Best way to train young hounds?

twist · Post by **twist** » Sun Mar 02, 2014 4:31 am

Whats your best way to train young hounds on bobcat? Behind older dog or not. Lets hear your thoughts and why. Andy

RezDogRendezvous · Post by **RezDogRendezvous** » Sun Mar 02, 2014 8:12 am

In front of a good dog.
I like to first see a dog work a track as best as it can by itself. Surely its gonna make a quick loss. Thats when I send in my two dogs that can catch a cat. Used to turn them in behind but just hate a young dog that hits the ground babbling, shittin, pissin, and running as hard as it can to screw a track up, behind the old dog. Im a straight snow hunter! When i spot a track i do my work to find the short end. While doing so i like to let the trainees run out and wander up on the tracks and do their own work while i collar up the others. Most the time they dont make it a hundred yds it seems before circling. Thats when the old dogs get to go to quickly get them back on track! One at a time! Sometimes i think it works...

slowandeasy · Post by **slowandeasy** » Sun Mar 02, 2014 10:35 am

I'm sure Merlo will have things to add to this.

Take care, Willie

tman308 · Post by **tman308** » Sun Mar 02, 2014 1:32 pm

in the snow I like to take the young hound by itself and I will walk out the track and see if we can get the cat jumped. I praise him along the way when he sticks his nose in the track. on the dry ground I'll take 1 of my older dogs and put the 2 of them together. the other thing I will do is as a young pup I will let them play with a piece of bobcat hide. but as you know andy there's a whole lotta genetics at play to make a top bobcat dog.

CRA · Post by **CRA** » Sun Mar 02, 2014 2:07 pm

The best way I have found to train young hounds on bobcats is to hunt them with straight solid cat catching dogs. When you have the right young dog or pup from a proven breeding program and or a cross that clicks there isn’t much training involved. Teach them their name, how to load, bumped them off thrash and keep them healthy and exposed to bobcats with a handler that knows bobcat hounds and bobcats and you are in business. Bobcats are not hard to catch with the right dogs after it.

al baldwin · Post by **al baldwin** » Sun Mar 02, 2014 4:24 pm

CRA wrote:The best way I have found to train young hounds on bobcats is to hunt them with straight solid cat catching dogs. When you have the right young dog or pup from a proven breeding program and or a cross that clicks there isn’t much training involved. Teach them their name, how to load, bumped them off thrash and keep them healthy and exposed to bobcats with a handler that knows bobcat hounds and bobcats and you are in business. Bobcats are not hard to catch with the right dogs after it.

Agree with all this, except, Bobcats are not hard to catch with the right dogs after it.
So many things come in to play here, terrain, is one& can assure you more than one has changed their mind after experiencing some dog wise cats in this area. Al

mark · Post by **mark** » Sun Mar 02, 2014 9:13 pm

I agree with CRA 100% the only thing i do differently and not everyone can do this is let pups run loose till 4-5 months of age around the place. They learn to run tracks by themselves and i can see which ones are gifted at it.

Al, no disrespect intended and this is just my findings over the years. Any place i have ever hunted i have always found that there is at least one person in that given area that has a passion to catch bobcats with dogs so bad that they have gave up all other hobbies and jobs to some extent to hunt cats. Besides the the time spent hunting the one thing they have in common is that they have found a breed or strain of dogs that has excelled where they choose to hunt and strived to maintain it. My experiences with spoiled cats (and ive made my share of them over the years) is that they learn to shuck a dog early in the race because it works on 95% of the dogs out there, but when someone with dogs in that 5% class comes along they make short work out of that cat because it isnt use to still having a dog after them.
I personaly dont own dogs like that but know of a few who do and one of them is catching high numbers of cats in your back yard and has been for years. He has obviously figured something out that most others havent.

dwalton · Post by **dwalton** » Sun Mar 02, 2014 9:32 pm

I agree with CRA and Mark the right hunter with the right dogs make it look easy anywhere. The only thing that I would add when a young dog knows that you want him on bobcat the more you hunt him alone or with another young dog that works well with him/her they will make better dogs quicker than being hunted in a large pack all the time. That said bobcats are the hardest game for hunters to catch. You have to have years of knowledge, access to the right hounds and the ability to train them. Bobcats learn all kinds of ways to avoid treeing, roads,bluffs,slash areas, ect. with the wrong dogs on them. I have had two areas in recent years that only I hunted Some of the bobcats I treed there were treed 8 or 9 tines in training season. They just got easier shorter races as time went by, one even would go back to the same tree. Bobcats only learn to get harder to tree by getting away with not treeing. Most dogs can catch a bobcat, a few dogs catch most bobcats. Dewey

