What size and build do you most prefer for you big game dogs

[Mike Leonard]

I go along with you on the bigger dogs if they are tall and rangey you will probably be ok. Real thick built hounds of any size don't do to good in the endurance game. And if they have a lot of heart and push themselves they will break down earlier, and if they don't have that kind of heart you don't want them anyway,

The two toughest dogs I have ever seen in my life and this has been collaborated by numerous other that hunted with them.

Tuff #1 Black and Tan male tall, rangey built, looked like I was always starving him to death. He had a heavy head and long ears, and big old feet and not real tight footed either. This animals was unreal!!! He could go for not days but weeks. I lost him one time before I had tracking collars in the Bookcliffs. We figured he was gone for good 10 days later he trailed into Mack Colorado and still looked about the same as he did when he was cut loose. I am sure he ate on deer kills and what ever he was a survivor and he wasn't sore footed.
I lost him another time Way up on the Green in Wyoming and I searched for days no collars no people out there but sheepherders. He was gone for good. Happened to take the family out there for a picnic where I had cast him and just sort of say goodby to the old dog. We were wandering around there and got off down by the river and a big grove of cottonwoods and I saw something small and black by the base of one of the trees. My heart jumped! Maybe we had found his body. As i approached the huddle little form I spoke and he raised his head feebley. Oh my gosh it's Gunsmoke!Ther he lay a shirveled little body of what had been an 80 pound hound. The left side of his skull was crushed in but he was alive. The bark around this old tree was chewed and worked off and it was easy to see he had treed on this tree a long time. I found out later that a sheepherder had thought the dog went made and killed him or thought he killed him with a shovel. Gunsmike survived and went on to hunt more years after this. You could lay your hand on the dmaged side of his head and feel his pulse but he never stopped hunting or catching.The Vet. that worked on him then said that was the single toughest animal he had ever worked on. He said to sedate him he had to give him enough dope to kill a full grown horse.He may not have been the best dog I ever owned but he was dang sure the toughest in every way and i could tell stories all day about him and his 13 year hunting careeer.

#2 tuff: another Black and Tan male called Black Jack. I won't go into any lengthy stories about his toughness but I will say that an old Califonia State Lion Hunter screamed at me one time after Jack had caught a lion and then went off and ran an elk out of the country.

That dirty no good for nothing black hearted SOB is the single toughest and hardest headed dog I have seen in 70 years!!!!

[Waterway]

No one is stating a preference for sex as they state their preference for size. Amoung littermates it is easy to see a ten or fifteen pound difference between males and females at full maturity. I wonder if we are in some cases comparing apples to oranges.
I like a athletic leggy hound that fall with in acceptable breed standerds with a ton of heart for the hunt.

Mel

[sourdough]

Mike L,

Those two sound like some tough SOB's!

I had a walker male that was a week in week out tough footed sucker though I can't say he was as tough as those two, I just wished he would of been a little colder nosed, on a good dry ground lion track or a bobcat in the snow he was a super star.

Have you caught up with black jack yet? that elk should be one heck of a trophy by now.

Waterway,

Sex does not matter. I hunt females but it's not because I think they are better than males. The topic of male VS female has been talked about in some length on another thread.

sourdough

[poser]

Good stories fellas. I like to hear about them old hounds, makes work go by a lil faster when you get reading about them.

I like smaller tight framed hounds but whatever will put game up works for me. I think that we have a lil bit of everything right now except for a real big hound. Had a few big ole black and tans when i started. Nice dogs just not what i was lookin for.

I personally think that tough dogs come from tough hunters. Sure some hold up better then others but my dogs are usually soft. When i hunt with some friends that hunt alot. They have hard dogs that go everyday and hunt for a living. It sure seperates the men from the posers quick when you are tryin to hunt day after day with dogs in shape and one that just got let off the chain for the first time in two months. We have some of the same dogs, same litters.......just different hunters.

Please keep up the stories about the old tuff hounds that have passed through your yards.

thanks, jason

[LCK]

Small, short coupled, tight built with cat feet. Don't care about ear length or mouth. I also tend toward the blocky head. Thats just what I prefer.

[Mike Leonard]

LOL!

Yes I finally caught up with old Black Jack but I had to go to another state to getto him. He was a traveling SOB. LOL!

Old Jack had a pretty good nose and i caught a lot of lions and bears with him and some bobcat. He was a very classy coon dog if you hunted him by himslef but jealous with other males and would go out and suck them into a trash race and then sneak off and tree a coon and just be standiong on that tree with that big old double chop and and gleam in his eye as much to say I fooled them suckers!

Crossed Jack on a Black female I got from Bud Hutchings from Utah and boy did they throw some cold nosed fast pups. I should have hung on to more of that but I sold the black dogs out to David Cassell of Oklahoma and they still have a little of that blood.



I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the black dogs but I haven't found any that consistantly work well for the way I hunt today. But i bet there are some out there, maybe in Montana. Wink!

[pete richardson]

the only thing i have against big dogs is it takes more feed. more room in dog box ,etc-

tall but light would describe some of best dogs ive seen -i thought they were too big- turned out. i was wrong then i thought they wouldnt last long and they were going strong at ten , they were too big but they were extra atletic , like a good dog almost half their size--

nyways -- i like them light and leggy with a houndy head -- - i will feed anything that can do the job ,ive seen a lot of good dogs that sure didnt look it

[Rockcreek]

I hope someday that I have the dog power in my pack to be able to choose dogs based on size and build. I have a hard enough time weeding out the one's that don't have what it takes...