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Went out yesterday, cut a bobber track. Cut both dogs loose they both worked it out for awhile. The male ended up trailing the bobber for about 2 miles or so. My female was off on the other ridge. I toned her got her to come to me, walked her up to with in 100 yards of the chase. She acted like she really wanted to go, so I turned her loose. She would not go up to him, she tried to work the track out her self. She refused to go up to him, so I don't know what to do with her. She was acting like a complete bitch yesterday.

the old timer that taught me to hunt holds his pups back and turns them in when an older dog strikes. I would do like mike and jeff said hold one back in the box if possible then when you let them out hold their heads up and tell them to "listen" repeat it till they are paying attention to the dog opening then let them go. It seemed to work great for my dog he got it after just a few times and will haul ass to get to the clean part of the track, he never once opened in the back of the pack or worked the track on the way

One issue may be your success rate. Do the majority of your races end at a tree? If they don't you may have young dogs not really running to catch game. I would try to get them on the best set ups as possible for success, such as as many hot lion tracks as possible. These guys that run strictly bobcats have been doing it for years with solid dogs that were started by older dogs. It easier to make dogs on lions. The more game you tree the harder your dogs will work to run to catch, that itself causes competion where dogs try to be the first at a tree.

Great point hostetler. Some questions need to answered before any advice can really be given.

Though I am not a cat hunter, I have Registered Walkers, and over the years have had my fair share of independent dogs.

I like independent dogs. I want every dog in my truck to catch game, from truck to tie-up. The lines I have now fill that bill. That said I hunt my dogs in a pack, and if a dog is running something, by golly they better get in there and get a piece of the action. But I have noticed over the years that most my young hounds, of course the more promising ones, tend to go through a hard headed extremely independent streak. From the time they are around 14-16 months old until around 18-20 months old. Seems like there comes a point where they just need to show (me, the other dogs, themselves) that they can run the show, and unfortunately most the time they THINK they know more than they do. They get squirrelly at turn in (go backwards, or try/find something else) and at times on track, like you said, instead of just cutting up to the lead dog, they want to run every single inch of that track by themselves, no matter how far they fall behind. Then I've seen them refuse to honor a tree, and these are TREEDOGS. I have tried lots of different things, and mostly I just call it growing pains as they seem to outgrow it before I can fix it... The more game they see, and learning to run to catch is a big dynamic too. There comes a point where they come to hate the game they run so bad, they just learn not care what dogs are with them. I have had a few that just stayed a bit "jealous" and "leery" of trusting other dogs, typically they learn to work with certain dogs but new dogs cause it to resurface.. I found that turning them down on the track first solved the problem completely. I have seen where holding them back works as well, especially once they KNOW what they are missing out on. Like when you caught her and tried turning her back in, I would have just put her on a leash and kept walking her, with him running the track until she was ready to go.

I would also say at home keep them penned up seperate and away from each other. Typically growing up as littemates they just eventually get tired of each other, and there is always a silent pecking order, and the female is tired of being big brothers underling, or maybe she is boss and is pissed that he is showing her up. Or if you do have them seperate, try putting them together so they have a closer bond.