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Havent meet anyone with curs down in this area I have heard of a gentleman in the Billings area that has a couple he runs on bobcat dont know how successful they are.

al baldwin wrote:Good advice South Texan. How much luck have you had with hard charging dogs learning to slow down. Or have you found it has to be an inherited trait? Thanks Al Baldwin

Al, good to have you on the site, I see you joined the other day. As for your question "How much luck have you had with hard charging dogs learning how to slow down?" Age and experience always helps with dogs. Lots of young, inexperienced dogs seem to over-run a trail. That's when it's good to have some good experienced old dogs to get the hard running dogs called back in on the track. I don't mind fast running dogs looking ahead for your game, as long as they keep their mouth shut (no babbling) until they cut the cat's trail ahead. But it's my believe that your not going to catch a lot of game if this is the only type of dogs that you have in the pack. It takes different types of traits in dogs to make a good cat dog pack. You need to have a few good trailing dogs (track straddlers), a few medium ranging dogs, and a few long ranging dogs (jump dogs),and a good locater or two in the bunch, with a few good running dogs that know how to run a cat once they are jumped. They all need to honor one another with no loose barking going on. If they open on track, they are suppose to have it. If you have all these different kind of dogs in your pack, in my opinion, you would have a pretty well balanced "cat dog pack". But as stated on this site all the time, you are not going to find many cat dogs that can fill the shoes of all the different traits needed to catch a cat consistently, all on their own.

Al, I guess I got off track myself, I think the hard charging dogs your talking about is the dogs that latter on make your jump dogs. Dogs that are too hiper to sit there and help pound out a tough trail, so they are out ahead of your trailing dogs looking for the cat and that's fine as long as they keep their mouth shut until they jump the cat. And yes I do think it is an inherited trait. I hope this answers your question. Robbie

You might try switching up the country your hunting in.Some areas that get a lot of pressure cats get pretty hard to catch without experienced cat dogs. 8 or 9 cats in two years isnt a lot of experience. In some areas you might be expecting to much. Or they just might not be the right dogs. I have had trouble consistantly catching cats in one area swithched areas and started catching most of the cats that they jumped. Same type of country just less experienced cats for my less exerienced or lesser dogs. Good luck,Larry

Thanks South Texan you answered my question & I agree with your answer. However I am guilty of hunting dogs that bark off track. Cats can be scrace here & I let the dogs work any track they can wiggle on, And desire they open enought to keep things interesting. There is one very good , well known cat hunter in Oregon that has bred a line of cat hounds for years that are very open, He will not keep any that are not full open he has been very sucessful catching bobcat. I suspect you would not hunt this line of dog. But I doubt anyone in Oregon has treed more cats than him in the past 50 years. Also am sure very few have cat hunted as hard. Can tell you have hunted with the elite cat pac. Enjoyed your answer and sharing this information with you. Al

I have a idea if your running them jumped and get a little race out of it your treeing cats and they are leaving the tree they might be over tuning them but if they are picking up looses min or two a cat just cant take a lot of pressure in deep snow. Start watching your garmin and when your jumped race goes to crap and they go to making loops and circles go looking you might solve your question and if you have to help them on a jumped cat they might not have it but hunt the deeper snow and be a little picky about your tracks for while don't keep turning on dime size females

Thanks trw , but the snow here sucks lately. As far as dime size females I have a hard time passing up any track. When my dogs start doing circles and loose one I head in there but we usely head right down the trail to do it all over again. I will try roading them first and maybe try to solo them out.

I agree with Twist, not all lion dogs are bobcats dogs.
I would also suggest trying each one individually and see if they both do the same thing on there own.
I have been fortunate to have hunted 3 REALLY GREAT bob cat dogs in my time. Really great bob dogs will hold there head up and fly when they can and will know when to slow down and put the nose on the ground. I have seen Really good ones run a cat into a blow down and instead of just barrelling into the pile make a circle around it first to see if the cat came out already. I really don't know how you teach that, but it is really cool have a dog that is that cat smart.
Good luck to ya,
Big Bite

I feel everytime a young dog runs his guts out and does not end up at a tree in begins to put a message in his head that the chase is all that matters. Not knowing that the tree is the goal. This may not always be the case, but I have found that young dogs that are placed on good tracks in new snow with proven dogs tend to better emulate those traits of the older dogs. It's like feeding young dogs to mean bears too early without the proper adult proper protection from some rough older dogs. Unsuccessful races breed unsuccessful races. This is not always certain, but most good bobcat dogs never went from hardly ever caught any to catching most of the time on their own. I have had dogs that race each other and babble too, none made good bobcat dogs. One I know I had under 300+ lion trees, but maybe only 15 or 20 bobcat trees. He tried his heart out, but in the end it was rarely enough. I only wish I would have had a good bobcat dog to help train him. It may have made a difference, then again his natural "track style" may have held him back no matter what influence he had early on.

Alot of great lion dogs just dont make bobcat dogs this is not taking anything away from your dogs as they sound like nice hounds on lion and bear but whole nother story on bobcats (some) have what it takes to consistantly catch bobcats and (alot) dont.

Do you know what a good lion dog is? I think in Montana anyway, that a good lion dog will consistently catch bobcat and a great lion dog surely will. Now OR and WA might be different. But then again, I think a track straddler can sure catch a lot also. Constant pressure is the key and it doesn't have to be constant fast pressure. I think a dog needs to be an accurate locator as well. I lose more bobcats to terrain, like cliffs and rocks more than any other reason. JMO of course.

catdog, you are more than welcome to come down and show me what the difference between a lion and bobcat dog is need all the help I can get treeing them. A great bobcat dog will catch lion with ease but turn the table and not always so. Andy

Up here where Iam at lions come easy. I would have to agree in this country a good lion dog will catch bobcats. Probably a different story where you guys run, but here most are lion chases are really short. I think I would prefer to have a great bobcat dog to catch lions. I am Just trying to figure some younger dogs out so I get on here to get alittle advice from guys that specialize in the bobcat running. I used to have a good lion dog that I would catch bobs with, not everyone but he seemed to do pretty good. This site has helped me and Iam sure alot of other people for training and all sorts of info on hunting. Before I started using this site I never thought that a guy could strike cats off the hood. I would have never tried if it hadnt been for the info alot of you guys have shared. I spent alittle time this summer messin with the dogs on the hood, with the snow conditions being really bad I was hooding the dogs alot in december. We had a few strikes with nothing when we put them down, one turn into a dryground bobcat chace with no catch, and then about two weeks ago the mutts open on the hood and caught a female with two kittens. I have had hounds for about 15 years but have always had old dogs around to do the training for me. Anyways just wanted to say all the advice you guys have given me is greatly appreciated Thanks again