ONE_TON wrote:So I have a question. When you're starting a young dog do the early starters that show real well and at a year old are starting to catch their own game, do they tend to make that "best dog", or is it that young dog that progresses nicely year by year and by 3 there your lead dog?
I have been told that "all" those top shelf, or "best dogs" all started early, and I have been told it’s the slower starting ones that by 3 have what it takes to make a top dog? I know there are a lot of variables to this. I know now that I have culled a young dog earlier than I should have, and also given others longer than I should.
So out of every ones "best dog" how did they start? Were they the eiarly starters, or the late bloomers?
i think the answer to the question of early starting might be different for bear, lion, coon or combination dogs that have been used for bobcat than the answer of certain straight bobcat hunters I have known of. So I have thought a lot about why that is through the years.
My best bobcat dog was a very mixed bred dog that seemed like she was going to start early, then turned off, and came back eventually.
It kind of depends on what you mean by "start" also. Started going with the other dogs? Started trailing on their own? started actively locating? Started barking treed? Started doing all that alone, and catching their own game?
My first dogs started extremely early and were doing it all, (alone on wild coon) at least by six months, and most earlier. I remember feeling so confused by folks that would call a ten or eleven month old full grown looking dog a "pup". But not very many of mine, if any, ever became what I would call a "top bobcat dog".
Some thought they were great bear dogs, and they were great coon hounds, did perfect on a lot of lions, but bobcat? No, not really.
And as I studied top bobcat hunters and top bobcat hounds, I found a lot of patience for young dogs to develop certain skills slowly.
The way I dealt with it in my own mind is that those dogs early in my life were completely instinctive hunters. They didn't need to learn and maybe even were not capable of much actual cognitive learning.
Most people agree that intelligence is important in bobcat dogs in most regions. Why? Well I think it is because there is not a breed for which bobcat hunting can possibly be 100% instinctive. The instincts of every dog I have known will not always serve them well in certain bobcat situations. When they blindly follow their instinct, it becomes a mistake at times.
I think the greatest bobcat dogs have been able to learn from their mistakes. It might even take months of making the same mistake, like not locating correctly. But eventually something clicks and they learn from their mistake; and their intelligence is able to overcome their instinct, which has failed them.
Then when that instinct tells them to do something, (or not do something else) they ignore the instinct, and do what cognitive process shows them will work better than instinct.
The earliest starting and most amazing pups in my life were the ones whose instincts were so strong, their brain could never overcome them.
If you put the same equation in human terms, our prisons have many folks whose cognitive thought processes could not overcome their instincts.
In humans, they say the critical thinking part of the brain is not fully developed till around age 24. Unfortunately a lot of us have already made major life decisions before we have that ability fully in place. I have no idea really how this might translate to a dog brain. But I have to guess that certain problem solving parts of the dog brain continue to develop. Going by the 7 to 1 ratio, a dog would be older than three before his best thinking gets done.
It is just a guess, One Ton, but my guess is that those who told you all the greatest dogs started early either; a) might have a loose definition of "started", or b) were hunting combination dogs also used for lion and/or bear, and/or coon.
So early starting or not, I think the best bobcat dogs I have known of had the ability to keep on learning from their experiences and mistakes for years; eventually predicting or expecting certain bobcat behaviors; and anticipating or responding to those behaviors by habits developed from instinct when it is appropriate, or experience and problem solving where instinct has failed them.