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Dewey, this question has been on my mind for a year now. When I was at your place, I saw your hard driving female bobcat dogs lounging around your yard as laid back relaxed and happy as a scene from Hee Haw. I kept looking for some kind of containment, fence or restraint. There was none. How did you do that???

David: It is do to two main factors, breeding and training. Which is all we have with any of our dogs nothing new here. Our dogs are a refection of ourselves, what we want or expect from the dogs we hunt. I would chose a little different dog as to what I would want to hunt and the area I hunted. I hunt only bobcat from hunting them almost 50 years now and hunting with some of the top hunters that are very successful I pick and breed for a smart and clam dog very trainable. One that hunts with and for me. Thats the breeding part within that is a lot of traits it takes to make bobcat hunting look easy. As you stated in your book from a conversation with Tom Barnes " bobcat hunting is as easy as treeing coons with a bobcat dog". Next comes the training if you have a smart and willing partner and understand basic training it is easy and enjoyable. I start teaching my pups at two weeks old to set when I go up to them. Heres a tip guys you are teaching a dog something with every interaction that you have with them. The problem is that a lot of what we do is teaching the dog things that will cause problems in the future, such as allowing them to put there feet on you, to ignore a command as simple as asking them to come when you do not have the ability to enforce the command. All it takes is time that we spend with the dog every day. Puppies come well until about 4 months old then they start thinking for themselves, then collar goes on every time they are turned lose which is everyday at that age. With a check cord and treats they will learn with the tone to come every time I call. Then the easy part Just be consistent when they wander off to correct them. You don't have to use much electricity just the toner if a dog is train to tone and not electricity. I walk hunt from my house with my dogs and take them on walks with me but they will not leave own their own until I tell them to. If their is a problem with a dog not doing what we want it usually is one of two things going on breeding or lack of training from their owner. We as humans tend to blame the dog when it is our own fault for lack of training, which is really just the ability to communicate what we want in a way a dog can understand. We can teach anything to our dogs if the desire is there from the dog and/or the person. What happens a lot of the time is our expectations from the dog were not met and we correct out of anger. Then we are going backwards in our training. You can get just as much out of your dog as the breeding and time training allows. David there is probably more to it that I do in training my dogs that is just automatic for me without even thinking. One of the biggest keys that has taken years to learn is to try and get into the dogs head to figure out what is going on for them and not what's going on for me and my expectation as to they way it should be. I hope this has help answered your question. Take care. Dewey

Do you have dogs that would leave if you left them out like that? I mean, have you found you can completely trust certain dogs to stay, but this one here you gotta keep an eye on him? And if so, would you decide not to breed him for that reason?

I think all of the dogs I have would stay. That being said it would take more reinforcement with some than others. I feel a lot of dogs bred today would not be easy to train to stay and they would not be in my breeding program or even that I would hunt. A lot of what people breed today are hard charging, hard handling dogs and aggressive toward game dogs which make good tree dogs??? or coon and bear dogs. I do not thing they make what I look for in a bobcat dog. Most of the hard charging dogs that I see out there that people think are really hunting for a track are not. They are like a ADS kid they are running everywhere and getting nothing done. You won't see those in my breeding or on my place for long. Until recent times I tried to get one or two pups a year out of dogs that were out of well known breeding to see if I could find better, most were not what I look for in a bobcat dog. There are still some very good bred bobcat dogs out there that I would love to hunt a pup out of that I have not tried yet. Dewey

While I was there, it was only females out. Are males naturally more likely to wander? Do you ever have both types out at the same time? Ever just let males only out?

Sorry to bug you about this. I have seen a lot of great things in my life and have met some amazing bobcat hunters and been to their homes and their camps, but this I have never seen before or since, and to me it is fascinating and a little hard to believe that I even saw what I saw. Did I see what I saw . I mean it looked so natural, like this is just the way things always are, that I had to just contain myself and pretend I am used to this, just like everyone else seemed to be. But I still lay awake and wonder about it sometimes a year later, so I guess maybe I fooled everybody else, but have not been able to fool myself.

Sorry to butt in. However I don't understand the question. Are the dogs all loose 24 hours a day if Dewey is home or not? Are they just loose when he's home? How do you regulate breedings if they are out all the time? But it also sounds like David expects them to take off if they aren't kenneled or chained etc.. but if your dogs are that wild how do you hunt them? So like I said I think there's something missing in the discussion? Surely you can let your hounds out at home with out worrying about them going coyote on you?

