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i have hunted with some well none cat hunters and have seen some good dog work . finney clay and dewey walton are 2 of them . one thing i noticed in there similarities are how far there pack looks for a cat . there dogs were going 500 plus yards at a run looking for the cat . not one dog but all the dogs . not following eachother like a bunch of idiots but spred out covering the ground. my dogs hunt out pretty far but im not sure they get out as far as deweys or timm pittmans on starting a track . when i was with the clays the dogs made a lose next to the road and there were dogs going up and down the road over 400 hundred yards looking 4 the cat . i geuss my question is do u think this is a learned behavior from the other dogs or do u think it is bred into them . i have my thoughts on this but i want to here yours.

Bred in & I/ve owned a few like that & liked them. However, it can make them a hero or a zero. By that I mean a close track dog with a lot of nose can sometimes make them look bad. My old skinner dog was like that when he was young I love to see him hussle so hard, but sometimes a close track dog would find the track & he would have to hussle back. I still love to see dogs hussle & only in my later years did I come to appreicate those old close dogs that had the experience ,nose & smarts needed to catch some cats. And the old cody female (grandmother to Dewey,s Pepper female ) one of those. So if Dewey bred pepper to one of those hustlers, could be some dandys. And if the pups get the locating & tree genes from cody, there could be the answer for anyone looking for accurate tree dogs. Cody never got many blank trees & was a up close steady tree dog. I repeat I DID NOT BREED OR TRAIN CODY i BOUGHT HER. And i do know there was some very good dogs on Peppers dad side of her lineage. Thanks Al

jc, I would have to believe this is the way the hunter wants them to cast. Alot of dogs will hunt out at great distances but have been taught to cast closer by the hunter it is just the trainers style and it works for them. I am not a dry ground hunter but if I were I would have mine taught to cast out at distances like you are talking as the further they cast the more apt to find a track. jmo Andy

That is the reason you call it a pack of catdogs. It is like a football team. You dont want all quarterbacks. How many games do you think a team full of Joe Montanas would of won? Somebody has got to do different things. Same with a pack of catdogs and yes hunting is bred into them. most walker fox hounds are bred to cast out and go hunting. Often times a cat will squat so you dont want all your hounds casting out or they will be left the cat back behind them.But a cat will hit a road like a red fox sometimes and you need a dog that will reach out and find him. but I dont want a whole pack like that. I dont know what Mr. Clay would say about this but this is my opinion. I caught cats with halfwalker,halfbeagles before I started hunting withfoxhounds. The beaglecross did great on squating cats but when he hit a road like a redfox I could never get back under him. My thoughts only. Good hunting Robert

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I also believe the breed of dog plays a big part in how dogs cast, But I also believe there is way more to it than just that. When I hear the term. Cat minded dogs. I think of dogs hunted some thing like what J.C. described above. There is no place for a trashy dog in a pack like this. The hunter trusts his dogs and know's them extremely well , the dogs also have confidence in their hunter and each other. Without this trust, A hunter would find himself un-nerved and calling his dogs back. Over time the dogs would learn to only cast so far. Trained that way, unknowingly by the hunter. Thank you. John.

JC, your question is “i geuss my question is do u think this is a learned behavior from the other dogs or do u think it is bred into them”.

The answer for Dad’s Hounds is a little of the former and a whole lot of the latter!

In a litter of these Hounds they will almost always have Pups with either the SWINGING – Cunning Running Style; or the TRAILING – Close track running Style.

Now all of the Hounds no matter the Style will reach out in looking for where the Cat has gone….no going back and telling us where he has been is tolerated. Also when a loose is made not a Hound will bark until one has the Track.

So much for the Bred into part, now JC, you know that Dad has given Hounds to a few very Good Hunters for their use. One of these is Stxcathunter hear on BGH.

Where he hunts the Environment is different requiring different skills than the hounds who hunt East of him in the Piney Woods from East Texas to the Atlantic. While his Hounds too keep their mouths shut when a Cat squats, ducks or any other of the many things it will do to cause a loose, they tend to look closer for the Cat and not REACH as far as ours, Glen’s or Mr. Harold’s will. This they have LEARNED either from the other Hounds which they are hunted with or from EXPERIENCE.

The thing that Dad has learned from the many years of Hunting Bobcats and Breeding Hounds is that #1. in selecting Traits to Breed for is BRAINS. Then these Hounds will have the SMARTS to ADJUST and ADAPT to the circumstances in which they are Hunted.

Hope this makes some sense!

