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I come from the Bird Dog world. I have trained several Master Hunter Shorthairs and know the importance of having obedient dogs. My question is what commands should I train my Hound pups I plan on using for Lion, coons and Bear. Specifically Whoa or Stay? Any advice would be helpful. This is my first set of hounds.

Coming to you when called, coming off a tree when your ready to leave. Sit, stay, my main thing is when i call my dogs they come even if working a track or treeing

Those are all important commands another good one is Load. If plan to drive to hunting areas.

The most important is being able to call the dogs back. IF they are going into a dangerous area or you have just run out of time, being able to call them back will save you a lot of headaches.

Mine will sit and briefly stay, but its mainly just practice for them at listening to me during feeding time ect. While hunting, COME, NO, GET EM, and LOAD UP are what they know well and are expected to respond to. I also find myself enforcing QUIET pretty regularly. I pretty much always have e collars on them when hunting or loose around the house, on the lowest setting they react to unless its a major offense. That keeps things consistent. To me the main difference in training hounds and bird dogs is that hounds have to hunt more independently. You might turn them loose and not see them again for 5 or 10 miles, so their hunting drive and natural abilities tend to be more important than being able to control their every move like you do for a lab on multiple blind retrieves. You let them do their thing, but they still have to listen when it counts, like the guys above mentioned about calling them back to you. For the most part the basics of training both are the same, establish a bond, introduce them to what the will be hunting while playing with them, obedience, progressively harder hunting/tracking lessons and then hunt them as much as possible. I'm no pro, but that is what has worked for me.

Brantpalmer"To me the main difference in training hounds and bird dogs is that hounds have to hunt more independently. You might turn them loose and not see them again for 5 or 10 miles, so their hunting drive and natural abilities tend to be more important than being able to control their every move like you do for a lab on multiple blind retrieves. You let them do their thing, but they still have to listen when it counts, like the guys above mentioned about calling them back to you."
I will give a big +1 on this.
Name recognition followed by the "come" command are the primary commands.
Some country I track in has a lot of bears and cougar. Oftentimes their tracks may overlap. Therefore another important one for me, is a command for cougar, and another for bear. I've seen quite a few dogs start on a bear track and end up treeing a cougar.

Looks Like I am started down the right road. Thank you all for your help. I can't wait so see how these little dogs end up. I know there is danger with any hunting dogs that they may not end up being able to do it and, I hear that with hounds even more so hopefully at least one of the two gets somewhere.

The older I get, the more obedience I like in my hounds. Heel, come & load up are the most important to me. I also want them to sit while I collar them. I can free cast them, put them on a track, but when I call them & tell them to heel, they know the hunting is over.

yes sir mike [ heal ] and [ go get in the truck ] and recall are my most important commands . my buddies are usually amazed at my dogs , while they are screaming and running and untangling leashes from around trees I just tell mine to go get in the truck from wherever we wound up and the dogs if not in the truck would be milling around it waiting on us . having well mannered and obedient hunting dog has become a lost art I have had folks tell me they wouldn't own a dog they couldn't call off a track or tree . said a dog like that didn't have enough prey drive lol .

Halfbreed, You & I are too old school to put up with the nonsense I see with other peoples dogs. It just aggravates me to no end when I have somebody hunting with me & it is time to go & they cannot catch their dogs. Mine must not have any prey drive either because I can call them off a hot track or a bay.

Yeah right Mike. The first thing I noticed about your dogs was the lack of prey drive. Especially when those eight month old pups swan that bayou to get in a race! HA HA!