Nose

Talk about Big Game Hunting with Dogs
lawdawgharris
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Nose

Postby lawdawgharris » Sat May 16, 2020 12:56 am

I've often thought about this and have mixed emotions about it. Dog people are always referring to the scenting ability of dogs, referring to this dog as hot nosed and this one as cold nosed etc. I hog hunt in Texas and have for about 30 years. I have had and hunted with dogs that either wouldn't move or couldn't smell a track to move it during the hot dry summer. I have also cast dogs at noon during the summer when I knew for fact that the hogs had been bedded since way before daylight and them wind them from a mile away and go straight to them like someone told them where they were bedded. How do you classify that kind of scenting? Scenting conditions are way poor in every way (wind, moisture, bedding cover, temperature, etc.). If the conditions were favorable, if the hogs were close, or had been there recently I wouldn't wonder about this. Yes a hog gives off a lot of scent being a larger animal and smelly, especially an old boar, but again I have seen some pretty good dogs go right through where I watched hogs cross literally minutes before, and they didn't even give the slightest indication that they smelled them. Push them the direction the hogs traveled and all of a sudden they are hot footed because they all of a sudden smell them. The only times I've seen that was in the dry, hot summer. I haven't witnessed it in the wetter, cooler months. From that far away, and it being dry, it has to be very little scent to go off of. I want to hear what y'all think. I have to believe that dog has a pretty decent nose. I believe this for a couple of reasons. What's your opinion? Losing nose is something I don't want to do in my dogs. It's really hard to test though because we have so many hogs that as long as a dog hustles they are going to find hogs. Probably 9 1/2 times out of 10 we are gonna be where hogs have been in the last couple of hours. My dogs are a catahoula and treeing walker cross. They average out to about 3/16 hound give or take depending on who they are out of. Do I have to have a cold nosed dog? No, but nose does factor in more during the summers and "if" for some reason I needed all of a sudden, I don't want to be wishing I had payed more attention to it. My lead dog right now is one that can wind hogs from way out. Wen she was almost 2. I had her and an outside bred dog that was half lab and half plott. The outside dog was very houndy in her ways and I saw her work up some tracks more than once that the other dogs didn't acknowledge until she got them to where it was hotter. On one particular hunt, I cast these 2 gyps and they went separate ways but the same direction. I watched them start really working hard in certain area about a half mile out. They were never within 200 yards of each other but wouldn't leave it. After a good while the older outside dog came back in. About the time she got back to us, my young gyp put up bayed. Knowing the dogs, I know it was a colder track and the younger gyp located because she stayed at it until she lined it out. But did want to allow her to line it out or did a better nose? Or maybe a combo of the two? There are lot of smart dog men on here. Tell me your thoughts.

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Nolte
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Re: Nose

Postby Nolte » Sat May 16, 2020 2:10 am

You got a lot of stuff going into your enchilada here but I'll try to give small take.

Regardless of conditions or nose, some dogs just know where to look for game period. I'm sure it's a learned behavior but they just sense where to look next and keep at it until it pans out. Most dogs tend to give up.

It's also darn tough to really test nose or keep that trait going with high game populations unless you only test on the worst conditions. Tough to fault dogs to grind on something and hold back and not bump something hotter if its available. I love track grinders but its gotta lead someplace more than average, otherwise it's just glorified wheel spinning that sounds special from bar stool.

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lawdawgharris
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Re: Nose

Postby lawdawgharris » Sat May 16, 2020 8:46 am

I agree with your points. I've always told my boys there are dogs that hunt and there are dogs that know where to hunt. In the example of the 2 gyps having to grind out the colder sign, the young gyp is a head up type hunter but knows when to put it down and grind. It just isn't often that she has to do it. High game population is great in some ways and very detrimental in others. I like to go hunt other areas away from my typical area where the population isn't as high so that it's more of a challenge for the dogs. Anyway it goes, it's still Texas and there are just a lot of hogs. I try to keep my dogs well rounded. By that I mean not breeding for one or two traits but for several traits that I think they need to possess in order to perform to my expectations. I don't want to lose something because I didn't get to test it hard enough or because I lost sight or forgot about it because I got to the point of not needing it often enough. Some things, especially positive things, are extremely hard to get back once they are gonna without changing or altering other things that weren't broke that you finally got the way you wanted them. Nose is that thing I'm most worried about right now for the simple reason of not using it in cold trailing type circumstances often enough. I've always wondered about cold trailing nose versus long distance, poor condition winding dog noses and how they compare. Both are hard to do and not every dog can do it. Are they similar or are they not?

