BigGameHoundsmen.com

Thanks Mike and papa, and it's always here a guy talk logic and horse sense when explaining what is what..........

I took five of my mutts out this morning and Griz and Choco bumped on a bitch lion. I had left Ike home because he has an infection. That track was in the posered dirt and right outside my window, but it didn't start very well. However, they did get down the track about three miles before I caught them and called them off. They were just going through a gate with posted signs all over it and the old man told them that was enough. It seems our state legislature has taken care of the landowners and given them plenty of rights but us hounddoggers sure don't have many..........

I hadn't had those hounds down a track in three weeks and it sure would have been fun to let them finish that little bitch lion, oh well life goes on........

It began to rain after I pulled those hounds and I stopped by LCK's bear camp and chewed the fat for two or three hours and shared a couple pots of coffee with them. They were looking kinda sad all socked in with the rain coming down--darn I hate that! That clay in this country makes it nearly impossible to stay on the road until it dries a bit.....I wish them luck!

ike

I have had dogs that have super drive that are meduim nosed and i have known other peolpe who have had super driven meduim nosed dogs. I agree with Mike that
it is a combination.

I think it takes 3 things to be a true coldnosed dog 1) the bred in ability 2) the drive/desire 3) exposeure/ learned. I believe that a dog has to learn how to cold trail and thats why it take a dog ussual until there are 3-4 to real become a cold trailer. Ive seen 1-2 year old that can rig and catch bear and catch lion in the snow or when tracks are good but I never seen one that can really grind out a hard track in the dirt. If you take a dog that has the bred in ability and the drive then hunt him on rigged bears his whole life he will never learn to cold trail because he never has had to do it. The dog was never challanged to have to learn to cold trail. The old saying your only as good as your competion!

I have seen dogs that could really cold trail but didnt have prey drive. A buddy of mine owned a dog named Famous. Famous was a mixed bred big block headed hound black and tan in color. Famous was a cold trailing specailist he lived to trail, he could careless if he ever caught anything but he would work a hard lion track until he would play out. Famous had super drive to hunt but not to catch his prey. Famous would work out a bad track until the other dogs could smell it and they would take it away and tre it. We caught quite a few lions that would have never been caught if it wasnt for Famous. Then Ol' famous would finally make it to the tree or bluff, we would beat him sometimes

Interesting Big Mike I have seen this as well and I think I would have called this dogs Almost Famous. Yes he did participate in the hunt and he did make up for some of the shortcoming of the pack but wouldn't it have been something if he could have done what he did and also have the over-drive to put all the pieces together and never let you beat him to a tree. Don't get me wrong I am not knocking this I am just pie in the sky dreaming.
Have I seen dogs that were filthy cold nosed, that could grub a bad track for hours that others could not smell, and keep it moving to a better spot, and then pick up the pace and lead the rest thru the bad country at a neckbreaking speed, and then drive to the catch or tree and locate and stay hooked till the cows came home?

Yes I have and once you do you have this little hollow feeling inside when you know you have to mix and match a pack together to put this all together becasue those dogs that can do it all (at a high level) are rare indeed. But then again that is just one of the things that keeps us starting out that new super star and not just waiting around for old Red and Fred to die before we make a plan.

Big Mike wrote:I think it takes 3 things to be a true coldnosed dog 1) the bred in ability 2) the drive/desire 3) exposeure/ learned. I believe that a dog has to learn how to cold trail and thats why it take a dog ussual until there are 3-4 to real become a cold trailer.

Still alot of good stuff coming out of this post huh Leonard?

Those are three pretty good points that you have highlighted there Big Mike, and I'll say each of them makes a lot of since and probably do contribute to the end result. But most of all I agree with the comment about a hound having to learn to cold trail. If a dog runs hot bear tracks off the rig on jumped bear, or if that dog is about always hunted on fresh, overnight snow, it may well never learn to dig down and really move a cold trail unless it's in it's nature. And it may well be that a hot nosed hound doesn't have the bred in ability to learn to cold trail, just don't know....

