how do you get your hounds to come back to you??

[Birney Bobcats]

Teach them to respect u.
And if that doesnt work light'em up, then they will.

[sneekee15]

thanks guys! alot of great helpful info! i sure as hell love hunting lions but i get so ticked off and frustrated when im hunting dogs instead! i will put this info to work on my pups and let ya know how it goes!

[Nolte]

I guess I take a little different view on the subject. I really don't worry a whole lot about being able to call them off a track. I worry more about if they are consistantly on the right end of the track or working towards it before I spend a pile of time teaching them to handle. I'd like to spend more time on that, but I just don't have it to give.

I figure if they can consitantly catch the critter or will be coming on it's track, I can just catch them there. If I'm worried about not getting them back in time or where they might head, I don't put down on the track and go find another.

Most of the better hounds I've seen around here are so damn headstrong that 10% of the time you want to choke them to death. The other 90% you damn sure wish they were on the end of your leash. It's those kind of dogs that catch in bad conditions when guys like me get blanked.

[Mike Leonard]

Nolte,

Right on as always Amigo!

B-N-Trees you got my attention,if you are down this way holler and come by.




Come back you dirty son of a bee! Hike! Hike! Yaww! Yawh! Hack , cough! oh damn Lefty give me a beer!

[houndcrzy]

[quote="Nolte"]I figure if they can consitantly catch the critter or will be coming on it's track, I can just catch them there. If I'm worried about not getting them back in time or where they might head, I don't put down on the track and go find another.

I dont think you could sum it up any better then that!!

[Aparcio Herrera]

I have been listening to a lot of talk about being able to pull dogs off a good track. Well, I have been hunting for nearly forty years and with a few of the people on Mike Leanard’s “Best Lion Hunters” list so with that said I know next to nothing about lions and lion hunting but hope to spend the rest of my life finding out. I have pulled the dogs off tracks with a command but usually the track wasn’t very good. One has to realize that a track excites the dog or more specifically adrenalines the dog so when he smells the track he gets excited. Running lions is what’s he’s been trained to do. And although one does have some control of this it is in the forefront of his training and breeding to follow a track that has excited him. Breeding hounds over the millennia has placed certain traits that make hounds ideal for hunting that is why we aren’t following poodles or german shepherds. Commands only work superficially on hounds not like stock dogs, police dogs or show dogs. That’s why a person doesn’t see hounds in the circus or police tracking dogs without a long leash, hounds just don’t listen very well it has been breed into them. Hounds have long ears, long snouts, ball voices and cold noses for a reason and their lack of a large ability to listen is also one of these traits. If you have a good dog that is “screwed down” on a track you will have about as much success pulling him off as getting a teenage boy away from his prom date. I’m not saying that hounds are completely out of control but when a dog is doing what he is supposed to do then let him do it. Now if he is going all over the country wondering around then that is something entirely different. A hound’s worth is measured by the tree at the end of a trail or if you catch up to him and he is still cold trailing then you have yourself a good hound and you and him have done everything right.

As far as shooting to get the dogs to come in or stop I have done it and I have seen it done, it does work – sometimes. When their trashing off it’s never worked because I’ve always missed…. just kidding….

[FullCryHounds]

AH, perfect advice. Your experience shows through.

Now to an earlier post:

"If they are chasing deer then when they come out would be a perfect time to do some deer training, preferably high voltage training."

Horrible advise. So let me understand, Your calling your dogs, even if you know for sure they are chasing deer, and they come to you so you shock the crap out of them. You really think they know why they just got shocked after you called them to you and they came. You just reinforced to them that coming to them after you call, they will get shocked. Guess what they are going to do the next time you call them. Its no wonder so many guys have so many problems with their dogs.

I agree with liontrackers original advise but also be dam sure you know HOW to do it.

[Big Mike]

The first thing my dogs learn to trail is me. When there pups play hide and go seek with them. Pups dont like to be alone and come hunting you real quick. Then I take them horseback and do the same. This will save a guy more time later to spend some when there 8 weeks to 6 months and learn this. It doesnt take much time to teach them this

Dogs not coming back is a pet peave of mine i cant stand having to waste time looking for a stupid hound that wont come back. If the dogs out Trailing a lion until afte dark thats oK. But when the track disappears or dogs quit they better be trailing back to my truck. Some of my dogs will even open when trailing me

i sold some dam good dogs just because they had no homing instinct. The dogs i have had problems with this, were all ones I got as year old or more never had the problem with ones I raised.

