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fox hunter,

This is just my opinion but I absolutely believe 100% that most people put zero thought into making sure their dogs can kill a bob on the ground and I think that is one of the most important traits a hunting dog should have. Dogs that can kill things have confidence and confidence in my opinion is of the ultimate importance. Dogs that want to catch and want to kill, do so and them are the kind I "strive" to feed. Its really too bad that them kind are almost extinct though anymore at least from what I have seen. By the way, I am not a bobcat hunter, I just want to learn from those of you that do catch them.

David,

I believe a dog should be able to be put down by himself and catch a bobcat or tree it before it should ever be called a bobcat dog. I have coyote hunted quite a bit with running dogs and there aint very many of them that catch catch and hold a coyote by themselves CONSISTENTLY but I have hunted owned one that could and thats all I care about now cause I know they are out there.

I have to agree with you a guy has to go though alot of dogs and cull ruthlessly to have what i expect out of a dog .When it comes to a dog killing small game I like a dog that runs to catch to many dogs are happey to follow game around all day because they do not have the heart or drive to run to kill.If your looking for coyote dogs that have that kind of grit contact Gregg Hough in Higginsville Mo I have hunted with him and his dogs have a few in my bear pack. Gregg has dogs that will go into a tube and drag a yote out one on one. He told me that if a dog would not fight one on one it was not worth his feed

Thats pretty cool to hear that about that fella. I didnt know there were many of them type around when it comes to coyote dogs.

Good topic ya started Dan and some good reading guys,
Hey fox hunter, I think I know you and after ya mentioned your friend in Mo. with the yote dogs I'm just about sure, did you move up that way 1-2 years ago? If so send me a pm with your ph.# and I'll try to call you. Mike

Dan Edwards wrote:fox hunter,

This is just my opinion but I absolutely believe 100% that most people put zero thought into making sure their dogs can kill a bob on the ground and I think that is one of the most important traits a hunting dog should have.

David,
I believe a dog should be able to be put down by himself and catch a bobcat or tree it before it should ever be called a bobcat dog.

Bait.

I recognized the first question at the head of this thread as bait because things had gotten too quiet in the cat fish pond. Then I watched myself take the bait against my own will. Now I recognize this response to me as more bait, and I am watching myself take the bait against my own will. Amazing. So here we go. I cant believe I got pulled into this again. You are truly a master baiter Dan.

I wish defining a bobcat dog was as simple for me as it is for you.

It is not. Virtually every different geographical area needs their own customized bobcat dog. And beyond that, there are several different reasons for hunting bobcats, and each reason needs its own customized bobcat dog. From what I have seen with my own eyes, there is only one geographical region that has been doing this long enough and with enough people involved to have actually developed a bobcat dog for that region: A dog that can do everything they need them to do from cold trail to tree. A good one is still hard to find, but they can be found by any one with persistence. There are regions where they have been tried and not found suitable. So there you have an example of specific regional needs.

As far as an example of specific personal reasons for hunting bobcats: I don’t want my dogs to kill bobcats. I want them to bay them and hold them in one place until I can get there. There have been momentss in the woods when someone in the air would have thought I was having a life threatening seizure. That is because I am throwing a fit realizing the cat is about to be caught and I have a killer dog on the ground. If I have a kill dog, I will try to send him with young dogs that are unlikely to make a catch. I have never had a kill dog that is also the dog forcing the cat to stop, but if I did I wouldn’t put him on the ground unless it was on a big tom and I want to collect his hide or remove him from my “bobcat farm” because he does not play nice with the kids. These kill dogs are worse than useless if I am guiding another hunter.

If I lived where bobcats were plentiful, I would probably feel differently. And if you lived where it might take you two days of hunting to find a workable coyote track to put your dogs on, you might understand what I am talking about. Dead bobcats don’t lay tracks for my dogs, and dead female bobcats don’t have babies for my dogs to eventually run. And dead and stretched bobcats are not very much fun for a paying client to shoot at. Dogs dont bark very long at a dead cat and many will not stay with it, except maybe Belle, and if you are very far behind, you might never find the cat. And if you are lucky enough to find it, Belle, with her taste for bobcat meat has already wrecked the hide.