Realize this is a Dewey question, but Pegleg entered so I will also. My dogs are turned loose most days to exercise around the place. They sometimes spend hours while I am around the place, to say they would never leave, would not say that. I do have one old hard going hound here he is the best of the three to stay where is permitted, but even the seven month old has been very good lately. These dogs have never been trained to sit and stay on command. There was a time when I hunted seven hounds, were all trained to set and stay, never seen where that helped me catch game, did work great for getting pack pictures.
Doubt there was ever a hound who was any harder going hound than the old skinner hound, he also was turned loose around the place most days and was very good at staying without taking off hunting on own & I live in the woods. When I arrived at a hunting destination, he and the others hung around until I gave them the ok to start hunting. Then it was a third gear show to keep up with them, especially on a soft dirt trail. Some trees skinner never missed a bark at all between when the track ended and the treeing began, other times he would spend half hour or better locating. Recall, once, first time hunting with anothers pack, we were on a cat giving the hounds a hard time, after a short hot spell skinner fell treed instantly, other hunter called False Tree! Took awhile for anyone else to tree, I knew there were some very good hounds on that track, tell you, I was pleased when we arrived and found a small bobcat high in a fir tree. One other time, recall a tree job by a female owned by Billy Smith, skinner never did honor that tree, even, after Spike, a son to skinner, who was not much of a tree dog, honored the tree. Huge surprise to me when we found a nice big tom, not high in that tree. Over the years skinner treed numerous bobcats, spike never would have located & some spike never treed on at all. Skinner did not catch every track, sometimes he did false tree, sometimes he treed where I could not be sure, but most times he had the cat. If this sounds like boasting it is not my intention, just letting young hunters reading this post know hard going dogs are not all idiots.
There is no disrespect intended in this post to any one or any dogs, hunt what you enjoy. Me I love a hard hunting hound & owned several ancestors of his that had his get up and go, but don/t believe any were quite as balanced has him, in all departments. Hunted him way past his prime, went thru several lookin for one that suited me as he, never found it. Some hunters may not have even liked him.
Remember the ecollars make things a whole bunch easier to own hounds that mind as well as some do today. And just to let young hunters know, skinner boxed the slightest bobcat scent in the woods, but, he and the wives house cat were good buddies & the house cat at times sat on top his house. I was never a great hunter, just patience and lots of time spent with the hounds. Good hunting Al

David, anyone that spends time with theit dogs should have dogs that are trained to stay at the house or kennels. It not hard just takes spending time with your dogs. My dogsare on chains if they get off they areon the door step dont have to go looking. E- collar makes this an easy task. Andy

Andy do you live in bobcat habit with bobcats walking across your drive way and hunt from your house with bathrooms within sight of your house? Some hounds stay and the more you work with them and allow them to be dogs the more they will be. I can tell you a lot about a hunter by just going to his house and watching him loads dogs to take hunting. You can tell the dogs that have been handle and the ones that have not. There are a lot of hound hunters out there that have easy handling dogs that mind and stay close. Some even let their dogs sleep in the house and still catch a lot of game. Hard to believe isn't. Dewey

Dewey, i do live in middle of what we call bobcat country. Do they walk across my property all tbe time. I wish from time to time yes. Amazing what one can do with garmin and e- collar with a little time spent with hounds. They one that cant learn this need to be sent down the road. I am aso blessed to be able to leave my pups run loose for first part of their youth. Andy

This dog is a little spoiled and has even caught a cat or two.

Look at those culls Mark.

Guys I don't think David really meant just staying home. Which is why I asked because it kinda sounds like that but I think he had a deeper meaning . That's why I asked. My dogs stay home even when you ride out now you have to tell them and they do give some sulky looks. But I know this is more common then people with out a handle on their hounds. For example how could you turn three or for hounds out if you can't trust them? How could you get them out of the mtns. Canyons etc?

Unreal tk,
Just a couple of quick questions. Which of those dogs is the best reader and which magazine is their favorite? LOL

Ok I guess I am the guy that hasn't heard the world is not really flat after all. Mark and Mike you guys knew the dogs out of Banjo and Rainbow. Now did you guys let those dogs roam your yard at will and you could just forget about them until tomorrow the same as you might if they were kenneled?

Twist so you are telling me that when I come by your place next time through that I will See several of your adult dogs just lounging around your yard, and when I leave the next morning they will never have gone hunting and you will never have given it a thought? Same question to Pegleg.

You see this is completely outside my experience. I have been to several top breeders homes, several top bobcat hunters homes, dozens of coon and bear hunters homes and I have never seen this before.

I very honestly have not seen a lot of dogs that respond as quickly and thoroughly as mine did to my commands even if I am asking them to leave a hot cat track and come out. But if one of them broke a hasp or chain, I Would EXPECT to find her treed somewhere. If she did not show enough hunting desire to go get that done it would have been a big black mark in the cull category.

So I am trying to learn from you guys but can't understand why no one I have really seen does this other than Dewey