BigGameHoundsmen.com

GOOD POST, it takes years to learn to read your dogs but when you do, hunting becomes a lots easier and a lot less trash. If you know when a young dog is messing with trash and scold them you will have very little trash problems but that won't make them broke. I foot hunted behind my dogs for years and think learned a lot about the dogs by watching them. Getting to old to do as much as that but it is sure is a good way to train young dogs. The dogs will tell you all if you can see it or hear it in their voice. One of the best things I learned from Roland when I was no more than a teenager trying to impress him with my dog was one day walk hunting my young dogs were getting flighty on a track, I began to hiss them to take it, Roland made the comment that ' IF YOU HISS THEM ENOUGH YOU CAN GET THEM TO TAKE THAT" I looked at his old dogs and they were all beside him looking big eyed. I sure got a lot less bobcat races as soon as I got them off coyotes. Reading your dogs and learning from an old timer sure saves a young guy a lot of time. There is a lot of good tips on here if you can see from the BS. For you young guys there was no place like this to learn from 50 years ago. Dewey

Thanks for taking over Dewey. LOL I just wrote my last post (casting) then you and Tim can rap it up from the Boy's of the West coast. And I expect all to join in with your comments!!!
I hope this works. lmao

some never figure it out, hunt a lifetime and never see the sorriest in a hound, seen a lot more sorry ones than good ones !! every dogs has a different style running and trailing, figuring out which one is going to tell a lie aint hard spend a lot of hours with them and one will learn a lifetime of experience if he pays attention and just don't go to run everything that will run, a lot do hunt just to run anything, I despise a trashy hound and will not keep one if it starts being trashy, I believe trashiness is bred into them some love to mess with all the wrong stuff , and will sneak off from you and mess with it, I can tell when one is doing this by the way they hunt, wont come up to the front of the truck, hangs around the back and when you aint watching will sneak away from you and go mess with it a little, ive had some never mess with trash, and had some that loved trash being able to distinguish between the to aint real hard, just keep on hunting and pay attention to your hounds that are broke and you will always know ! I always trust my broke dogs

Southern Fox, enjoy reading your post. Do not want to argue with you, there are on doubt some breeds that have trash running bred in them. However, have experienced getting a few young hounds from others who told me trash running was in the blood and would be hard to break off trash. Found by starting with clean hounds a very high percentage was very easy to turn those into hounds that were a pleasure to hunt giving little to no problems on trash. Leading me to believe most breeds are very trainable if started in the correct company.
There has been some good tips on reading hounds giving on this thread, however I will say about the time I have though had it all figured out on what the hounds were running, something has happened to show me,( in my best years ) better always have eyes open & watch for the unexpected. Al

Easiest hound I ever hunted with to read was a hound that belonged to a cousin, think the hounds name was Bill but not sure right now (brain cell thing). Bill wouldn't run anything but a cat, he would start acting gamey and when he left the road all you had to do was run up there and turn him around because he left the road back tracking EVERY time. After he was turned around the cat was in trouble more times than not. He could really run one. Never figured that one out because he rarely messed up after turning him around at the strike. As good as he could trail and run a cat I'm sure he knew which way it was going, if he didn't it would have at least been a 50/50 thing going the wrong way. Young guys need to realize that none of them are perfect. And when hunting hounds in front of the truck pay attention to every thing they are doing, when you are riding with an older or more experienced hunter, he may be talking, joking and BSing, you may not realize it but he is also watching everything the hounds are doing. That's what you have to do to read them in the road with your eyes. Reading with your ears is a lot harder to explain, I'll have to figger on that a while but I am as sure about some things that I hear as I am of what I see.

wonder how many will say there prize hound will back up a little ? seen a lot back a track and got one or to that will do it now want back a fox but will a cat, a little bit , seems like the colder the track is the more they will, I can usually tell by the way there mouths change, they want draw it out , but will usually turn around pretty quick, and straighten it out,