BigGameHoundsmen.com

so are ya sayin it would be better to run some stags in a pack to protect from wolf i sure would like to get a couple staghounds to run some coyote they are all over around here and that just seems like a blast to me

You can try anything and it may work but if a pack of wolves get after your dogs, your dogs are dead and ate before you get there. Big stags would be the only thing around that I can see even thinking about holding a wolf and they are gonna get damaged in a bad bad way if they are up to the job. Single handed coyote dogs are pretty rare and they only weigh 30 pounds. Cant imagine what 150 pounds would do to a dog.

ya if some how you could breed a 150 pound stag just run a bunch of em i guess kinda a bad situation no matter how you look at it and try stuff your gonna have loses

You can breed 150 pound stags cause its been done but they aint fast enough to catch a cold let alone anything that can run at all. When you get up near that 100 pound mark you start losing alot of speed and you most definately lose your endurance and the dogs are gonna get might lazy and not run with the hounds at all.

ya understandable maybe ill just give my dogs some mase and teach em to use it ha ha ha

I have never run Wolf with hounds , but I would If I lived where they were.
I know some guys that are running in the snow when they find a single track.
I guess wolf will run like a deer or bear, not like a coyote that will circle.
And they give a lot of scent, Dogs run wide open, & don,t make much losses.
I think u need 5 to 6 hounds That know their bussiness about fighting. I don,t think one lone wolf would be different much than a walking bear.
I am sure if u run them much u would loose some hounds,
But this can,t be much different than pigs killing your dogs. Which they do from
time to time.
So running wolf is ilegal, so I guess I won,t be running any.

Here in the Western U.P. of Michigan we have more hound/wolf encounters every year. So far I've been lucky and haven't had a problem YET- but I know they're around and sooner or later we'll cross paths; a pair of wolves chased a friend's young dog within 1/4 mile of his hiuse a couple weeks ago. While thinking and researching the dog VS wolf subject I looked at Dogo Argentinos, pretty interesting. Someone already made some of the crosses I considered for a wolf runner. Check out http://www.huntingdogos.com - they don't say anything about wolves but they're hell on hogs & big cats.

red
i've hunted w/ Mike's dogos. they were for real. they might be a good choice since he uses them mostly as running catchdogs they may not break off to run their own track like some argentine lines would.

The only way to succesfully hunt our wolves will be with trail and bay type dogs, IMO. Trying to use any type of "catchy" dogs will just be a quick way to lose catch dogs, and thats if you could ever get one close enough to make a catch!
I think running wolves with stags would be far more succesful than with pits, dogos, or any of the mastiff type guardian dogs, but believe the killing of the wolf will be best left to the hunter, after they are bayed up by hounds.
There will be the exception to the rule every now and then, as there is in everything, but if the day ever comes where we can hunt them with dogs, the result will be more like bear/coyote hounds than hog dogs/stags, IMO.

Pops-On a side note. You stated to Dan "seriously if pure sighthounds were such devastating fighters there would be pit greyhounds instead of pit bulls although some whippetXbull & greyXbull did wind up in the pits and contributed to the pit breeds."
The reason greyhoundX are not used in the pit is not because of lack of killing ability, but because they are not game. Believe it or not, a pit contest is far more a display of endurance than sheer killing ability. I have seen plenty of both types of dogs do their thing, and will say the stags (greyhounds) are far more lethal killers than pit dogs, but dont have near the heart to take what they can dish out, like the game bulldog.
What lines of pit dogs are the greyhoundx and whippetx contributing to?

Take care.

