multi-game hounds

[merlecore]

being realitivly ("very" by most people here's standards lol) young i have a lot of questions about hound hunting that i can't answer with my own experiences. My question today is for the guys who hunt more than one kind of game with the same hound, do you start them at an early age on each animal or can an old dog learn new tricks? haha, and do the dogs have a concept of what season they are in? or do they sometimes trash on lets say coyote while you're bear hunting? i really appreciate everyone's input, i want to teach my young dog to hunt various game, and i realize that there is a lot to learn from the people who have been around hounds a while. Thanks --Josh

[duke7581]

im really int to see what others think about this also. Id like to hunt diff game but cant have a pack for each. Hopefully u get some responses.

[not color blind]

#1 There's plenty of people that have dogs they use on multiple species.

#2 There's plenty of people that just hunt there dogs on a single species that will tell you, "you can't/shouldn't run multiple species with the same dogs".


I'm in group #1...

If they're developed enough to start running (and have a chance to keep up) with the old dogs during bear season, start them on bear.
If they're developed enough to start running when it's coyote season (i.e. the winter), start them on yotes.

My $.02

[bob baldwin jr]

Josh : Interesting topic We have 3 blue dogs and 1 english Hopefully to be adding a redbone .

Our blue rigg dog is great on bear I would NOT sell him for anything . However he wants nothing to do with bobcats .

the 2 other blues and the english are sorely lacking in the rigging dept ,But if we come across a bobber track they take a minute or two of sniffing around and then it seems like their brains are on a time delayed basis something will click inside of one of them and the chase is on

I am NOT sure if that is because of the pecking order of the pack or individual hounds potential .They do seem to be a little confused when the rig dog is not around . nothing like seeing the hounds play FOLLOW THE LEADER

[merlecore]

every dog has their own potential and place in a pack, i'm sure some dogs excel better in certain situations, from a cold track to when the heat is on, from a hog to a bear, bobcat, coyote,lion or coon, there's got to be more of you out there with do it all dogs, an elite pack of savage hounds who will run down whatever game you give them to chase haha i guess i was hoping for more methods of producing such a hound, different ways of going about it, or just learning more about all of your dogs! thanks for the responses and i hope to get more, the best way to learn is to ask someone who's done it, and the best way to coninue to excel is to ask others who're doing it, thats the way i look at it, i have a coon dog, i hope she runs bear in this upcoming training season! the potential is there, i just have to go about it the right way, right now i'm goin in blind.

[Brindle]

I run coon, lion, bear. I start my pups at about 5 months on coon.(not caged but real coon hunting). I run them till about 10 months old before run on bear. Then I start on bear and lion with the big dogs. I don't expect them to be tearing it up running tracks on their own until 2. But I expect them to pack in and be at the tree earlier. But I only run lion when there snow. If no snow I run bear. Also I seldom see lions and bear in the same area. It has only happened a few times where I put down on a bear and catch a lion. I hunt different areas for all three species. The dogs know snow lion. Dry bear. Dark coon. They first few bear of the season aren usually rough on us though. Then we do alright. But then who knows what real hounds do because I run plott.

[African]

In my experience having multiple game hounds is not a problem if you are dropping them onto a track each time. If you will be freecasting then it can become a pain to say the least.

Best way to go about it if you are limited on kennel space is to have a species specific start hound for each game that you only use when hunting that animal eg 1 broke, start hound for bear, 1 broke, hound dog for coyote and 3 or so multi purpose hounds.

[LCK]

My hounds run multiple game animals, deer, elk, antelope, cars, school kids and the neighbors chickens with little or no problem! Every once in a while I have trouble with them trashing on an occasional bear, lion or yote, but I am working on it .

To be serious, I have been running lion, yotes, and bear for several years now and have had very little difficulty with "trashing" or crossing over.

[red river hounds]

When pups are willing and able to keep up with the chase i turn them out no matter what the season. I run bear, bobcat, coon, and yote and don't have many problems, once in awhile u get a crossover but with the garmin collars now its so easy to pull them off anyway. Hate to see good hounds wrot on the chain i keep them in the woods as much as possible and they become track driving game catching machines