Leopard Cur

[Sierra Madre]

Gang,
What is the opinion of the form and / or who has experience with Am Leopard Curs as a dry ground cat dogs? ( Rex Bowers line with trace of Barneys Buster )

[Tim Pittman]

I live about 15 minutes from Russ Barney[friend of mine]I've got a 7month male grandson of Buster[goes to him 7times in 3 generations]the rest is Rex's and Mcduffie's stuff.DWalton on here has some as well.

[CRA]

My Grandpa had one of Rex Bowers Leopard's sent out to California to run on fox and cat. He passed before he could do much with the pup. My Grandpa was corresponding with Rex by letters back and forth about Rex's Leopard's and the history of his Leopard's (this was before Internet). My Grandpa was telling me that he thought that the Leopard's had some July blood in them. He had some old Hunters Horn magazines with July studs that were marked with the Merle marking (Leopard) looking.

The pup ended up going to Bill Young in Tehachapi Ca. I have no idea if it made a cat dog or not. Does anyone know if the Leopards had any July bred into them many years back?

[NICK RILEY]

I hunt leopards on bobcat here in Montana, mostly in snow. I had a few dry ground or ice races over the years. The Leopards I have owned have more brains and track speed than the other hounds I have owned and have treed a lot more game for me.JMO

I talked to Rex Bowers a few years ago and he told me he breed July into his Leopards years ago for track speed.

I heard a few stories about Barney's Buster from Randy Oller. Tim, David or anyone who hunted with Buster,...can you tell us more about him?

Dewey, how do you like your Leopard and how does he compare to your other dogs?

Thanks Nick

[NICK RILEY]

http://www.catahoulaleopard.com/bowers.htm

[dwalton]

I have two Leopards now that I have been hunting with my hounds for 5 years.. I don't think they will replace the hounds for me but I will always have one in there. I have seen more than once the Leopards take a track out that the hounds could not. The Leopards will not just hammer a track for the sake of hammering a track. They have to be able to move it. They are colder nosed than I was lead to believe. I have seen them in adverse conditions dry or frozen on good tracks that the hounds have trouble with, get it out. Great locating tree dogs. I do not like there build and do not think they can hold up to a running dog as far as hunting every day. With that said the dog that got hunted the most last winter, treed cats that the hounds gave up on and came back was a full Leopard. I seen her trail a cat for 8 hours on rain on snow, sometimes an hour between openings and tree the cat. The hounds were not even opening on this track. They will box but I have better box dogs. They are fast but not built to run. They are thinkers and do what it takes to stay in a race. The hounds and the Leopards work well together and learn from each other. This is coming from a guy that has NEVER seen a perfect cat dog and feels that the best cat dog is a pack with each a expert and all able catching there own cat. If you are looking for the perfect dog I think you are missing the boat by not having a pack that is trained to hunt together and work together that gets the job done. So the bottom line is they are not perfect but help build the perfect pack. This is coming from a guy that has not seen a perfect dog yet and I have hunted with some of the best. Dewey

[Dan McDonough]

I hunt mostly with Loepards for bobcat. I have a lot of the Jug dog mixed with a ton of Shiner and Delilah stuff from back there a ways through the Ganus breeding. That stuff has more McDuffie blood in it than most would realize but it doesn't look like it. They are pretty houndy looking but that is mainly due to the Jug dog being 1/4 Finley River Walker. Jug was an honest to goodness single registered Leopard but had a great Walker named Rambler in his family tree.

I've hunted with a number of dogs from the old Bowers blood and I like how tough and determined they are. Sometimes they can be a little too gamey and take a little more breaking than the Ganus type dogs. The Ganus type dogs have been faster from what I've seen but I have a male here that is a mix of the two and he is really turning out to be a very good dog.

I have been hunting full time for around 6 years now and most all of that time has been with Leopards. I don't miss a cat very often but most of the time it takes the packs effort to get it done. With that being said, a female I had that died last year was catching about 90% of the cats by herself 90% of the time. Was she perfect...NO WAY!

[Dan McDonough]

cont...

She was however, as close as I have seen. She was not a rig dog. She would never wait up for the rest of the dogs. She took quite a bit of work to get to stop barking around the yard and in the box when she was younger. She flat refused to die on her own until a turned stomach got her and you would believe the ways in which she was given the opportunity to do so. She complained a lot and she talked a lot. Any time she had a stressfull day she would stand on me and talk for several minutes and because she was letting the stress out she always dug her nails into my skin while she was doing it. Some folks have said she was to open on track to catch a lot of cats but that was always right before she caught one. I've never heard another dog that told me more about what was going on out there than her but I may get the chance because some of her daughters talk a lot too. If I can keep those dogs from getting me in trouble with the neighbors i just might find out.