Doc
in the early days of the dog pits EVERYTHING was tried. what was successful was bred from. ultimately the cross of bull & terrier breeds produced the best results w/ the most consistancy. people being what they are, successful bullXgreys were bred to. likewise a particularly succesful retriever of the 1880s was bred to. the only way of knowing which lines might have sighthoundX in the background would require the lineage be recorded back to the early 1800s probably as far back as the late 1700s.
these days the pit dog is refined enough that most don't stray too far from the breed. between world wars (& probably before) boxers were tried in the box & if you look at pics of seigers & seigerin from the period they are very similar in type to pits in 40-60# range.
i agree that the most successful means of stopping the wolves will be w/baydogs but their is no reason they can't be stretched w/ the right dogs (note the plural). yes losses will be high initially but over time a type will settle out that can do the job & live. i don't think solo kill dogs are impossible but we're probably not going to see many in our lifetime. i believe the dogo is a good choice but they have to be taught to kill rather than catch. the leoneros in argentina teach their dogos to throat cats and lines bred by leoneros might be the best choice but plenty of leoneros use dogos bred for hogs w/ great success.
i personally would try to develop extra large foxhounds (similar to the british staghound) of 26-30" probably w/ a bit of dane to thicken the hide & keep density in the bone while raising the height.
for kill dogs i'd try a variety of bull & mastiff breeds including some of the rustic livestock guards. might cross in a bit of catchweight pit & stag. i'd want dogs at least 100# at 28" & each would have to prove as a kill dog on big eastern coyotes. then they'd be worked in trios. i'd probably start them young on small game w/ big teeth so they learn to kill & avoid the fangs.

We've run many single wolves in bear season here,they hit our baits almost as much as the bear do.1 time we ended up on 3 wolves with 5 dogs ended up with 2 dead dogs and 1 tore up dog.So I would say unless your prepared to sacrifice many hounds leave them bastards alone if you can.

bearhntwi wrote:We've run many single wolves in bear season here,they hit our baits almost as much as the bear do.1 time we ended up on 3 wolves with 5 dogs ended up with 2 dead dogs and 1 tore up dog.So I would say unless your prepared to sacrifice many hounds leave them bastards alone if you can.

Yep and if they had wanted to, they could have ran down all your dogs with ease and killed everyone of them. Not tryin to be smart or funny here just tryin to be realistic. I know what it takes to catch and kill yotes as good as most. I know nothin about wolves from personal experience but I know enough to know that they are dog killers, and thats any breed. I would have to see some of these so called big macho tough guy breeds kill a coyote before I would ever believe it, let alone a wolf. I have seen some of them big shepherd type dogs and they are not gonna catch a coyote period. Secondly, I dont know if they got what it takes to even kill one. People say they do but I have to see it to believe it. I have been told by a damn good source that they cannot kill a coyote and he has seen 10x more of them than anybody esle I know. Worked around them his whole life and says that he knows for a fact that they do not kill coyotes, cant catch them first off and our fear barkers if they get turned on.

It never ceases to amaze me how history continues to repeat itself. It is almost as if succeeding generations can't take a look back, or maybe they don't want to. The dog that can kill a wolf thing is in the first place illegal in the U.S. In the second place, there is a vast difference between the southern wolf and the northern wolf as to size and fight. Some of the dead northern wolves have been weighed in at 150 pounds plus. It would take a lifetime to establish a strain that could be extremely effective on that size of a killer. The old timers used bullets and poison for a good reason.

I have been watching some of these Wolf problem threads and they have really interested me. It seems like most people who have had there dogs killed or injured by wolves say that there is no solution to it by trying to breed a stock that could stand up to them. Which is very understanable and i can see where they are coming from even though i dont have to deal with them (thank god) but others who havnt had their dogs killed (and some who have) are being optimistic and trying to come up with ideas about how to deal with these monsters, IMO pops has had some pretty good ideas. Such as, the spiked collars in the thread i think about the New Mexico wolf policy, sure its not going to stop a wolf in its tracks but it will at least protect your dog a little bit and give him a fighting chance. I have one on my dog when she's hunting coyote, and fox and coon for that matter. Also pops, I think you have something going with those crosses. I don't really know what im talking about here just a dumb kid ramblin on, but i just wanted to point out what iv noticed.
Happy hunting, Jon McMillan.

well i'm suprised no ones said it
but i guess the only animal that could affectively kill a wolf, would be a wolf..which no man could in my opinion, ever tame and teach to kill on command

so if the day ever comes. which it wont, that you can just head to the hills and take shots at whatever wolf crosses your path, every man who hates them and has half a brain will go out with his 30.06, not his pack of bear dogs and some pitbulls....
its fun to think of ways to do it but that just the reality of it to me
the days of big dog that will run down and kill wolves is long gone
like lion tracker says "The old timers used bullets and poison for a good reason."