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how do toppers pads hold up on longer runs ?

sourdough wrote:Color of pads is a myth. Blown pads are generally do to lack of conditioning over time and the surface the dog has to travel on. Most hound hunter are folks that have day jobs and weekends are what they have to get their hounds out to exercise and that’s not enough to straighten their pad before the season begins, most hounds blow their pad on the first outing of a hard race and are plagued by it the whole season as again by the weekend they’re ready to travel and one hard race they are laid up until the next weekend it’s a vicious Cycle. A horse’s hoof and a dogs pad are not made of the same material nails yes pad no.

sourdough

Couldnt have said it better! Most hunters never condition thier hounds enough before hand and just like sourdough has said once they have been injured are playing the catch up game all season long as for Toppers feet he is just like everyother hound if not conditioned he will be pussy footing around after a hard hunt but for the past yr or so he has been in pretty much retirement mode I am currently hunting more light colored foot hounds at this time and have had way less sore footed hounds but when season hits I have already done my home work with the hounds and they are in running shape.

which strains have people had pad problems with? It seems to me every strain of dog has a weakness or two that seems to get glossed over by their good traits. I haven't seen to many pad problems that couldn't be addressed as long as the feet were structurally sound to began with. but have had some weaknesses that were hard to avoid in some strains. so what weak traits have people noticed in what strains?

Hey Andy I started running that topper pup from 4-5 months old and he always went with the big dogs, They all get a little tender but i never blew the pads out on him. I only had one dog that really got bad. The most days they got off was 4 days in a row and the most they got hunted was 5-6 days in a row.For the most part I road my dogs every three to four hours for a couple miles so they arent sitting in the box all day and i think that helps with their feet a little and get some of the stupid ran out of them. They ran on rocks, crusted and frozen snow, frozen ground. I have two acres and i just let them run loose around the yard so they arent sitting in their kennels all the time too. Its been said alot but i beleive you have to help them get in condition and sitting in a kennel or on a chain doesnt give their feet much help. JMO

i think i will just LMAO!!! at this one!!!!!!!! 99% of your old timers culled dogs with white feet and no black in there mouths!!!! end of story

Thank god for the ignorant 1% of old timers.

sourdough

if not every thirty year old shows great promise nor every forty year old why then does a magical change over come everyone at some unknown age that gives them knowledge and insight above and beyond anything they ever had any chance of understanding or knowing before? don't get me wrong the old timers have a advantage of years but it takes some discretion on our part to sort through those things they choose to share with us. on top of it a common human condition is to expound on things they are only partially familiar with. but hold dear those things that they spent a good deal learning. if one man spends fifty years in a bar and another five years building bridges it should be a easy choice as to travel companions.

I'm thankful that I spent time with the 1% of those old timers-(still do, I guess). They showed me THE TRUTH in some of these old women myths. Oh yeah, I leave perfectly good batteries setting on the concrete floor too!

Bplott wrote:i think i will just LMAO!!! at this one!!!!!!!! 99% of your old timers culled dogs with white feet and no black in there mouths!!!! end of story

please enlighten us on the black in thier mouths as to what or how this could make a hound perform in any way better. its truely a wise tail

Maybe I woke on the wrong side of the bed this morning but for some reason I can't believe some peoples thought process. Who cares what the color of the feet, mouth, hair is. The overall goal, last time I checked, was to put game in trees. I don't care if the dog has green feet, if he holds up and catches game, he can live at my house. This isn't a show dog forum.

I like how good some of you houndsmen think you are, now apparently you can judge by a picture on whether or not the dog should be culled, unbelievable.

George Streepy wrote:I like how good some of you houndsmen think you are, now apparently you can judge by a picture on whether or not the dog should be culled, unbelievable.

Well George, some things are unacceptable, and if they can be observed from a picture, then obviously thats proof enough. I like how bad some of you houndsmen make yourselves look, apparently you are more than willing to compromise on bad traits instead of striving for all around perfection, glad you hunt walkers.

Nothing is perfect. Nothing. Not even you Larry or your pack of super plotts. My question is what is a bad trait? It sure as hell isn't the color of the dogs pads. I am fairly sure it isn't the black in a dogs mouth.

Now lets say you had a line of dogs that were super fast, good treeing dogs with all the best looks. The dogs do a darn good job and catch lots of game. One little problem though, they will occasionally over run a track and not be able to get it caught after that. Now one of the pups in that litter had bad looking feet, you know always seemed to be sitting back on them. But this dog was able to run right up front with the rest but always made the turns. Never had a bad loose, and caught dependably all the time. I would want that dog more than the rest. I could care less what anyone thought of a photo.

If I ever get into show dogs maybe I will start caring a little more about the looks. For now I want to catch game. Just as others have mentioned, listening to old wives tales about how a dog should look isn't what matters in the woods. I am not about looking at dogs, I'm into hunting them.

You say you care how dogs look but you hunt plotts? WTF!!

I try to get past what my perfect design is and my predigest are when it comes to hounds it's a bit hard because of human nature and the perfect world we see through our own eyes. now the illustrations I am presenting are by no means what I would look for in my trail hounds feet but I hope they get some to think.

Tell me how perfect is nature?



With feet like those it's wonder them coyotes are still around this one must survive off it's good looks because it sure not possible for it to catch anything.

Tell this elk that a big splayfooted Grey Wolves can't catch it.



and this big devil must have missed his class on genetics.



sourdough

interesting comparison sourdough, although wild animals don't have the advantage of selective breeding for improving specific traits as our dogs do, kinda matters. The wolf pic is pretty hard to tell anything about its composition also, and rest asurred, it had help killing that calf. Sure these guys make a living the best they can, just like George must be proof that poor looking dogs have a place at his house and seem to do a good enough job for him, obviously he doesn't set the bar very high, hopefully he doesn't breed dogs and just supports guys like him that don't really care about trying to improve on something that apparently is "good enough" for them. Being complacent and satisfied with medeocrity doesn't work for me, glad you are so easy to please george, good on ya. Not saying and never have said I have it, I just don't feel the need to defend dogs that fall short of what everyone should strive for. These plotts might seem ugly to u George, interesting since u have never seen them, but i can say that i haven't had a foot issue since i quit thinking like you do