So already you and I have a vastly different definition of a bobcat dog.

Next, I would have to ask of your definition: How many bobcat tracks does a dog need to cold trail and catch the bobcat before you allow it to be called a bobcat dog? One bobcat? Five bobcats? Fifty? And what percentage of tracks put down on does the dog need to catch the cat? 100%? Then there are no bobcat dogs in the world that I know of.
80%? Then there is only one bobcat dog I have ever raised and trained. 50%, 30%, 10%?

And what kind of conditions need to exist for the dog that catches how ever many the title requires? Snow? Desert dry? Moist but no snow?

Because, I will tell you that when the snow in Wisconsin is soft and chest deep on the dogs, with optimum humidity and barometric preasure, and the swamps are frozen solid, you have about a million bobcat dogs in Wisconsin. Under those conditions, every coon dog and bear dog and coyote dog in Wisconsin can catch a bobcat. But according to your definition they all deserve the title “bobcat dog”.

Then there are the dogs who eat sleep and breath bobcats. It is all they think about, it is the only thing they run, and they run three to five days a week. Some of them in the woods 200 days a year or more. Some of them are amazing cold trailers, they work out looses that would have ended the race completely if they had not been present. They work and work day after day after day, and when some of the sprinters have broken down and have to be laid up, these dogs are still working day after day. They are responsible for countless cats that would never have been caught with out them. They take colder tracks than any other dog in the pack, they never break from the track, they never give the cat a break, and they stay with it until the cat is jumped and then until every loss has been worked out and the cat is caught. Then while all the sprinters are limping back to the truck with the hunters and the bobcat, these dogs break off to the right or off to the left and start another bobcat track, and when that one is finished, they will be ready for another. But, by themselves alone they do not have the hyper turbo overdrive gear needed to stop a bobcat on the ground. By your definition, the sorry coon dog who catches a bobcat in the deep snow is a bobcat dog, and the dog I just described is not.

Bobcat hunting is not a simple thing. That is why, in my opinion, defining a bobcat dog is not a simple thing.

You know I am completely serious when I say I agree with almost everything you ever say about dogs Dan. ALMOST everything.

Sometimes I dont even agree with myself, David. Ziiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnggggggggggggg!\

Hook is set son, man you are a whopper. Lose some weight would ya. LOL!

You better read what I mean not what I type from now on, David.

Mr. Dan, where do you hunt?

Mr. David, as to you last post "Right ON"!!!!!

As to the fellow in TX who has never seen a complete Cat Hound, you should have been around to see Mr. Joe Rufus Lyne's Hounds. He always kept a great pack, but he had trained more "Complete" Cat Hounds than any S. TX Cat hunter. I am told Danny Bramen (sp) from around Victoria, TX probably has one!

As to the fellow who talked about all the hounds he has to go thru to make a Cat Hound, he aught to look up Al Lutrel (sp) in Oregon, Or the MT "Copper" something treeing walker breeder or one of the other dedicated Bobcat Hunters who have been breeding Bobcat Hounds for 30, 40, or 50 years. He might discover that those Gentlemen produce litters where all pups make Cat Hounds! Some better than others but all worth feeding!

As to Hipshooter, You too are "Right ON". Dad has always said in our part of the world (the Southern US) a Cat Pack needs to be like a football team! You need a Quarterback (Strike Dog), Linemen (Steady Track Runners) Running Backs (Good Jump Dogs, Hounds that are smart and know where to look to jump the Cat), and Split Ends (these are the swinging Hounds that find Ole Shorttail when he hits a road, or goes down a creek in the water. This Hound finds the Cat and tells the pack to come on. However he must be capable of holding the track till the Calvalry arrives or all he has done is break up your race).

There have been a few Hounds in all parts of the Country who have been able to do all of the above. Some were stronger in one area than others but were able to due each facet of Bobcat running well enough (including some Treeing) to qualify as a "Complete" Hound.

