Treeing Walker feet

[dwalton]

nait hadya; What kind of dogs do you hunt? Dewey

[nait hadya]

[nait hadya]

[dwalton]

I have hunted with many walker hounds and prefer them. Most I would never breed to. Conformation is one of the main problems with the treeing walkers.The kind of dog that I am looking for does not come along often. If I see that dog I will work with what it does not have by breeding. Two of the five top dogs that I have owned have had bad feet. That to me means that hunting them 10 to 16 hours a day up to 2 week strait without a break and treeing every lion that they could take out and only missing 1 or 2 jumped bobcats in a years time in all conditions. Picking them up out of there dog house and packing them to the pickup to hunt each morning, going full out all day on tracks and starting and treeing cats that other dogs could not smell. Did I mention that yes there was a blood trail in the snow if that was what I was hunting but almost always a cat in the tree or two or three at the end of the day. The first one I never raised pups out of the second one a lot of the cat dogs around here still have her blood after 25 years has past with no foot problems. Do what works for each of one of us. I think so much of the time we are not to far a part on what we are say here unless we are comparing apple to oranges. Good hunting and my we all have a good dog to follow. Dewey

[Ker_man]

Let's try to post some pictures that show the feet of treeing walkers.
Not interested in bench show dogs but hounds that are getting it done on what ever you use them on. I have one in mind that I will take a picture of when I get a chance. He's quite a dog and he's NOT MINE! Terry

[sourdough]

There are a lot of folks that have posted up some good information that I agree with. Conditioning is great and everyone should be keeping their hounds in shape, as they are athletes, who are ask to do more than we ask of ourselves. Dewey talked about a hound that many of the hounds in his area go back to after twenty- five years and in his words. “I had a dog that had foot trouble” yet she went on to catch three cats even though she had sore feet. Bad feet and sore feet are two different issues and I am sure that Dewey would not have bred a bad footed hound and terry was far from having shitty feet, sore feet I will go with. A hound that you can’t get a week out of before they have “sore feet” need to be conditioned, a hound that slips pads during conditioning and after every hard run is one that should never be bred regardless of how good You think they are. There are hounds that can go day in day out and yes they get sore and slip skin on their toes and pad, but it is superficial. Pulling pads is serious and will lay a hound up, you will never be able to pack them to the truck in the morning and then put them on a track without failure, this type of hound does not need to be reproduced, unfortunately there are those that will make a cross that is lacking in genetic responsibility and we get genetically substandard animals that might be great for the weekend “warrior” because they don’t see the flaws. A hound should be able to go every day, just like a stock dog, sore yet ready to go when the horse leaves the barn. A hound can have everything in the way of nose and track style, but if they have bad feet they are not genetically sound. A wolf does not lie up for a week, why should your hounds? You have to know the difference between bad and sore. I have no use for a pad slipping two day a week hound and neither should anyone else.

sourdough

[Mike Leonard]

Sourdough,

As much as I hate to say it you are dead on correcto-mundo!

awh! I really don't mind saying it, but as articulate as you are I bet you can cook good biscuits> Let's try em some time ok? LOL!

Oh I gotta go Milo is trailing another mouse! LOL!

[nait hadya]

[hunt14]

Good post sourdough!

[dwalton]

I guess it is what we mean by a dog with bad feet. The two dogs I referred to that had bad feet were hunted every day never laid up. They left blood in the snow and I washed there feet every day when they were hunted on mud to keep them clean, but they got hunted. A dog that had feet that you could not hunt or would not hunt would not be here long anyway. I would rather breed a dog that had feet that need attention that could catch 1 to 3 cats a day than one that never had a foot problem that could catch a cat once in a while. Each to there own I guess I just expect more from the dogs I hunt. Usually a out cross to a running dog will clean a dogs feet up. You breed to get what you want not to get what you have. If we did not try to improve what we wanted in a dog we would still be hunting wolves. They have great feet and were the beginning of our hunting dogs. Just maybe we can take what we have and like, then improve on it. To me there will never be a perfect dog. There will always be something that we can improve on. Once you get there,there is no place left to go.Dewey

[Ker_man]

[beardawg]

i like tight ,thick feet never seen pad color make a difference i keep my dogs on 1 1/2 to 2 inch rock seems to strengthen their toes an u dont seem to get sore pads when u start running them its a nice uneven surface. pain in the butt to clean but makes a tougher foot jmo

[TomJr]

I am not a breeder but this discussion got me to thinking... Some of those dogs with so called good feet just might be dogs that slow down and take it abit easier when they feel a little pain in thier feet while the "bad" footed dogs are ones that push past the pain and are just too Driven to stop for anything.

[Todd Davis]

I seen a dog that they said would get tender feet when hunted , judging by the length of the nails they must only hunt every other year and dont know how to use nail clippers. dog looked like it had claws off a grizz. so some times its not the dogs fault but the owners

[horshur]

I found there feet an advantage in the snow.....always a little blood easy to spot...several dogs running it was a swath..