[Dan McDonough]

Anyhow...it could take you a little while to sift through a few Leopards but with the kind of brains they have it's really hard for me to want to get another breed of dog. Every body talks about brains being the #1 trait to have in a cat dog. While I'm here to tell you that the Leopars have it. I do miss that dog terribly but I am lucky enough to have a few of her daughters here just getting ready to start this year and I can't tell you how much fun that is going to be for me. David used to own this dog and he riased her and started her before I got her. He's still got to be the best pup starter I've ever met. He has talked about this dog here and there over the last several years. Her name is Rachel. She was named by David's daughter after the wife of Jacob/Isrial in the bible. She is still the single most amazing dog I've gotten to hunt with.

JUG'S SPARKLIN RACHEL

[matt123huntinglion]

I HAVE HUNTED CURS 20 YEARS BRAINS IS WHERE IT IS ALL AT. THEY HAVE WHAT IT TAKES .I LOVE WAY MY CURS ARE BUILT THEY ARE OUT MCDUFFY STRAIN DOGS HAVE 6 GEAR AS REX BOWER SAYS OVER DRIVE.FEEL DOGS WANT PLEASE YOU HUNT HARD SNOW OR DRY GROUND WHAY YOU WANT.

[david]

My Grandpa had one of Rex Bowers Leopard's sent out to California to run on fox and cat. He passed before he could do much with the pup. My Grandpa was corresponding with Rex by letters back and forth about Rex's Leopard's and the history of his Leopard's (this was before Internet). My Grandpa was telling me that he thought that the Leopard's had some July blood in them. He had some old Hunters Horn magazines with July studs that were marked with the Merle marking (Leopard) looking.

The pup ended up going to Bill Young in Tehachapi Ca. I have no idea if it made a cat dog or not. Does anyone know if the Leopards had any July bred into them many years back?

CRA was that back about ten or twelve years? When I hunted with Bill Young he was training a real pretty leopard. At the time he said the dog had made the "B team". I dont know that there are any dogs that are going to look real good when put with Bills dogs. That was about the toughest test that dog could have possibly had. If that dog made the "B team" at Bills place it would have made the A+++ team at mine.

I beleive the dog ended up going north. I cant remember if it was Washington or Idaho?
I think it made a good dog up there. I know one thing, it had the best training a dog could hope for if it stayed with Bill for any length of time.

That July topic is an interesting one. I have read people who know a lot more than me say the leopards and the plotts were a lot the same back in the day. The Plott litters would have "calico" pups in the ssame litter as the brindles and the calico ones were called leopard.

I know a man who crossed a pure bred papered plott on a pure bred papered July. All, or all that I can remember, of the puppies came out leopard spotted even though neither parent was. As you know, both parents had to be hiding that recessive gene for that to happen. They would have made beautiful leopard curs!!! Perfect conformation.

This is a fun thread for me to read and I actually had two people contact me to tell me it was here. I appreciate it. I know of about every dog that has been mentioned and have hunted with a few of them.

I will tell you what Doc Rasmussen told me when he gave me the call to go pick up Rachel from Mr. Shultz: He said it can be hard to find one of the real good ones, but if you ever do, there will be no going back. He said that if I got in on that cross, I would probably have enough dog to last me a long long time. He said a few other things too, and every word out of his mouth was Gospel truth.

I just really enjoy the Leopards. There are a few things about them that need fixing in my opinion. But I have never owned a dog that did not have problems. There are other dogs that I enjoy a lot also. It would be real tough on me if I ever had to choose one breed or line and think it was the best and promote it for the rest of my life. I dont know if I could do it. If I did, it would be just because I figured out it was financially more stable and smart.

But I have seen things among the Leopards that I had not seen yet in other dogs. The thing I like the most is that little trait called "how the heck did she do that?!!?" I like being smarter than my dogs, but really what I like is being dummer than my dogs.

I will tell you one time when Rachel showed me that trait. She had never been to the mountains and we took a truck load of dogs to Idaho to hunt bobcat. It was so amazing to watch each dog deal with the stress of an unfamiliar environment. The one I though was the champion of brains looked very foolish in the vertical rocks. Some just really did not handle it well at all. There were two of them, however, that looked like there momma gave birth to them in those rocks and they never left. It was really strange to see such a genetic difference in "rock ability" (isn't that the name of a style of music?).

Rachel was one of the two that was born in the imaginary rock walls of the flat Midwest. The first cat race she was on went in to a canyon. It was a good race and the dogs were screaming. The cat hit a rock ladder and all the dogs were milling trying to figure out if they were supposed to tree or what. All of them except one. I was standing off to one side about where the wall became impassable. This black streak came tearing by me throwing pine needles, dirt and rocks. I mean, all out sprint. And It happened so fast, I knew she did not even pause for one second at the bottom of that wall. I dont know how she knew where a passage was. She had never been there before. I dont know how she knew she had to get around, she had never experienced a bobcat climb a wall. Every time a bobcat had climbed, in her experience, it was a tree and the cat stayed there.

