BigGameHoundsmen.com

Grumpy or not David, you make me laugh and you have some good insight. You'll stand up yourself and your beliefs, and that's getting to rare in our country! I appreciate that about you.

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I dont know how i came across to cause anyone to think that i was saying chain breaking is a bad thing. Its how i keep my dogs all the time and have since the early 70’s. I guess my point was just because a dog is chain broke doesnt gaurantee the safety of a dog in a snare. Where i hunt we have a lot of small stemmed sticker briars stems the size of a good heavy leather boot lace. I know when i walk through them they are usually shin to knee high on me and you have to kick pretty hard to break them to keep from having them trip you on your lips. That would put them about neck high on a dog and if that dog stopped and didnt push on through them they wouldnt ever get more than 50 yards off the road. A chain broke dog most likely wont go into a body flipping tyrade but a well set snare will be damned tight on that dogs neck by the time it realizes something has ahold of it. The biggest saving grace of a snare is if a dog happens to get a front leg through it too. Have caught coon,coyote,cats, and fox that have had front legs in the loop with their neck and many of those were alive when i got there but not all of them. This is just my ,2 cents so do with it what you want

I’ve had 2 leopards caught in snares both was chain broke. The female has been caught 6 times and the male 2 times. They was both very lucky and smart both dogs sat down and barked treed until i got there both dogs was trailing or running a track when they got caught. Both dogs was caught around the neck every time the second time the male was caught it just about choked him out by the time i got to him he couldn’t bark anymore. Just my thoughts chain broke and brains kept my dogs alive.

GCLeps wrote: They was both very lucky.

You brought me back GCLeps. But Since it’s my grumpy thread, I’m going to disagree with you in one thing.

UNLUCKY to me would be conditions so bad that they would not allow even the best of bobcat dogs to get up under a bobcat.

LUCKY to me would be conditions so good that even an inexperienced coon dog could tree a bobcat.

I don’t think your two dogs were lucky.

Lucky are the dogs that live a long life without ever encountering a connibear trap or snare.

Your dogs were not lucky, in my opinion.

I am editing your post so that I can agree with it

GCLeps wrote:I’ve had 2 leopards caught in snares both was chain broke. The female has been caught 6 times and the male 2 times. They was both .... ..... ... smart...

Just my thoughts chain broke and brains kept my dogs alive.

Now I agree 100%

Those two dogs are still alive because of a long string of gifted breeders, and very basic training.

If suddenly it was impossible to hunt a dog without it getting into snares, people would be beating a path to your door for a few years.

Because I think that is all the longer it would take for decent bobcat dogs to become a lot easier to find. Because dogs that could overcome thier instinct/drive with REASON will be the only dogs left to breed. And the most remarkable bobcat dogs I have owned were able to do that. I’ve caught cats with some that could not. I’ve caught a lot more with those that could.

One of my all time favorite memories was the first time Rachel was ever in the mountains. She was raised on swamp cat. A couple of my dogs were completely baffled by the new rocky environment, including Rachel’s half sister. The VERY FIRST time Rachel ever hit a rock wall the cat climbed, she didn’t even pause. She shut up, took a hard right and sprinted until she could find a way to get up top, pulling a string of dumb dogs behind her. A tree dog instinct would demand her to stand there at the bottom of that rock cliff and bark. The cat is up! The game has climbed! She overcame that instinct instantly. She already knew those ancient instincts have not always worked out well for bobcat.

And I think Rachel and GCLeps dogs are going to have some common blood somewhere, if I’m not mistaken.

I’m not saying smart dogs never die. They do. And smart people die every day due to unavoidable circumstances. I’m saying: to have an outside chance of surviving snares, it will require a dog that does not fight the snare the way most dogs fight the first time they are restrained.

Training, and genetics.

If you all did not click on this video, it is an image to burn in to your brain.

I’m pretty sure this coyote had no chain training. In some environments, dumb coyotes don’t get to have babies. A lot of generations of that selective breeding and you get this:
https://youtu.be/CS9TpDgRMl4

Go to 1:15 One minute, fifteen seconds into the video.
It really is remarkable.

Just judging by that coyote’s attitude and his eyes, I’d be worried if I had to play him in a game of chess for pistol rights.

And to Mark:

Mark, we both know you don’t need anything from me. If I had half your knowledge and experience I would know ten times more than what I know now. I’m not trying to help you and others like you, because I can’t. I’m trying to help those few I can.

I’m not saying all your dogs will survive a snare because they are chain broke. I’m saying if by some chance they survive, it will be because they are chain broke.

Your dogs are combination bred.

