Define "Brains" in a Hound?

[South Texan]

Last night I was reading "Slash Ranch Hounds" by Dub Evans. Probably the 3rd or 4th time I have read it. On page 96 Dub is telling about a bear hunt where the dogs had got out of hearing & they lost the dogs. They had layed out overnight hoping to find the dogs. Dub sent Scotty one of the top ranch hands back to camp to fix some grub & get fresh horses the next morning while Dub & the other hunters tried to cut the dogs trail. With no luck of finding the dogs, Dub & hunters started back to camp. When they arrived the grub was fixed & sitting on the table but no Scotty. They ate dinner & went to saddle up fresh horses when they saw Scotty come riding into camp at a fast trot. Now I am going to quote the book.

Scotty said that just when he had cooked the meal, but before he begin to eat, Bell had come to the door & begin to bark as though she were trying to tell him something. He went to the corral & got on his horse, and no sooner had he mounted than she took off up the old road leading out to the north. After a while he met another hound or two, but Bell was traveling ahead of him at a pretty good gait, and seemed to know where she was going. She lead him over to Canyon Creek Mountain, about 5 miles from camp, to where the hounds had 3 bear up one tree, an old she-bear and two big husky cubs, brown in color & very pretty.

You can't define "brains" much better than that. Bell happened to be a litter mate to Brownie one of Dub's famous dogs.
Robbie

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[al baldwin]

Scotty said that just when he had cooked the meal, but before he begin to eat, Bell had come to the door & begin to bark as though she were trying to tell him something. He went to the corral & got on his horse, and no sooner had he mounted than she took off up the old road leading out to the north. After a while he met another hound or two, but Bell was traveling ahead of him at a pretty good gait, and seemed to know where she was going. She lead him over to Canyon Creek Mountain, about 5 miles from camp, to where the hounds had 3 bear up one tree, an old she-bear and two big husky cubs, brown in color & very pretty.

You can't define "brains" much better than that. Bell happened to be a litter mate to Brownie one of Dub's famous dogs.
Robbie

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using Tapatalk 2

Wow! a bear dog did that! I mean no disrespect, but I can see why we are labeled the bobcat gods. Guys there are smart & not so smart in all breeds , no matter what game their owners chose to hunt them on. Know for sure my hounds were smarter than me, after all, I was the one taking care of them. Al Good thread C JOHN

[david]

I believe you underestimate the intelligents of good bear hounds. Al

Larry, your wrong. I mean that respectfully. Are you a bear hunter?

I have been a bear hunter. One summer I was treeing a bear just about every time I went to the woods.

It is very easy to tell the members whose foundation was bear hunting. They come from an entirely different perspective. You can catch a lot of cats with combination dogs. Yet we are still dreaming of bobcat dogs. It is a different animal.

[david]

Sorry I showed up in the bear hunting forum here guys. I try to stay out of here because I always end up offending someone. I will go back to the bobcat hunting forum now so I wont be offending any bear hunters. I must have clicked a wrong button accidentally. Sorry

[mark]

These things i have tied up out back must be geniuses cuz they sure know how to act dumb when they need to.

[LarryBeggs]

David, from the time I was old enough to remember till I was about twelve all we did was cat hunt. I saw plenty of cats in a tree. The combination dogs we had between the age of 12 and18 any cat hunter would have been proud to hunt. After that I was strictly bear dogs till measure 18 passed . The dogs I had at that time were nothing but bear dogs. But my foundation was cat hunting. And it has always been where my heart is. Sometimes another perspective is a good thing. Keeps us from becoming like sheep and blindly following.

[david]

David, my foundation was cat hunting. And it has always been where my heart is. Sometimes another perspective is a good thing. Keeps us from becoming like sheep and blindly following.

Dang i hate being wrong. I am not sure who I am blindly following, but I am going to go follow him away from here. You want to keep me balanced and rational or something and we cant have that.

[LarryBeggs]

David, the bible tells us to not be easily offended. I am not. Are you?

[Curtis Wilcox]

Well let me say Larry is right and he is not saying all he knows!Also I have seen 100s of border collies that were not in the fast reading group.Ol Curt 541 258 4568 give me a call

[david]

David, the bible tells us to not be easily offended. I am not. Are you?

Hey I thought the Bible was for me to show when I am right. What is this happening here. You mean the Bible is revealing that I am lawless and a sinner in need of repentance and forgiveness? Man, I hate when I am wrong. Lol Guess maybe I better go look for that part Larry. I will come back more humble and broken I am sure. Cant really break God's Law. Can only break myself against it. Ouch.