She ripped by me at a dead out sprint, tail falling limp. As soon as she got directly above the other dogs at the top of that wall She went screaming out of there like she was looking at him; and she may have been. I just stood there scratching my head. I am sure the cat figured he had bought himself a nice break, but he was not familiar with that "how the heck did she do that" trait. He didnt really think there would be a dog waiting for him at the top!

Now, she just did what a bobcat dog should do. But I have never seen a dog that did not have to learn how to do that with experience, or with an experienced dog.

that is my favorite trait of some of those special leopards. I think I saw that trait heavier in Rachel than any other I have known. I have seen exceptional dogs, but I could usually understand them. With her, I never did. And i was so often wrong about what she was doing and about to call "strike three. the batter is out!" when she made the catch. the "how the heck did she do that" trait. Once you see it you dont want to live without it... Unless of course, you like to feel smarter than your dogs.

I only hunted with Barney's Buster one time, but in one hunt I saw two of those "how the heck did he do that"s with Buster. I sure hope Tim's pup is Buster again. I sure wish you guys could figure out how to get the proper papers on those pups. I know Russ couldnt give a rip about it. I dont blame him. He gets so frustrated with all the games and politics. But I am thinking those dogs could help the breed out if they could be registered. I know Randy Oller got Busters papers straightened out because he wanted to breed to him, and did.

The only other place i know that a guy could get some of that Buster blood is Ricky Love. I cant remember exactly where he lives, but I think it is North Carolina. His dogs will be registered. He sells a lot of them to the hog people. I doubt he has ever sold a dog to a bobcat hunter, but I would not hesitate to try one from him. Dan knows how to get hold of him. I know Rex had a female named Blue out of Buster and I am sure that is where Ricky got the blood.

[CRA]

Yes David,

It was in 1998. The dogs name was Chigger. Years before that Bill got a Camus Cur he got from us. He really liked that dog. He said she was a track driver. I ordered her from McDuffie in 1994. She was a small high tanned bitch.

[Dan McDonough]

Rachel had a high degree of intelligence no doubt. The little extra thing she had seemed to be her ability to watch what was going on and understand which I think stemed from a great ability to understand quite a bit of language which I also think came from her forming a bond of trust from an early age. I studied Rachel all the time I owned her which was around 6 1/2 years. It would take me a very long time to explain what I'm going to say next but it's really important for anyone that ever raises their own hunting dogs.

The initial relationship you build with a dog is the most important foundation for any thinking dog. That's why I think David is the best pup trainier I've come accross. He's a natural at building trust. Not becuase he's a slick operator but because he is trustworthy. It reminds me of a part in Wick's book when he states that it's more important to pick people first when picking dogs. Particularly, over a long period of time, a breeder that is fully trustworthy will easily gain the trust of his dogs. The dogs know when you don't hold up your end of the deal just as well as some people do (I'm still talking about good thinking dogs here). When those dogs trust you they can ease back and learn and become much more than if they had to spend their time worrying about being alone on something or in some endevour.

[Dan McDonough]

...it's the same confidence a soldier has when he is alone fighting. He knows that his fellow soldiers are breaking thier necks to get there to help or save him, what ever the situation calls for. It allows the soldier that is alone to operate with some comfidence that he is not alone. Anyhow...either you get it or you don't, the lesson is there and is the foundation of any good relationship with a thinking dog. David is tops at this and I appreciate that.

Now, I've hunted with a lot of different brands of Leopards but I'm not going to be able to tell you as much about another strain of Leopards as I can about the Clark/Ganus type dogs because I've hunted with many more of them. But I've hunted against all of those other strains and I can tell you with good confidence that the Clark/Ganus type dogs have more talant at a higher level than any other strain. That's going to get a pile of folks pissed off. I've said it before and it happens every time. Now let me qualify that by saying that just becuase a dog is more talented than another does not mean it's more usefull. There is a lot more to a dog than genetically built in tallent. I'm not here to bring everyone who hasn't figured that out up to speed so anyone who wants to debate me on this is wasting their time. It's simpley my opinion and exceptions do not prove the rule. This is just what I've found.

[Dan McDonough]

Would I suggest someone go out and start buying Clark/Ganus type dogs until you find one of the better examples of the line...yup. I won't however tell you that you should only get C/G type dogs. Unless your a devoted breeder, I would suggest getting a C/G type dog crossed with another line. You'll get where you want faster if your a hunter. I'm just talking statistics here. If you went out and bought a C/G type pup and hit the lottery on your first try, your likely to be as convinced as I am about what they can do with you and a bobcat.

All of the factors the come into play will misslead people as to what they really want in a bobcat dog. Listen to the older guys who have done this game for a long time. Time and length of service can change perspective in ways that can only be imagined by the guys who have been around this game for a long while. Pick your people and then pick your dogs. You'll know what you want but the good old boys will know what you need. I'm getting there but I'm not one of them yet.

Hats off to the good old boys!

I've forgotten the original intent of this thread so I'm going to go and re-readit it now.