And now that I am a grumpy old man and all my filters are failing you all can look at each other and nod knowingly and call the local nursing homes for availability:

Your dogs are combination bred.

for myself, I have trouble with anything that reminds me of a bear dog. Bear dogs have destroyed more good bobcat races than I care to try and count. I never wanted to buy ANYTHING so bad as I wanted to buy people’s bear dogs so that I could make sure they never wrecked another bobcat hunt again. Folks where bobcats climb easily might not be able to relate to this.

Yours might be the only I have ever seen that could excel at bear and also excel at bobcat. They are as effective at treeing those bobcat as anything I have seen. But they still remind me of bear dogs. Not the way I remember them, but your description of their behaviors on here. If I was breeding dogs, I doubt my breeding would work for bear at all.

Maybe none of your dogs could survive a snare. But there are good bobcat dogs that can.

Now you can nod knowingly and make arrangements for the nursing home.

If 100 pups get chain broke through the years because of this, and they all get in snares, and 99 of them die, but one of them lives because it had the genetics and only needed the training, then I will only have to cry for 99. It will be worth the time it took to write all this.

No problem on editing my post if it helps you and other folks understand what I’m trying to say.

As far as common blood in Glade Creek dogs and Rachel I’m not sure. Maybe i could do some research on that.

I hunt the New River Gorge area a lot. This is some of the roughest country in my area. My dogs have treed several Bobcats in the New River Gorge area and alot of them bobcats take to the cliffs. I have a pair of dogs that will double team on these cliffs and hold a bobcat as the cat goes up the cliff face. One dog at top of cliff one dog at bottom this has happened 3 times its always the same dog at top of cliff and always same dog at bottom.
I have never harvested any these bobcats, i call the dog off the top of the cliff and watch the bobcat escape. Its quite amazing!
I hope you can make sense of my poor writing skills.

GCLeps wrote:
As far as common blood in Glade Creek dogs and Rachel I’m not sure. Maybe i could do some research on that. ...
I hope you can make sense of my poor writing skills.

You are a good writer, I wish you would write a whole lot more. That was an amazing picture you painted.

Rachel was out of Wicks Camo Jug and Shultz Sparkling Susie. I was thinking you had made a cross into some of that blood maybe? I cant remember if I am spelling her mother’s name correctly. I actually knew about the litter before they were born so I was able to pick out the first three females . Rachel was the only Black and Tan colored.

David, i havent ran a bear since 1993 nor have my dogs. My biggest problem i have with the dogs i am hunting and breeding now is keeping the locate and tree in them for where i hunt,and we both know where the lack of that comes from. You must have my hunting style and dogs confused with someone else.

Recommendation: skip this post and the next.

They are messed up and I can’t seem to fix them. Quotation blocks are wrong etc.

mark wrote:You must have my hunting style and dogs confused with someone else.

It is rare for me to make a post that makes sense to me if I go back and read it. So if I have time, I try to change it until it does.
And sometimes I go through processes of deduction in my mind that could not possibly be followed by reading the posts because I don’t write out every turn of thought. My posts are already too long, and hopefully people can just skip over them.

In the first post I said this:

david wrote:...Some hounds never quit lunging. I don’t like that type of dog, and he would have to be amazing in other ways for me to keep him[\quote]

And in my mind I am thinking of dogs I have owned who probably would have killed themselves in a snare because they had a habit of lunging and smacking the end of the chain. Or, like you said, hitting the chain every time they saw something or heard something or smelled something or imagined something like a barn cat or a space alien. When they were not at rest or eating, it seemed they were lunging and jerking their neck. Even if they would make a bear hunter happy, they were making me unhappy just watching them. It looks idiotic to me. Even if it’s not, it looks idiotic to me. When I look down a string of dogs, I really don’t want my first thought to be “idiots”. That is just not fun for me. I want to feel proud of my dogs when I look at them.

mark wrote: I personally dont see a very game driven dog get in a snare and sit in one place when it starts tighten up and listen to the rest of the dogs scream away. Thats just my opinion after replacing a lot of S hooks and swivels and snaps in my life. I think there are a lot of good things that come with a dog being chain broke but i wouldnt put a lot of faith in it keeping a dog alive in a snare

Dogs I have owned that seemed to be what you are calling game driven, and that you are saying almost certainly could not survive a snare, were dogs I had that proved themselves as desirable bear dogs. Bear hunters kept offering ridiculous amounts of money for them.
Like $1000 for a seven month old puppy, which would be $2,390.00 in today’s dollar value. And four times that for a four year old dog.