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Re: Nose

Postby Nolte » Sat May 16, 2020 9:43 am

Personally, I dont develop many winding type dogs as I dont hunt that way much but over the years I've had a few by chance. Those dogs were not my best cold trailers but more average. it seemed like those dogs were always looking for the shortcut and found it by body scent not necessarily track scent.

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lawdawgharris
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Re: Nose

Postby lawdawgharris » Sat May 16, 2020 11:30 am

Do you think those dogs were that away because they were charged up and in a hurry, or because they were lazy in a sense, or because they just didn't have the smelling ability to work a colder track? Because my dogs are heavy in catahoula, they run with their head up unless its something cold for them and then they will drop their heads and grind. I guess what I'm trying to figure out is how much difference is there in a track that is several hours old and smelling a hog that is a mile away in extremely dry conditions through heavy cover? Hogs are gonna bed in the coolest place or the thickest place they can. Some of the thick stuff is so thick you literally can step on them before you can see them. The briars, vines, and brush is so dense that scent has trouble escaping. It's almost like a blanket. All this combined with the fact that the hog has been bedded for a good while (hours), to me says that there shouldn't be much scent to go off of just like a cold track. I know and understand there's a difference but it seems to me that both cases would require a dog to be able to smell good and have the drive or want to to see the game on the other end.

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macedonia mule man
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Re: Nose

Postby macedonia mule man » Sat May 16, 2020 1:35 pm

I’ve noticed if I have a good balanced pack of dogs that like to run game , they perform under most any conditions. Some races will be better than others without much down time. I’ve been a bit confused on nose power ever since I heard it discussed. I believe out all the dogs I’ve had there is not much difference in nose power. Not enough to make or break a race. I believe always wanting to jump and run game is the key factor. How long a pack is willing to trail and work out a jump will confuse you about nose. If they buckle down and work outa scent to jump and run, I say they have enough nose. I think barometric pressure is the controlling factor.
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Re: Nose

Postby dwalton » Sat May 16, 2020 2:18 pm

There are so many factors to make a good dog that nose has very little to do with it. That said I feel I have and like dogs that take a really cold track and move it. As far as pounding out a track track to track In certain conditions and areas that is what is needed. I love a dog that works off the wind and brush moving a track but can put its nose to the ground and work out a really tough track, they are hard to find. Dogs can be trained to cold trail better or not to by how you hunt. Walking out a tough track taking the dog to the most likely place that the cat went to pick it up teaches the dogs to be cat minded. The reverse of that is setting in a rig letting the dog do it all and calling them off to go look for a better track. Soon your dogs will always be looking for a better track. looking at what people do to train a dogs for drug, cadaver work or rescue word the dogs are not picked for nose they are chosen on train ability. A pack that works together will move a track a lot faster than a lone dog in most conditions. Just more noses looking. In really deep snow to many dogs can totally bury the track by running wide. There are many types of track dogs we all gravitate to the ones that work for ourselves and conditions we hunt. Good hunting Dewey
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Re: Nose

