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for you young hunters, which is more beneficial for you're young dog. "a" three pup ups in a row or "b" one hour on a ducking and dating cat race. think this over and post what you think will do the most for the dog and not you're ego.

I would have to say it would depend on a lot of different factors..1.) If the hard running cat went up 2.) What had the dog been doing as far ability and experience. For my dogs I would choose the hard runner but, I don't think I would choose that under every circumstance.

"Young dog" is a broad term. In the beginning i'll take three pop ups to give them some success and confidence. Once they are getting the idea, they're going to learn more from the tougher race. After that, i'll take a nice mix of quick and long in as many different situations as possible. If the goal of the question was for me to choose one...well, I didn't.

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For me I would take the pop ups first, then the longer running cats. I mean you have to be able to crawl before you can walk and walk before you can run. I believe its the same for a dog learning to hunt them tricky cats.

For me it would completely depend on the dog. I pretty much know how tree minded a pup is before I ever take him hunting. If I am working a tree bred dog, there is nothing I want LESS THAN a popup or two or three. Where our cats seldom tree, I have used tree bred dogs that I tried real hard to keep out of any treeing situations until they had run many a cat in the non- treeing cat pockets, and with favorable results. On the other end of the breeding spectrum if I was trying to make a tree dog out of a non treeing breed I would welcome the popups and especially in a naked little alder where the cat could be seen.

Take as many pop ups as you can. Andy

My goal was to never walk in to a blank tree. That is why I am so utterly careful with tree minded dogs. If they never once experienced a quick easy race ending in a popup, that would be fine with me. I deffinately walked in to fewer blank trees in my last days than I did in my first, (when I used to work tree bred pups on their treeing). I quit doing that completely. They knew how to tree when the situation called for it. If they didn't get it at first that was fine with me too. They figured it ou soon enough. (I am talking about tree minded youngsters).

Was not hunting 200 foot tree forests though.

If you want popups, old Mcdonald had a farm...
And on that farm he had plenty enough popups to ruin a young tree minded pup for bobcat hunting.

the longer the cat runs , the more chance a young dog has to pickup looses, get on the front end of the race , and actually learn how to push a cat hard enough to make it climb. the late Lloyd basey once told me that as long as the dog is running cats and keeping them jumped then the rest comes easy and I agree jmo.

Well haven't been on here for awhile just got in from Alaska this morning trying to catch up on all that I missed for the last two months. I would have to say the pop-ups cause no matter what they'll run hard cats sooner or later and most times sooner

If one has pups that are to tree minded is alot easier to cure than one that have no desire to ever tree. How canpop ups hurt a young dog? Andy

Andy, I believe pop ups teach a tree minded pup that cats climb after a short race. That is why they start looking for a tree at a major check (loss, lose), and especially if the cat actually did climb up something in his passage. I think tree minded dogs can be used for hunting bobcat, but I have seen them ruined by improper handling. They are on the edge of ruin as bobcat dogs simply by their genetic make-up. The ones that verge on uselessness because of false treeing, might have been made that way because of their trainer. Many people use coon bred dogs for bobcat hunting, and my suggestion to them is to minimize pop-up training with anything that smells like a cat. I myself completely eliminate such exposure if I possibly can.

That is why I like to begin training a young dog in an area where cats don't climb or an individual cat that most likely is not going to be treed. I would rather they were amazed and surprised some day when a cat actually does climb in front of their nose. I want their normal mode to be "where is that bobcat track out of here" and not "which tree should I start barking up now".

Old dog wrote:the longer the cat runs , the more chance a young dog has to pickup looses, get on the front end of the race , and actually learn how to push a cat hard enough to make it climb. the late Lloyd basey once told me that as long as the dog is running cats and keeping them jumped then the rest comes easy and I agree jmo.

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(Was privileged to have hunted with Lloyd)

Skip, what are you calling a pop-up 5-10 sec. jump, or 1-5 min. jump?? What are you calling a hard race 1-2hrs. or longer?? How old is the dog? How long to you is a typical cat race in my area, that a young straight bred "Tree Hound" would make it to the tree? ( you've hunted this area before, not Sixes or Cold Irons which are awesome to hunt). I know that if it hasn't had any game it has to love the Dogs! Because most have no idea a cat was there or what has just happened.

You are definitely right, the dog will learn more on a longer race if it can hang!!

brad, you said it all when you said if it can hang.!! a hour is plenty if the dog can hang. training with the kind of dogs you run make it hard for the AVERAGE young dog because like you said, the young dog will have to love the front dogs or get left behind and learn nothing except going to the treed dogs. I think if I had a choice I would run mine with slower steady track dogs for ten or twenty races till it gets the mechanics of the cat race down then run them with those brush rockets you have to teach them how to run. hope I am making sense? as far as the typical length of a race there with you're dogs and the dogs you had in the past I would say somewhere around ten minutes after the jump which don't leave much time for a pup to get a snout full of fresh cat scent imo. I remember back in the day we looked far and wide for a cat to stay on the ground in front of Kelly so the pups could get in the game.