There's a few exceptions but someone is or has hunted your dogs ancestors and littermates they can probably tell you fairly accurately what type nose your hound has.

[tman308]

If you find a track and you have a relative idea on the age of the track you can determine how cold of a nose your dog has. If only one dog in your pack is trailing the track then obviously he has a colder nose than the rest of your pack

[pup42]

Great information guys. That helps a lot. Thank you!

[dwalton]

Cold nose is a hard thing to determine sometimes in a dog, Experience with you and your dog and conditions will vary which will affect how a dog handles a track. Everyone has a different idea what cold nose is but as stated the dog that takes the track and works it the hardest,farthest and fastest will give you a idea as to how cold nose a dog is. Dewey