Tim Pittman · Post by **Tim Pittman** » Sun Mar 02, 2014 9:58 pm

CRA and Mark said it the best[better than I could've] I've spoiled them like most anyone else. But have to step back and ask myself [whether I or someone else done it] would that cat have had that bad education, if it had not been afforded those bad oppurtunities?? I have seen dogs and houndmen who make bobcat hunting look/seem as easy as coon hunting for most good coon hunters. Same as really good bear dogs and hunter on bear [some even the spoiled ones!!!]. Respectfully to all, there is bad terrain/ground/prey anywhere one chooses to hunt.
To the topic at hand. I personally like to start a pup or two at a time with 1-3 veteran dogs. Turning the pups out at the start[while hunting out of the rig]. I split them when hunting foot or horseback as soon as they become independent enough to start striking/running their own game [good or bad] and pair them up with 1-2 older dogs,until I get them bent a little. Then go back to hunting everyone together, for one to put pressure on the pups and the dogs that are well started to give me the opportunity to do some correcting off the bad and reinforcing the good. I try not to over correct any young dog or pup if short on time, as I like to hunt until I can get them on a good piece of game.
If I run into the exceptional individual that really stands out on striking/starting, I try to hunt it with 1 older lead dog until those to catch at least a couple cats alone from start to finish. It gives me a yardstick on the strike/trailing/ and locating, as opposed to hunting the individual alone. Usually this practice is done foot or horseback.

slowandeasy · Post by **slowandeasy** » Sun Mar 02, 2014 10:09 pm

mark wrote:I agree with CRA 100% the only thing i do differently and not everyone can do this is let pups run loose till 4-5 months of age around the place. They learn to run tracks by themselves and i can see which ones are gifted at it.

Al, no disrespect intended and this is just my findings over the years. Any place i have ever hunted i have always found that there is at least one person in that given area that has a passion to catch bobcats with dogs so bad that they have gave up all other hobbies and jobs to some extent to hunt cats. Besides the the time spent hunting the one thing they have in common is that they have found a breed or strain of dogs that has excelled where they choose to hunt and strived to maintain it. My experiences with spoiled cats (and ive made my share of them over the years) is that they learn to shuck a dog early in the race because it works on 95% of the dogs out there, but when someone with dogs in that 5% class comes along they make short work out of that cat because it isnt use to still having a dog after them.
I personaly dont own dogs like that but know of a few who do and one of them is catching high numbers of cats in your back yard and has been for years. He has obviously figured something out that most others havent.

That was about as politically correct as it could be. I'm proud of ya!!

Take care, Willie

merlo_105 · Post by **merlo_105** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 11:09 am

Slowandeasy, I will add to this. Just hunt the young dogs, Cats will make a dog, handler will shape a dog.

al baldwin · Post by **al baldwin** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 10:47 pm

Heck Mark don/t worry about showing disrespect for me. I have never known anyone here who has been able to catch every cat they ran. I to have caught a few cat in the area you are referring to, some quite easy . Have also had days when got beat rather bad, actually caught two in one day at least once there. However, I still find it very hard to believe anyone has caught every cat over a long extended time. Am sure you would have a hard time convincing a lot more people than I. When I say here, just means I have no knowledge what cat hunting in say Arizonia would be like.
No treeing cats and leaving them does not make cats harder to tree, try shaking and harassing & you might find those cat soon don/t want to tree. Al

mark · Post by **mark** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 11:53 pm

Al, im with you on catching every cat you jump, dont believe it can be done on a long term basis either. I am however amazed at how many this guy has caught in a 90 day season . He cant be missing very many. Sorry for taking away from the original post Andy.
One other thing Al, i should of used the term south coast instead of backyard.

twist · Post by **twist** » Tue Mar 04, 2014 12:32 am

Mark, you hit the nail on the head. Dont be so damn modest you are doing things right in that area. Listen to mark very humble about dogs and catching. Andy

South Texan · Post by **South Texan** » Wed Mar 05, 2014 1:13 am

CRA wrote:The best way I have found to train young hounds on bobcats is to hunt them with straight solid cat catching dogs. When you have the right young dog or pup from a proven breeding program and or a cross that clicks there isn’t much training involved. Teach them their name, how to load, bumped them off thrash and keep them healthy and exposed to bobcats with a handler that knows bobcat hounds and bobcats and you are in business. Bobcats are not hard to catch with the right dogs after it.

Very well stated! If you are on bare ground, you darn sure better have them solid cat catching dogs to put that pup with. Otherwise your going to be in a heap of trouble.
Robbie

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