[LarryBeggs]

David, if I am right or wrong doesn't matter to me. And my comment about blindly following was not meant at you. It was said because sometimes( I mean almost always). If a person puts forth a different opinion than the bobcat gods they are quickly reputed buy the same handful of people. I don't care if I offend the bobcat gods. I don't care if I am right or wrong. I will say what I believe. A different opinion is a good thing. I said earlier I may be wrong. But not everyone on here leaves room for that to be the case.

[newby]

Active vs. Reactive Dogs
Marker training turns a dog into what we call an "Active Dog" vs. a "Reactive Dog."
This means the system creates a dog that actively tries to problem solve. These dogs try to engage their handlers by trying to do things that make their handlers play with them, give them a food or toy reward or ask them to do something that will lead to these two things.

Active dogs try to make things happen. They know they can do things that cause their owner to engage them. In essence they themselves become engaged with their handlers by bouncing around and trying to do things that result in their handler giving them a reward. As I have said earlier in this article, trainers need to learn how to teach engagement to their dog. Many new trainers simply think they have the wrong dog and their dogs won't act like this. These people are wrong. They simply need to learn how to provide an environment that makes the dog want to engage the handler.

This is compared to a reactive dog that waits to be shown what the handler wants. Reactive dog are afraid to try new things for fear they will be corrected for making mistakes.

Every time you take your dog out you are teaching the dog something. You may not know what it is but our dogs are constantly watching and evaluating us. An active dog is trying to figure out how to interact with you in a way that benefit him. A reactive dog is trying not to step on land mines that result in his getting a correction. Marker training is the perfect method to produce an active dog.

We can use a ball reward to demonstrate the difference between active and reactive dogs.

An active dog will go out on the training field and engage his owner. He will focus on the owner and offer behaviors that he thinks may cause his owner to produce the ball. This is a dog that bounces around and willingly gives eye contact, lays down, sits up, goes into the heel position without being asked to do any of those things. He does this until the owner produces the ball and asks him to d something he has been trained to do.

A reactive dog is a dog that goes to the training field and waits for the owner to ask him to do something. He doesn't offer any behaviors. He will perform a behavior and accept the ball as a reward but he isn't going to try and second guess what his owner wants him to do. In other words, he reacts to what the handler asks.

Reactive dogs have learned that if they try and figure out what their handlers want and they make a mistake - they get corrected. So they quit trying. They back off and take the safe approach - which is "wait until he tells me what he wants because I don't need another correction."

This is a quote from this website http://leerburg.com/markers.htm I first heard about this concept from a trainer named Michael Ellis that Tim Pittman mentioned awhile back on here. Obviously our application is quite a bit different, but the concept is the same...some dogs are easier to train and learn how to catch their game quicker than others, I believe, because they're naturally "active dogs", naturally trying to solve problems (i.e. how do iget a reward like food, play, or fur) others have trainers that learn how to get more out of a dog as has already been mentioned.

[Ker_man]

Folks the title was ''Define Brains in a Hound'' great discussion, keep grinning.....and smiling..........I don't mind hearing about those collies......I remember Lassie fighting wolves in the old show....and bobcats And then there are SHEEP DOG FORUMS....So lets grin and BEAR it

[al baldwin]

Morning David hope you are having a good day. For the record, my first dogs were yard dogs that ran anything with hair or feathers and could on occasions tree a possum or hole a ground hog. However they did tree one bobcat in Va. My early years in Oregon were spent hunting combination varmint dogs, a great experience that I would not trade. Since about 1974 I only wanted my dogs to run bobcat. For the last 30 years of my hunting, for the most part able to have strait cat dogs. Now don/t claim they were the best that treed every cat, but when I cut them loose was confident they would be after a cat. Some of my friends were bear hunters & on a few occasions I did bear hunt with their dogs. I believe all breeds have smart & not so smart in them. And I have a great respect for the true tough bear hunters, believe they are as dedicated and as smart as any bobcat hunters I ever met. Al

[Warner5]

So when is enough brains, enough. We breed for cat minded dogs. They are smart, and a good 1 suprise's you with being at the right place's at the right time from an early age.

From my limited experience raising litters up. To get more of one trait, you give up needed traits in other areas. Just an example; Breeding for more brains can produce dogs lacking in nose power or drive( These 2 may be the same trait). But you get my point.

I agree that a smart dog will make a better bobcat dog. But it needs to be a confident smart dog. Some dogs seem to be to smart for their own good. John.