CJC THAT WAS A DANG GOOD POST. Would still like you to answer my question . Are you stating that your pack will never go more than 50 yds on the back end of any track. Even the situation where cat has hunted out big brush patch. Enters a frozen road walks straight down the road 1/2 mile. Hours later your pack finds that track where cat entered the road. You are saying no chance of your pack going more than 50 yards on the back end of that track, before figureing out they need to look down the road. I want dogs to shut up on a loose untill some finds the track. Problem I,ve had with dogs that are always that tight,is some have taken the track too far before opening, & can create a one dog race. I have been convinced over the years barking dogs are not as big a deterent to catching cats as some think. One late good cat hunter who used dang near silent dogs, used to tell one of his hunting bubbies, I was the reason his dogs could not catch certain cats in our shared hunting areas. Little did he know, I too had a near silent dog in that current pack, and she too could not catch a lot of those cats. He thought I was treeing & leaveing all those cats. Some of those cats I may have left sitting. Back to the tight dog getting out on the pack, in this country dog may travel very short distance to be out of ear shot. You are a much more gifted wtiter than I. Only way I kwow to communicate is by use examples. Thanks for reading Al Baldwin AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOUR DAD

Joe Montana was a QB in football!!!! I don't want position players in my pack all my dogs are expected to preform all duties that are needed to catch the desired game. I hear too many people talk about pack dog, strike dogs, tree dogs, and etc. Some dogs do things better than other things and thats fine but they dang sure better be able to do it all pretty good or they won't eat here long. It don't take large packs of dogs to catch game they just need to all carry their weight. I hunt alone alot and I can't handle more than about three at a time so they all three better be casting wide and hunting a track and pushin it.

Good post JC. It has brought out different opinions, all work for what you want or know. Here is mine, yes it is breeding and yes it is training. All my dogs have caught there own cat as it should be but a team of well balanced and not over barking will catch a lot more cats. Cat hunting is time and distance, your dogs have to move a track fast to cover the distance to catch the cat. Out here where I hunt there is not a lot of cats with home ranges 10 to 12 square miles. I may only hit or see in the snow 1 to 4 tracks in a day some being 10 or more hours old. With the right conditions I want my dogs to catch them all. They have to cover a lot of ground fast to get this done. Here catching large numbers of cats is done only the ability of the pack to cover that ground fast. If your dogs all open clean on a track they will leap it through the country. I caught a 31# the other day, the dogs made a big circle with on that night old track getting 2 1\2 miles from me in rough country before coming back and treeing within 400 hundred yards from where I started it, the jump last about 100 yards. They probably trailed that cat 8 to 10 miles. It takes dogs that can work a cold track to do that. My idea of a team of dogs are cold trailing dogs that hammer a track but these dogs are sticky and dogs that drift a track fast. If you have the brains in your dogs the sticky ones will move with the faster track dogs, the faster dogs will learn to cold trail from the hammering dogs. So what you end up with is a pack that can frog leap a cold track through the country. All dogs have to honor each other and none can be barking when they do not have a clean track out a head. A true drifting dog to me is one that will look for that track when they have a dead spot where there is no scent for a long ways, such as a windy ridge top or snow drip or maybe a gravel road. Other wise I want all the dogs to be right on that track. To many dogs out looking for that track can cause you more trouble than you gain. I feel that my hunting out here or in the desert a large part of catching is one starting the track then being able to move that track fast enough to catch up to it. If your dogs can do that the jump is the least important part. I get very few jumps over 10 to 20 minutes. That varies with areas, but if you are getting long jumps your dogs are over running the track or not pushing them fast enough. I have two areas that I use for training dogs that I don't kill them there. I have treed the same cat 8 to 10 times. The cats there just get easier to tree the more they are ran just the opposite to what some think. The cats that are ran and get harder to tree are ran with dogs that do not have the go to catch them, they learn by hitting the roads, going through bluff, or doubling back that they can get away. These cats are trained to be tough by dogs that are lacking on there ability to catch them. AL as you mention Pepper and her back ground and crossing her with a fast track moving dog it should or could be a great combination, I have 8 pups out of her that is that is what my intentions are, we will see how it works. Dewey

Good luck again with those pups . If my health situation was more stable would love to have one of them. I have never hunted with Dewey know from talking to him and others Dewey is a sleep in the pickup type hunter and catching the cat is what matters to him & am sure he loves to work the dogs. Every post he writes I try to read very careful, we may not like exactually the same type dogs, but certainley respect all his opinion, & he is correct the tighter mouthed dogs do have an easier time catching cats, but I prefer more open mouth dogs & have seen enough to know they can catch just have to work harder & keep moving the track. Dewey never been able to determine how some of these coast cats get so hard to catch, but do know some will not tree & must be caught on the ground. Have been told by hunters that have hunted in your home area that on average these coast cats are much harder to tree. I think some of the smart cats just raise smart ones. Robin Powell told me when Doug Brooks first came to the coast to cat hunt with him, he could not believe how hard these cat were to tree. Dave Fuller has told me numerous times no comparsion to catching cats there & on the coast. Guess that is the reason I though a good balanced hound that caught some tough cat in this area should be able to catch some cat in most area, if given time to adjust. Tree & leaving does not make cats harder to catch in my opinion. However treeing, shakeing out & cat escapeing by the smallest margain certainley might. One hunter I hunted some with used to call that type cat immortal, he would say that is an immotal lets call them off & find one we can run. No mistake, he had a very good pacK. And when allowed to continue caught caught thier share. JMO Written On a day when I have a clear head. Thanks for reading Al Baldwin