BigGameHoundsmen.com

This is just my opinion, but my ultimate pack is 5 dogs....3 good ones and 2 young ones...Now back to the real world ...When Im guiding , or hunting every day, I run between 10 to 15 hounds....I try to have 3 packs for the season...Nolte is right on when he said it depends how much you run your dogs...Out here , one race will knock the feet off some dogs...I had a 5 day hunt this year where we were running 2 bears a day on an average...The 4th day, I didnt have a dog that would stand up on my box for more than an hour at a time..By the end of the 5th day, my dogs looked like the Battan death march...All 13 of them ....

Just one race this year with Paws n Pads took 3 of my dogs out....Him being my good buddy and all.He called me up to his honey hole of bears in North west Utah...Come on up Coop ...Nuthin but big fat tree climbing bears in this spot..Thicker n flys ...

The boy and I head up with the fleet...At first light, the big bear strike....I turn about six dogs in and a way they went...About that time ole Paws n Pads tells me that it may be the bear they ran all day yesterday ... Well, to make a long story short , at 9 PM , I picked up all my dogs but one. ....Bear was still 10-8....So, one race 3 dogs done...If I only had 3 dogs, Id be done...On the other hand, if I had better dogs and maybe better friends, I might have not had that problem

In a perfect world, Id have 5 dogs...Hmmmm...After thinking about it, In a perfect world I would have 0 dogs ,newer truck, better house, nicer yard ,more money and happier wife ....Good luck to ya...Coop

I have two hounds, but one of mine does all the work on bears--the other is mostly a coon dog. In NY, you are not allowed to hunt bear with less than two dogs, so I turn them out together. I often hunt with friends, and I feel a lot better about my hound's safety then, as much because the friends are quicker getting to the tree than I am as because there are more dogs. I am in mountains full of bears that aren't hunted much, so they tree pretty easily. The one hound puts on all the pressure needed to hold a 400 lb bear (its the skinny little ones that run).
To be honest, I can't handle more than two dogs on the way out. [We're not allowed to kill bears in front of hounds in NY, either.] Depends how well behaved they are, but dogs that have a lot of drive can be hard to drag off the tree and get home! If you train the dogs to handle well, maybe you can handle more than me, but few people starting out can...
JMO, but if a bear's gonna fight, it will get more than one dog. Having more dogs in on the fight just increases the vet bill. That's with trained dogs. Some inexperienced dogs do stupid things that get them torn up.

For someone new into hounding, one dog that can catch is all that's needed. When I first started runnuing big game it seemed like the more dogs I ran the less I caught. One dog I had who's long dead caught tons of bear by himself. That was the only dog in the truck, so thats all I ran. He was not some great bear dog either. He was a great bobcat dog, though.

On 5-600 lb Bear that wont tree sometimes you need to put in the kitchen sink, especially in thick country.

I've seen 30 dogs on a 300 lb'er. Zero difference, but it sounded awesome.

Those big bears in my opinion are best handled with 3-6 dogs that will put some tooth into mister bear and pull all stopps when the bear get a pack mate down .. It is something that is very fullfilling when witnessed and ussualy dogs do get beat up but nothing major but the end result is one big bear either treed or stopped solid with its hind end covered .
@ dogs can do it but even with hard pressure they will more likely just push the bear at his leisurely pace . At times stopping him but mostly just encouraging him to keep going.
3 dogs seem to start making a difference and will often get more aggression out of a bear and bear will ussually make breaks till the dogs put enough of "it " on to stop or get him treed.
4-6 dogs well lots more bays and dogs start to get bolder and go to the extreme in trying to catch therefore more vet bills . more that 6 dogs that will work a bear ussually is disaster if they all are trying to get in and pressure bear as i have seen this an several occassions when one of the best dogs retreat is incumbered by a bay dog that was just a few feew off .

I watched a little video the other day of eight dogs baying on a 200 pound class boar. They did a pretty good job, as young dogs go, nippng at that bear and face barking. One dog got too close and the bear grabbed it by the head and then hung on long enough to teach that dog to stay back. I got an idea had that been a large boar, or meaner one, he would have killed that hound. Bottom line a pack of hounds can't make a bear climb, but only convince him it's a better place than being on the ground with them. In my own personal opinion, a pack of dogs that have enough age and attitude seems to help as well. But personally I like five to seven hounds on a bear and they about always climb for me......can't hardly remember the last bayup!

ike