Cut Vest for Anything Other Than Hogs

[Walkerdirt]

I'm curious, does anyone run cut vest for anything other than hogs? The big problem I see is dogs over heating or being less maneuverable. I'd think that if you're hunting lions where the ground is more flat with few trees it could be a good idea. Thoughts?

[driftwood blue]

LOL! last time I hunted Lion in the Bitteroots in Montana it surely wasn't very flat..

[Mike Leonard]

Cut vests would make no sense for lion hunting at all. Most dogs that are killed outright by lions die as a result of neck and skull bites, hence the vest serves no purpose. We do get hounds bit and cut up around the ears face, neck and chest a good deal but the vest would only serve to give the lion something good and solid to sink his claws into so he could suck the hound in tight and deliver the crusher bite to the skull and neck.

The bulk of hounds especially in the southwest that are killed lion hunting die as a result of falls off bluffs and cliffs. Many times the lion will charge and knock them off, or they just slip getting into precarious places the lions like to bay up and they die from complications of the fall.

I don't think they would help much on a bad bear either. I have seen dogs killed by a single blow from a big bear. Bear gets them just right, and boom! he hits them, blood and crap fly out the back at times , and the dog goes flying. Death can be almost instantaneous from massive internal damage.
seen some dogs really tore apart dead after a bear fight but usually on investigation I have found the dog got hit went down screaming and the pack like wolves dive on them and kill them. Not so pretty but the vest might help with that.....

[Walkerdirt]

Mike, thanks for the reply. That pretty much satisfies my curiosity. I got thinking about this after my blood dog got gored by a big gut shot buck. After we jumped the deer several times over a 2 mile stretch I decided to cut him loose to see if he could get it bayed up. We got the deer but my dog got a horn straight through his guts. He's my house dog so it cost me $1300 to get him put back together. I'm not sure if I would pay that much to get my hounds fixed up so I started thinking about what I could do to protect them.

[Mike Leonard]

That might have worked good in that situation. Usually with blood trailers they make you trail on a leash but in your case that certainly was not an option.

My main blood trailer is also our house dog but not much chance of her getting gored as she is pretty slow and low to the ground. LOL! Suzie the wiener dog , may get some funny looks but anybody who has ever seen her trail a wounded elk can tell you if you follow her she is darn sure following the elk. Slow work but sure can help when you can't find the tracks or much blood.


I think every state should allow blood tracking dogs, it would sure cut down on the number of wounded animals left in the woods, to suffer or just go to waste.


I knew of an old guy at one time that had a pair of Airedales and if you even winged a deer they would find it an kill it. They were tuff dogs and he said even if he did not have a gun and just had those dogs he would eat venison.

[Walkerdirt]

Mike, it definitely was not an option on this track. After finding several beds along with pieces of meat and intestine we knew we had to pick up the pace. My blood dog is half pointer half American bull dog so he is somewhat gritty. I think in this case he was whipped from the heat and long race so he was venerable.

I thought about getting a weiner dog or a jack russel for a blood dog but the coyotes are thick around the house and it probably wouldn't last long. Both my neighbors lost small dogs over the years.

Using blood dogs just makes sense and to me. It seems unethical not to be able to use one after you draw blood.

[Goose]

There's a guy who lives just north of me that has a wiener dog that is a deer finding MOchine, he has gained quite a reputation for himself the last several years, at one point in time in the Louisiana Sportsmen magazine there's used to be a fella advertised blood tracking wiener dogs and was breeding his dogs for blood tracking not sure if he still does or not and if I'm not mistaken the dog I mentioned above came from that fella...