Dads dogboy wrote:
Now back to this Backtrakcing BS. a Bobcat is a Bobcat there, here, in Oregon or Montana
A COLD Nosed Hound is a COLD nosed Hound I do not care where he or you are located and there is NO excuse in Dads book for Backtracking,
CJC
twist wrote:david, dont know how to take your post if kidding or not
Andy, you were wondering if I was kidding. Sometimes, I am. I try to change between kidding and not kidding so when I am wrong or say something idiotic, I can say I was kidding. Well, I was kidding. All except the part about teaching the dogs the little chant about ‘nose goes where the toes goes’. They learn it faster if you sing it to the tune of “we will we will rock you”. That would be especially true on those 16 hour tracks you guys are always starting. Or was it 14?
I told you guys not to take what I say too seriously, especially since I am a fourteen year old girl named Hanah, and I have not been bobcat hunting yet. On the Pilot chat board, they think I am a retired airline pilot.
But I will say that a bobcat In Western Oregon is different than a bobcat in The Oregon Cascades, is different than a bobcat in the Oregon, or Idaho high desert, is different than a bobcat from the great lakes region. I have caught bobcats in all these areas, and I know what it takes in each area. The minimum requirements are very different for each area. A dog that does great on the high desert cat might not be able to catch one in one hundred on the Northwest Coast of Oregon. And that dog that catches three out of five on the Oregon or Washington coast will not be able to bay a Great Lakes bobcat at all, in my experience.
A cold nosed dog might be a cold nosed dog anywhere, but what is considered a cold nosed dog on the Oregon coast during bobcat season, will not look cold nosed at all if you move it to the great North Woods midwinter. And no, Northern Montana, or Idaho is not the same as Northern Minnesota. I guess to someone from the South, they both are North. North is North any where you put it. So Forks WA, should be the same as Maine, and cold nosed in WA should be the same as cold nosed in Maine. These assumptions are surprising me, actually.
I think possibly more important than all the geographical and climatic differences is the difference in bobcat population densities. Areas that have high bobcat densities are not going to feel the desperate need for a colder and colder nosed dog. A super cold nosed dog on the Oregon coast is just going to mean you catch fewer bobcats. It is a time consuming liability. I know now that I never hunted with a super cold nosed dog all the time I lived on the Oregon coast. It would be ridiculous to have one there during the hunting season.
Snow tells a story and teaches lessons that I could not have learned without it. The snow told me that I once had a dog that could take a track that another dog could not even tell was there. Now, if I did not have the first dog, and there had not been snow, how could I even know that a cat had walked? I would have said “nothing walked”. I would not have said that “something might have walked and I could have run it with a colder nosed dog”.
Snow also taught me that there are many situations where it is easy for a dog or dogs to end up backwards on a bobcat track. It taught me that most dogs will have the occasion of being backwards from time to time. It is not something I could have seen or figured out without snow. It may be that snow itself is at least partial cause for this, since bobcats would rather not break trail, and will walk on their own or other opposing tracks before peeling off. It is extremely common, and I would not be surprised if something similar happens on known trails without the snow. It brings me to another rash conclusion: if you think your dogs never hit a track backwards, I say you are wrong.
We all have different needs, styles and motivations that our dogs fulfill for us. Andys’ dogs might false tree when they are young, but they probably don’t miss many trees when they are old. And, Andy, if your adult dogs are registered Treeing Walkers and are 100% accurate, they are the only walkers in the world that are. For most of us Walker lovers, we have to accept that once in a great while, even the very best Walker is going to be wrong. We live with that because the other qualities of the dogs far outweigh this imperfection.
CJC s dogs can run forever with their foxhound blood, but there are times when the race ends and the dogs do not locate the cat in a big tree, or in a culvert. These are things you live with because the dogs are what you need to meet what ever needs or desires you have.
In Oregon, dogs that are not born with a very powerful gift for locating will not get the job done. There, the dogs have not finished the track just because the cat disappeared. They finish the track when the cat is located and the dogs tell about it. Dogs that are not gifted at locating and treeing would be unacceptable. As unacceptable as a super cold nosed dog that might back track? I don’t know.
I am not talking about habitual back tracking. I am talking about working out a problem, and in that process, the dog could have been seen on a track backwards. The one dog I have owned that could be called super cold nosed, learned from his mistakes. He got better and better, made fewer and fewer looses, and by the time he was three, he would cold track quickly, and keep constant pressure on a jumped cat without a moment for the cat to relax. But I have distinct memories of the dog going backwards. He always ended up with the cat, and he learned from his mistakes. Cold nosed. Very consistently, if the track had not been there the morning before then, collar him up because he is going to take it with plenty of mouth.
What would he learn from an electric shock? Well, not much because that would have sent him to the truck and he would be done. What did he learn by painfully working it out? I think, everything he needed to know.
I am glad Bobcat Jack asked his question. We have come a long way from the answer. But hopefully other questions from other people in other locations at other times and with other needs have been addressed. I know I have learned some things. (and that can be hard for a 14 year old girl to admit.)
as this is unexceptable in my eye. The dogs I am hunting might sure as heck get out run but they wont run the back track or false tree or they wouldnt have made it this long these are 2 things that will bite a bobcat hunter in the shorts every time. later Andy