I cant call my dogs off a hot track but i can when they get tired or the track gets bad i can.

A good friend of mine can shoot his gun and stop his dogs off of a hot track, ive watched him do it. He's a 2nd generation houndsman/lion hunter and they have been doing this for fifty years.

I think just like all hound trailing and treeing it is part bred in instinct and part learned. Even tho they are flopp eared , no listening, hard headed animals you can still teach them a few things LOL

[liontracker]

How, when and consistancy is the key to discipline.

Most hounds are very intelligent. Why would you not want them to handle like good birddogs? It's not that much more work and the result is a pleasure to be around.

Just ask guys like Mike Leonard, Warner Glenn and others.
An e-collar is THE long arm of the law, use it to your best advantage.

[Nolte]

"If they are chasing deer then when they come out would be a perfect time to do some deer training, preferably high voltage training."

Horrible advise. So let me understand, Your calling your dogs, even if you know for sure they are chasing deer, and they come to you so you shock the crap out of them. You really think they know why they just got shocked after you called them to you and they came. You just reinforced to them that coming to them after you call, they will get shocked. Guess what they are going to do the next time you call them. Its no wonder so many guys have so many problems with their dogs.

Dean,

I think there is a big difference between a dog choosing to come to you and then getting thumped, and one that is caught red handed on trash and corrected. When I was a kid, e-collars were still not common place and that was precisely how a dog was broke. When it ran trash, it received "physical" stimulation.

But I agree with you, if you are calling old Fido, he then comes, and then you thump him. What does instill in the dog. It's real similiar to puppies. If you let them run around like mad, you then call them to you, and kennel them up. Eventually they are going say forget that and do their own thing. Now you've created a problem.

I think getting a pack of hounds to handle like a bird dog is about 25 times more work than getting a bird dog to handle like a bird dog. Just my experience and I've only trained one half-assed bird dog and attempted to train dozens of hounds. Now granted I have had a couple that were very well minded, but it took a LOT of HARD miles to get them to that point. It sure as hell didn't happen when they were 3 years old and some dogs were wild-eyed rammy idiots until the day they tipped over.

In our area I don't need a dog to find me. I hate sitting around and waiting for old blue to take his sweet ass time coming out. If the track is blowing up or it never gets going, I will dive in and grab the dog then move on to the next one. We've got the technology, method and terrain that lets us do that. 25 years ago, you didn't have much of a choice espcially if they quit barking. I know it can be a whole different ball game depending on where a guy hunts.

[FullCryHounds]

Agree, I wouldn't have any problem if you caught them while they are running trash but if you start calling and they come to you, you shouldn't punish them at that time, its too late.

[B-N-Trees]

Agree, I wouldn't have any problem if you caught them while they are running trash but if you start calling and they come to you, you shouldn't punish them at that time, its too late.

Dog Handling 101

[Ankle Express]

Everything Nolte and Spruce Mtn said will cover you here. If they'll come out or come back before they lay down then I'll spend the rest of mine and their time hunting them. I still remember how to handle trash the old way. Shock therapy does work best for that though, hence the original use "TRASHBREAKER". Only on special rare cases then do I really need one and I have to go borrow it.

[houndcrazy93]

yeh obedince is big. my hound when i first bought him would take of when i let him out of the box to go to the bathroom. and would take for ever to come back. then i shocked him a few times. and that helped. then i taought him how to sit and come. and he is a like a new dog. i dont need a tracking collor on him anymore, unless im hunting

[Jim Evenson]

I wasnt trying to say beat or shock your dogs when your trying to call them but if you do catch them in the act I sure would or if they came back I would immediatly find some deer and do some work with the shock collar. I still am not sure though what are the dogs chasing, or are they just running. I guess if they are truly on a lion track Im not sure why your trying to call them back unless maybe its getting dark but there the problem might be how old a track your turning them out on.