BigGameHoundsmen.com

Theoretically speaking how many out there would consider purchasing a very expensive finished dog, or even a not so expensive finished dog, without a trial period? I, personally, would never even consider spending thousands on a dog without a trial, but was curious as to what everyone else thought.

Jim

Not me.. I have a hard time spending money buying a Puppy..

Finished dog does it all.... HA.. In my Dreams!

Who would sell a finshed dog to some idot who miss treats your dog, doesnt no what hes doing, runs out of money and says the dog is no good(Ill bet he had one hell of a season before the dog was no good.) Only trail youll get is right here. You never know what youll get back.

I would not buy a dog without a trial,even if i had seen the dog before.you never know if it will get along with your dogs or not.and some people dont want to run a dog there selling alone

Raising a pup is half the fun.

There's a bunch of firsts. First tree, first track,ect and all because YOU trained that pup from start 2 finish, theres no bigger thrill than that I say.

If you buy a finished hound (except 2 get started) I say you are missing out on the whole hounding experience.

Maybe if I was outfitting.But where I can only hunt a couple of days a week I could not see paying that kind of money.I am pretty new to hound hunting started with a walker female that was given to me.She has turned into a hell of a dog had her 5 years now.Added another walker good dog that will stay with a mean bear no quit but will not rig yet.Then got another blue dog female that is great but didn't know much about her.Found out she is one hell of a dog.So I was looking at a finished dog to get my pack going .Ended up trading(I love tading)for a 9 year old finished blue dog but she looks b&t.She is ugly but gurantee she is every bit of a dog that goes for the money they are asking on here.AnyhowI plan on using her as a rig dog this spring but the more time I have spent with the dogs the more I learn and understand that I can make my own dogs and that is whats truly rewarding for myself and my dogs.

TRACKER wrote:Raising a pup is half the fun.

There's a bunch of firsts. First tree, first track,ect and all because YOU trained that pup from start 2 finish, theres no bigger thrill than that I say.

If you buy a finished hound (except 2 get started) I say you are missing out on the whole hounding experience.

i have to agree with tracker here, it is lots more satisfying when your dog is doing what you trained it to do. i would much rather build a dog than buy a dog.

i did do it and it worked out fine. i knew the bear hunter that sold her to me.
she was old, and slow, but a straight bear dog. she didnt strike, but she started a track and stayed on track. she was semi silent on track. she was really agressive on bear, she pulled hair every chance she got.
all her faults i could work with, cuz my young dogs at the time could both strike well, and chop on track and at the tree.
i used the last few years of her career, as much as she could give me. now the young pups i had are now 5 and are decent bear dogs. plus last spring i added a young pup that just turned 1. she did well her first summer and fall on bear.
maybe some day instead of selling an old bear dog, ill just give my old dog to some youngster that needs an edge on getting into bear hunting.
i have a lot of teenagers that love to hunt bear with me. its kinda rewarding to see the look on their face when they see their first bear in a tree. theyll always remember that for the rest of their life.

Not me but at $3.50 a gal I have to save just to hunt the pot lickers i have
Matt

I raise my own from pups, thats what I enjoy doing and am not interested in buying a finished dog unless it was simply to turn a profit. The exception would be I would buy a dog to put into my breeding program. I wouldn't buy a finished dog without seeing it hunt. But I don't want to sell a dog on a long trail when I don't know how it is going to be handled or what it is going to be hunted with.

Larry Roberts wrote:I would not buy a dog without a trial,even if i had seen the dog before.you never know if it will get along with your dogs or not.and some people dont want to run a dog there selling alone

Larry,

Those are my feelings exactly. Hell, it might not even get along with you. Some dogs only hunt for one person. One a different note, if you're buying a dog from a different area of the country it may or may not hold up running in the different terrain (ex. A dog from coastal N.C. might not get it done in the mountains of Idaho). I think you you need at least 3 weeks to fairly evaluate a big game dog.

Jim

(ex. A dog from coastal N.C. might not get it done in the mountains of Idaho).

Truer word were never written

A bear dog is a bear dog. It doesnt matter where you are, if hes a bear dog hes ganna go. Might take him awhile to adjust to his new suroundings. But show him a bear and he will go.

LOL! Ya he might go alright, but he might not keep up. Some people cull for lack of speed, some say they do. The dogs are supposed to show me the bear, if I have to show it to them, than why would I need them in the first place?

i have seen dogs that do awesome in some states but you bring them here and they look like s@#$. I know if i was to by a high powered bear dog they would have to let me trial it. the way i look at it if you wonive a trial on a 3,500 dollar dog where i live.some thing is wrong with the dog, I have a buddy that bought a dog from west virgina and the guy told him it was a awesome bear dog would out run anything we had our a least keep up. he let this dog ajust to us the first time he hunted she got hung up in a snag witch all the other dogs had gone threw,the first time i hunted with her.I struck a bear waited for them to get there and we dumped 5 min latter the bear crossed the road and the dogs that where right on his a@# my lead dog vinnie, and a high tan a 10 yeaold plott and the 3,500 dollar bear dog was last to come across no barking and looking at me to show her where the bear was ya good high poweredbear dog. She was a 3 year old piece of S#$%. My budy got screwed and the guy would not eveanswer his phone when he tried to call. so this is my opinion on buying a dog and not getting a trial.