I gave an example some time back of two litter mate hounds that were raised quit differently--my blue Ryan dog and his blue brother Jed. I spend alot of time walking down cold tracks with him, his sister and my LionHeart dog when Ryan was in his second year of hunting. He would put his nose down in the track, work it a ways and then cast off as if to say, "I don't like this chit, it's too much work." But he did eventually lock on to those type of tracks and would run a cold track as well as any hound I've ever hunted behind.

His litter mate brother Jed was left loose to run anything and everything from rabbits to chickens to coon or bobcat, even deer or whatever he could find until he was over a year old. That dog could move a cold track as well as any, but he was as trashy as any as well.........

So in my opinion, there are probably lots of ways to get a hound there but the handler has to put those dogs in those situations and see that they develop the skills they need to do the job.....

ike

I had a black dog his name was Jack. Now then Jack is still pretty well known around thes parts and he has been gone nearly 20 years now I guess. Well old Jack was a talented as far as hounds go. He had a better than average nosem he had more bottom than any hound you can imagine I mean you couldn't wear this dog out. He had feet of iron and he never was sick a day in his lide. I had a guy shoot him in the chest with a 22 one night off a tree when he got a coon on private land. Jack crawled off into a tule swamp and late the next morning he came out to me and he was a little feeble but I took him to the vet and he took the bullet out, and I still have it, and he recovered and ran a bear a week later. Tough dog.\! Big Bawl mouth and 100 bark a minute locating tree dog. He could catch a bear fast, run a coyote and flip him, and snow lions were like nothing to this dog. He hated one thing and that was cold trailing on the dirt. Yep , he didn't like it. Oh he had the nose for it, and I walked him down so many lion tracks and made him work them he would do it, and you would think he was a top dog son of a gun. I mean I could point of my horse. Jack! you son of bee get over here and look for that track! He would trot over there looking at me as if to say Oh crap another lion track this is going to be a boring day. Well he would go to work and make ground and occasionaly the gods would smile on us and we would catch a lion. I don't know how to spell fortay but this was not his fortay he was not geared to bore down and cold trail bare ground lions but he would do it becasue I made him do it.

Now then I had a little black female named Belle. Well she wsn't really little just chunky and low slung and I got her from Buddy Hutchings in Utah and she was out of his Oakie dog. Well now this little dog was born to cold trail lions and she loved it. I mean when the cold trailing started she would wag that little tail and go to work and I mean you could see she was in her element. I mean old Black Jack would be gritting his teeth and pounding the ground and she was having the time of her life. Well they both could do it, but she put out a lot more in the tough spots and then she would burn old Black Hearted Jack's A$$ when they jumped and be bouncing around that tree when I got there and looking at me as if to say. I beat him here! Ha! Ha!

Different strokes I guess but she couldn't get a sniff if it was a jumped bear old Jack loved that game.

Yes Mike, I think we both have had and seen dogs that favored a running bear over a cold track put down by a lion. And odds are a good hunter and handler can get either of those dogs to do the job that he wants them to do, but truth be known if those dogs were left in their nature or to the species of their choice they would truely be in their element...........

There was a time when my Blue Ryan dog opened on the rig it was time to catch a bear if I dropped the tailgate and turned him loose. That was probably his choice of species and he was truly in his element with a jumped or bayed bear, but like your black dog he learned and could do the other as well..........

Some dogs loved to cold trail and push a track as well or better than they like the catch, while others like the jump most of all......

ike

Almost Famous !! I like that Mike. It would be nice had he had it all but what he had would have been good enough for me to keep him if I had owned him. Famous's sister produced pups that were the best lion hounds I ever hunted with ( to bad I didnt own them). They were the do it all dogs we all dream of. I bred one of my bitches to him, those pups are turning 3 now and really making a nice dogs. 5 out of 8 pups turned out. All of them are more drivin to catch game than the sire. 2 of them show that they are going to be the do it all kind of dogs. Lucky for me I kept one of those 2!!

I definitely agree with the training element in making a cold nose dog. My first cold nose dog was 3 yrs old before he ever went to the woods. I trained him on caged critters and drags in the southern Az desert in the summer time. Not because I knew anything about training a cold nosed dog, it just happened to be summer time when I started him. After that first year, he could move a track after the rest of the dogs were back in the box. I don't think he was naturally that much better, it was just the way he learned the game. Of course he never wanted to leave a track of any kind; lots of drive in that dog.