As to the notion that you have to have Kill dogs. That is to the Hunters taste! Mr. David is right a DEAD Cat can not run again! Unless you have recorded the Race (A great tool to evaluate your Hound work) that Cat is Done! To repeat an earlier post, we all strive to have good to great hounds and Bobcats being what they are, in our Country most do not tree. So we have to be extra careful about harvest in an area or a finite resource is gone for a while! Do you not want to breed for Hounds to finish the deal and run the game with enough pressure to terminate the Race positively?! You D%&# right we do!

As for the "Complete Cat Hound" as I have stated before and David just said so eloquently, "Geography" and "Purpose" dictates what kind of Hound is the "Perferct Bobcat Hound"!

Mr. Mike you are sooooooooooo right! Good ones don't come in Bunches like naners and grapes. But I bet it is the same with Lion, Bear, Coon, and Sissorring Hounds!!!!!!

Good Running to all!!!!!!!!!

I hope to have a good Cat Race to tell about in a day or two!

C. John Clay
Dads Dogboy

David is a good friend of mine and what I say to him and him to me is usually a bit on the light hearted side and sort of a bunch of hidden inside jokes that most wont understand. I do not bobcat hunt. I have stated that many times. I am just interested in it. I am a coyote hunter and not the kind that runs around in pickup trucks spikin fresh dogs on the critter every other mile.

Mr. Dads dogboy,

I can accept the fact that most believe a pack is better than one or two or at the most three dogs on any game. I unlike most do not believe that. I have never believed that and I never will. Each to his own sir but that is not the way that I chose to do things, no matter what I am tryin to catch and kill.

I care very little about the way the race sounds and I care very little about how many hours they kept that track going. I want it started and finished as quick as possible and they make dogs out there that can do that but because they dont have floppy ears and a squawl or bawl mouth most folks wont hunt them. I am not tryin to belittle anybodys way of goin but there are dogs and then there are dogs and I have yet to see the litter where all of the pups "made it". With whom is the question I will have to ask.

Good evening Mr Edwards i have to agree with Mr Clay there are litters out there where they all made it it does happen ive had it and still have some good luck in your search sir. Al Luttrell

I guess I should back up and say that of course I believe that there are a litter or two born every once in a while where all the pups make it but I dont think that one man had the market on them litters.

I just gotta say I love reading about bobcat hunting. I could easily get caught up in this kind of obsession.
But I don't. I'm just a lowly hare hunter who finds a number of quandaries that parallel both the bobcat hunting world and the hare hunting world and that is fascinating to me.

David wrote,

Virtually every different geographical area needs their own customized bobcat dog.

Very profound statement in my opinion. I think dogs tend to be bred in accordance to the complexities of the environment they are used in.
In the hare hunting world it appears most favor the heads up, highflying, run to catch style. And for good reason I suppose as it works in a good majority of the geographical areas and seasons that they are being run and hunted in.
It's been a trying experience for myself finding out this style or approach isn't necessarily what gets the job done where I am, however.
In spring or fall when conditions are at their very best......it's great.
Come the middle of December on......not so good.

Neck deep in cold, dry, powder snow, the only reason a hound has it's head up is to breath. There sure isnt any "running to catch" going on either.
We swim thru hoping to be able to move the track and I'm elated when we can.

It seems to me breeding for the traits that a dog with the nose power to work a track that has gone "cold" in a minute may possess, becomes a contradiction to the traits needed for fast track drifting, catch type dogs.
They appear opposites of each other in my opinion. So whats the likelyhood of getting all those abilities in one dog?

In some geographical locations where the running conditions are more moderate I think getting that great all-arounder is much more likely than in an area where the conditions and terrain tend to be at the extreme end of the spectrum.

The real catch is that it becomes rather expensive, exhaustive and disappointing taking a hound from one environment where it may shine and expecting it to perform in another to the same, almost always graciously extolled, capabilities

Outsatnding post NorWester! Alot to be said about that one. All good posts even Mr. Dads Dogboy who almost, notice I said almost got me riled. HAHA!

I have stated this before and I will keep saying it. I do not hunt bobcats cause we dont have them but if we did, I would do nothing else but hunt them and only them with and occasional deer or coyote run but not cause I was wanting it.

Yes, NorWester, your post is excellent. I think some of us who do not have experience hunting in locale and terrain much different than our own home area would likely be in for some surprises if we took our dogs to another part of the country.

briarpatch