BigGameHoundsmen.com

Hey everyone I'm going rabit hunting tomarrow with a buddy and his beagle, and I was kinda wanting to bring my walker pup he is ten months old, and I have only hunted him on coon, and will be bear huntin him. So do you think if I take him it will be hard to trash break him, I only wanna take him a couple of times, thanks everyone for the help

I take my pups with the beagles until they start looking for, and running rabbits. I think it gets them out in the brush and handling. It's also excercise for them.

I can't tell you if this will ruin your pup absolutely or not. many big game hounds have started their trailing and hunting career on non target species like rabbit and fox etc. there are some differences though usually they are very young and unable to catch these animals and there is no boss encouraging them. this was sorta brought up earlier and got me to thinking on the subject. I believe three things have more bearing on the possible damage done then anything else. 1. individual hound 2. strain or bloodline 3. success at killing off game alone.
I could be way off but in the past even when a hound was trained by knowledgeable trainers and run with straight packs there were hounds that wouldn't run the chosen game. they were sold or traded to a hunter who hunted their chosen species as culling a hound is a waste when someone else would pay/trade for that hound. the same is still done to a smaller scale in some areas today.
this has given rise to some strains with a genetic predisposition to run that type of off game. The less attention to where these strains evolved and for what, the more likely they will end up being used in a breeding program for a different game animal. The offspring would be more likely to be trashy then those hounds breed solely for one type of game from parents showing a marked ability and preference for that game.
I have heard of and on one occasion experienced a hound succeeding in killing the "wrong" species and becoming very trashy and hard or impossible to break from it.
I think the chance of a dog descending from a line of say self chosen bear dogs producing rabbit chasers is much slighter then, the offspring with perhaps some harrier or similar in its back ground. some houndsmen produce X's more frequently then they follow a pure breeding program. This practice has some benefits occasionally but is proven in one aspect. That is producing a varied litter of differing aptitudes and strength/weakness combination's. pure breeding excessively will also produce some weaknesses if taken to the opposite extreme.
Many long time breeders have experienced the "throwback" phenomenon. Not just in dogs but many different species.. the success of a breeder typically depends on their ability to match animals of similar type and quality together to produce a more standardized form of what they are searching for.
so short answer i believe it depends on the individual dog in several ways and the circumstances under which it happens.

My youngest son used to have beagles. For years my pups learned to use their nose by following those beagles around. To my knowledge, only one of those pups (out of around 50) never made anything but a rabbit dog.

At 10 months old, I would not run him on anything but what you want him to run. Other then taking him and letting him get some excercise, why take a chance. He's old enough that you would just confuse the heck out of him when you take him out the next time and shock him off of rabbits. Dogs are not rocket scientists, they're dumb. They learn the most by repetition so telling him to chase one thing one day and not the next isn't good.

Thats good advice Dean. At 10 months your hound should be only on your target species and finishing every race, be it bear, lion or bobbers.

I would pretty much have to agree with pegleg and fullcry .Particularly if you are going to do it a few times . you may regret it in the long run . You should only target what you want to hunt with your hound . Reminds me of a time we were trying to get a certain Blue dog to chase yotes .All this one wants to do is chase bear .We had a bear treed as we got to the tree the bear bailed out . Started to run down a woods road in plain sight of us .the blues commenced to chasing it again . they had not gone 50 yards and a yote walked across the woods road . The hounds stopped and stiffened up maybe 5-10 seconds they had a Mexican Stand-off with the yote . the lead hound looks back at me expecting to hear a command , I never said a word and they went right back to chasing the bear . Were they Stupid That is a tough call .To my knowledge they have never chased another yote . I am of the mind that both the hounds and the hunter know what the targeted species are . Why take a chance and try to confuse them any more

i agree with fullcry. a dog will pick up a bad habit on its own easy enough without creating one.hand a kid a video game then take it away after a couple days,and see what happens if you can get a young hound on your target species first and they have a good exsperience your halfway there.