The dogs I owned that were my favorite bobcat dogs did not fit that description. I think all of them would have had a good chance of surviving a snare. My favorite one never pulled on her chain. She never barked on her chain. She sat and watched everything like the coyote in that video. It would be hard for me to imagine her ever getting killed by the average snare set.

Yes, I think it would have got tight. But I don’t think it would have killed her. There are some things we just can’t possibly know the outcome of until it happens. We can only guess according to whatever similar experience we may have had. But it would be hard for me to imagine her killing herself in a snare.

I was pretty sure you had some dogs from a breeder whose dogs also go to bear hunters.

So was reading what you were saying trying to make it fit my best cat dogs, and it doesn’t. It could fit my best bear dogs. So that caused me to think you must be talking about the dogs you have that are of the breeding that is also used by bear hunters. If you don’t have any dogs that are of a breeding that is also used by bear hunters, then there is no possible way for what I said to make sense. It doesn’t.

And just in case, I wish I could erase it. But I try not to do that if there is a response to the post. Because then the response doesn’t make sense to someone reading it.

Sorry Mark. I know I can be hard to follow, and often say things I wish I hadn’t said. I could stop all that by not saying anything. And that would probably be really wise. But it has been so quiet here on BGH in recent months, I thought I would try and get some discussion going. And, hopefully something that might help some one some how. I was happy to see you come out of hibernation.

I think your dogs are as good as any, from what little I have experienced. And especially in terms of getting a man in under a bobcat that you could stand there and take pictures of. And when I try to think of dogs that might possibly work for bobcat anywhere, yours are some of the few that I think of and ponder in that regard. If you ever get a lot of time and money and think you would enjoy it, Maybe you could be the first to take your dogs to all the major bobcat regions and test them out. It would be fascinating to say the least.

Yes you read that right. Edited 16 times and I still can’t make sense of it, or fix the technical problems.

This too shall pass.

Here is my opinion for whats it worth. A lot of factors are brought to play when a dog is neck snared, the disposition of the dog[ if it fights a snare or not], if a dog has been chain broke, if it is a locking snare, if the snare is on a log and whats going on around the dog at the time it is snared. At one time I trap and snare broke my hounds for their safety. I have used snares around my sheep and goat pastures in the past for coyote control and have snared dogs some that were never been chained from around the neighborhood and never killed a dog. I am sure a dog can be killed by a snare but have never seen it happen. I have heard that it can.That said I would be surprised if anyone on has spent as much time in the woods hunting dogs or trapping as I have in the past. How many dogs have you seen killed by cars which is worst. Dewey

To my knowledge have never had one of my dogs caught in a snare. Have had a few caught in # 3 steel traps & seen dogs owned by others caught in traps. Some dogs will eat u up, only way to get them out was to throw a coat over the mouth area, others were released by a little talking to settle them down. One of the best females I own that knew how to run a bobcat, stayed a couple days before I located her. Had been within 50 yards of her, called her & she did not let out a bark. Lucky, ran into the trapper on day three, took me to the trap. Took a real effort from both to release her, foot was really swollen, feared the worst, however with TLC she completely over came & treed more bobcats. That trap was the cast iron jaw type used be the government hunters.
Chain breaking sure will not hurt should a dog get in a snare, also can be a help other places. I know a local rancher who hates coyotes that will not allow a snare on his place, he is well aware snares value as predator control. But, says he has seen to many deer dead in snares, plus he owns several cow dogs. He loved it when I trapped coyotes on his place, said I caught more yotes than anyone who had trapped for him. My success had more to do with the fact I checked those traps every 48 hrs, set one trap for yotes and three more for the cows to throw. than trapping skills & I told him so. He ran 300 head of breeding cows,about 30 bulls plus all the calves on 2500 acres, half of that was brush & timber. Al

Had an uncle in North Mississippi that trapped most of his life. He carried a homemade neck penner to free dogs from his traps. One day he walked up on a big pointer bird dog caught in one of his steel traps. The dog appeared to be under no pain or stress just layin there wagging his tail with a look on his face saying , I’m glad to see you. Just like people on any other job, he though the dog was safe to handle and didn’t want to go get his penner. When he bent over the dog lunged and bit him in the face and neck before he knew what happened. Nearly killed him, stayed in hospital two weeks. Be careful when messing with an animal of any kind even if you raised it. Never mess with a sleeping dog, let him know you are there.

Sorry, I was grumpy..

Some dogs are going to die either way. And putting dogs on a chain to help them survive this isn’t going to save every dog. But it will save some. Even if it just saves one. Old timer taught me that and I always listened. I credit it with saving one of my good dogs one time. Was roading them along and he got caught it one. I’ve often wondered what would have happened if it had been in the middle of a race though?