BigGameHoundsmen.com

I have a nice intellagent young female from out west. She is very well bred and absolutely cat crazy. I let her free range originally and penned her up at about 6 months because she daily had feral cats treed. Shes seen bobcats in cages from my trapping and loves them. Great tree instinct, great nose, great trail dog, she just can not put it all together. I have dropped her on firecracker tracks just to see her kindly find the track work it a second, check the limbs and brush for direction and quit. She will just go on hunting. She is game crazy i think she might just need some encouragement, not sure. Advice please!!!I am new to cats but hunted dogs all my life. I hear it's supposed to be tuff and wanted to give bobcats a go. I'm in Georgia and make frequent trips to the Carolina's bear hunting. Anyone in decent proximity that would mind a tag along would be great. I have another male put on the way so I have to get it together lol. Both are from Steve Phipps's crazy cascade dogs.

What is her age now?

How old is the dog now before anything is said?

She just turned a year old.

She is young yet but should shortly be showing some good progress. Remember not all make dogs. A little more time and exposure should let you know if she is a keeper or not. Andy

It'd help if you had a finished dog to get her to a few trees then let her go alone again see if the 1 2 3 tree clicks.

Buckeye,

Can I ask what is wrong with treeing the ferrel cats and why stop at 6 months?
When they do tree the ferrel cats I would increase the time they stayed treed starting with just a few minutes each time and also always leaving them with the desire to stay treed longer. I would also give them lots of praise at the tree.
On the traped Bobcat I would take a beach towl and put it inside the trap with the Bobcat for a day or two and use that for a drag and let her get the towl in her mouth but just for a few minutes and give her lots of praise.
I would also use the Bobcat inside the trap and drag it and then hang it in a tree. Again just for a few minutes when they are young.
I would do this until they are 1 1/2 years old and I would be very careful on who's dogs I hunt them with. I tied them off after each time training giving them time to soak in lessons learned.
Another method that I use is to keep training records. Each time I work with them I record the date, location,conditions,objective, % of the time they ran correctly, % of the time they treed correctly and what went well today. It helps make the decision easier if you want to continue with the training.
JTG

Sounds to me like she needs exposure to trailing. Aside from catching a couple cats a long time ago. She has had everything brought to her without the work involved in finding it. If she trees and is game crazy, STOP exposing her to those situations and focus on what she's lacking. Drags or other methods to get her to trail with enthusiasm might help. I prefer my pups to trail first, then the other stuff.

Thanks guys for the input and by all means continue. And to my notion I don't reckon nothing is wrong with freeing feral cats. There's just a little traffic and curious eyes around hear and Steve don't give those dogs away lol. And I'll be sure to try working hear some more on the trailing aspect but she was doing good on drags as a pup and with the feral cats I'd give them a hour or so for the trail to disparate and she would burn them up. And I only let her bay( or chew on the cage lol) 4 or so times as a pup then I quit. I didn't want her to think I always had a cat in my pocket lol. But on those cats as a pup I would come home from work and find her treed with bare dirt around the trees not having a clue how long she'd been there you know. And I agree( just speculating) that a grown dog would help a lot. Any body want to babysit???