Pit bull/plott for bear?

[mefishme1234]

Talked to a buddy today at work... any body tried this? crossing a gritty plot with a pitbull?

[slobberdoc]

A pit bull will not add anything positive a good plott (or any big game hound or cur, for that matter) should not already have. A pit bull will only take away sense/brains and add dog aggression. Pit bulls are great dogs on their own, as a catchdog, but do not need to be crossed with hounds for bear hunting unless you like dead dogs.

[mjk]

A pit bull will not add anything positive a good plott (or any big game hound or cur, for that matter) should not already have. A pit bull will only take away sense/brains and add dog aggression. Pit bulls are great dogs on their own, as a catchdog, but do not need to be crossed with hounds for bear hunting unless you like dead dogs.

Agreed, there is no need to breed suicide machines. Grit is great provided the dog has enough sense to get out of the way when a bear decides to put a whoopin on. Otherwise you just have a injured dog on the shelf, or a dead dog. jmo

[mefishme1234]

yeah I did some looking around on this site after posting... good for hogs and that's it...

[houndnem]

You guys that have hunted bear more than me go ahead and correct me if I'm wrong here, but the more I see with our bears, grit really has nothing to do with getting them to tree. I was having a lot of bayups and bears walking my dogs off so I added some bite to my pack. I started noticing that when the alligators got there and bit the bear, sometimes it just made the bear run harder. or when the bear tried to tree the dogs would rip him down and not let him tree. persistant pressure on the other hand is what makes our bears tree.

[LarryBeggs]

Seen it done and it didnt add any more grit on the bear. Did pack a darn good hound out of the brush to have her take her last breath as soon as we hit the road.She treed that bear way ahead of the pit bull crosses. May be they were jealous she beat them so bad or may be they were just doing what they had been bred to do.

[mike martell]

You guys that have hunted bear more than me go ahead and correct me if I'm wrong here, but the more I see with our bears, grit really has nothing to do with getting them to tree. I was having a lot of bayups and bears walking my dogs off so I added some bite to my pack. I started noticing that when the alligators got there and bit the bear, sometimes it just made the bear run harder. or when the bear tried to tree the dogs would rip him down and not let him tree. persistant pressure on the other hand is what makes our bears tree.

Houndem, you are right, having steady pressure works best, too much is counter productive. Pretty fine line between having to much or too little dog power on bear... I had a slower Walker dog that was a wrecking ball and once I walked in on a bay up and the dog arrived always about the same time, it jumped in the middle of the bear only to have it break and have to re catch it, that was only the half of it, also a huge vet bill after the hunt with the dog laid up for several weeks....Didn't take long to cull that dog....The Northwest was a big time bear and cougar hunters paradise back many years ago...We tried everything known to man to make a bear climb....I have a little experience with the pit bull/hound on bear.

Little is because they seemed to want to lock on instead of bay or get in and out....I watched a bunch of dogs bay a bear in a culvert at both ends back in the late 70's on the Oregon Coast....When the bulldog arrived, it went through the hounds (didn't touch a one)and crawled in that culvert and latched on to the front leg, I don't need to tell you how that worked out for the dog once the lightning struck the outhouse....

Most pit bulls don't have a lick of tree in them and when you pop a bear up and don't run the edge off the dogs, you best get to the tree quick or you have a blood bath at the base of the tree and the game sitting in the tree. I have seen this in mainly Plotts of the past, but all breeds are prone, I guess you can make the argument about all dog breeding? I can honestly say it was in 100% of the bulldog cross / hounds I hunted around back in the early days...I suppose you can get the odd one that trees well and is not cross, but with so many well bred hounds, why bother?

The original breeder bred them down to 1/4 bulldog and 3/4 hound and that didn't change the outcome much....I thought once bred down to 1/4, I would try one and found in short order it was an alligator with other dogs. Tough lessons learned the hard way...Take advantage of this site to spare you the trial and error process!

Mike

[Jeff Eberle]

I had a 1/4 pit 3/4 walker that we still talk about when we got one that won't go up. NEVER showed any dog aggression. Only had one bear that stayed on the ground with her in all the bears she was on and it was so old the only teeth it had was its K9's I don't think it could climb it just backed up to a oak tree but she kept him spinning. She would circle a coon on the ground then make one move and have it by the neck and never let go. Not saying all will turn out like her but the line she was out of were all about the same, A old friend had bred them up for bear.

[chris lavoie]

In 1983 I went to North Carilina with Gene White. A guy had an illegally trapped bear in a cage. Some thought it would be a good way to train the young dogs when they let the bear free. Gene had no dogs present but many others had young dogs to train. One had a pit bull crossed with a Plott. The idea was to let the dogs off the leash when the the bear came out of the cage when opened.

Well when the cage opened the bear wouldn't come out but the plot/pit bull cross ran into the cage after the bear. The bear killed the dog instantly. All the Plott breeds kept their distance until the bear ran off.

[ALBINORHINO]

Im here to learn about hounds , but pitbulls i do know ... as much as i feel i raise the " king of sporting dogs " , aint no way i'm cuttin loose any of my bulldogs on a bear or lion. I'd like to think too much grit would be disastrous for the dog(s) .. catching a hog by his ear is one thing, trying to catch a bear or lion by his ...?!?! NO THANKS.