Postby lawdawgharris » Sat May 16, 2020 3:57 pm

My confusion comes from way back. The dog that is most prominent in my family of dogs was a half treeing walker (Lipper) and half catahoula (a family of tight bred, old school leopard dogs as they were referred to years ago). Hands down the best I've owned and number 1 or 2 top dogs I've ever been to the woods with. The gene pool was as evenly split as you could've gotten out of the cross with him getting the best from both sides. He was as smart as most people, had as much drive power as a whole pack of dogs, competitive beyond belief, that innate ability to be where hogs were even if it was one hog in 3000 acres, he had the ability really push a hot track fast, and an all day everyday dog. He was bred to be a cow dog but born knowing he wanted to be a hog dog. I would catch hog after hog in a day load him in the truck untied and go home. He would lay down and sleep all the way home. If there were hogs in the hog pen, he would be out of the truck, over the fence, and baying them before my motor was shut off. He lived for it! I was hunting some watermelon fields one summer with him and a registered walker dog that had been banned from coon hunts for fighting at the tree. After hunting all morning it was close to noon before we finally found a lone hog track and it was a good one. We dropped both dogs on it and they confirmed what we thought, it was old. I called them.both to me tapped the track and excitedly encouraged them to work it. The half and half dogs tail went to popping and he straddled it and walked it off. The full walker dog just bounced around never paying any more attention to it after the first 20 yards but stayed with the other dog. We sat and waited for about 2 hrs and never heard a word. Started tracking with my old wildlife system and nothing. So we started riding roads and listening. The other 2 guys finally heard them and came and got us. They were deep in a place we didn't know but we could hear them. You could tell what was happening just by listening. The half breed (Clyde) would be baying solo then the walker dog would get there and try the hog and bust the bay. His would happen every 2 or 300 yards until they finally got to where we could get to them. It's already 98 or 100 degrees and they had been at it for a while. The walker dog finally got hot enough and took enough punishment that he quit trying the hog and we got a good bay. We caught a boar about 235 pounds of man! I tell this to say I think both dogs smelled it once I showed the really cold track to them. I don't think the difference was nose. I think it was want to. The competition dog didn't want to put in the work and Clyde didn't want to get beat to hog plus he just wanted to work. My Raylynn gyp is a good locator. But I have watched her leave with her head high numerous times when I know conditions were definitely not in her favor and bay hogs that as far out as a mile. Not looping or hunting but in a straight line to them like the land owner called her on her cell phone and told her what tree they were under. I gotta believe want to plays a role but a sure enough good since of smell in those circumstances allowed her to carry out that want to. I have also wondered if she didn't run past hogs doing that. Not one time have we came back and bayed hogs behind her, so I no longer second guess her. I sounds like we all agree that there are many contributing factors to to smelling and one of the main ones is want to. I just can't decide if one dog smells better than others. There has to be some difference or they'd all be blood hounds, lol. As mentioned, I know because of population my dogs aren't being tested as hard as I'd like I this sense and that's what has had me worried lol. After listening and talking to y'all I think I'm a little less worried about it now. Hearing it in your own head is a lot different than hearing it from other good dog men.

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macedonia mule man
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Re: Nose

Postby macedonia mule man » Sat May 16, 2020 9:11 pm

How can a pack of seasoned 4 yr old running dogs start a cold trail from the road, cold trail it for about 45 min, jump and run it hard with very little down time for 1 1/2 hr. Start bogging a little and end up completely loosing a good running hot track a lot quicker than it took them to jump it when it it was cold?
lawdawgharris
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Re: Nose

Postby lawdawgharris » Sun May 17, 2020 11:12 am

I'm not a cat hunter but I've seen similar situations hog hunting several times. I don't believe it's so much the smelling ability as it is being out smarted in most of the scenarios. Sometimes I've seen them use the presence of other hogs in the area brush a set of dogs off. I've seen them get in good cover run back over their own track , and more than one time, and then leave out the back door never to be seen again. The losses I've seen that I would consider a smelling issue were when they got into some really thick, blanketing type cover. They'll bury up in it and you and the dogs will go right by and never know they are there. The cover is so heavy that the scent can't escape it. Some of these type areas are large enough that a hog can creep from one hiding spot to another in it and never be discovered and never leave that heavy cover. Again I don't know about cats, but coons are know to throw dogs off by tapping trees or go up one tree and then come back down another tree further over. What's your experience Mule Man?

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macedonia mule man
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Re: Nose

Postby macedonia mule man » Sun May 17, 2020 11:58 am

I really don’t know, my dogs have and still will do that on most any game not just cat. I can understand a race that ends like flipping a light switch but not go from red hot to cold enough to loose out in 5 min. I have a lot of thoughts but no sure about anything.
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Re: Nose

Postby dwalton » Sun May 17, 2020 1:38 pm

With dogs and scent I think we can never know what really happens at times. Most of my experience is on tree game bears lions bobcats and coons but I have been on a few hog hunts and fox hunting in Arkansas. With bobcat I have seen on several occasions when a bobcat is scared the track ends. I have in snow walk the dogs out these tracks sometimes 1/4 of a mile before the dogs can take the cat and trail it up again. I have also seen dogs on a jump track make a major loose be it in a road, a bluff or black berry thickets the dogs not finding the track out without help. My theory is that the dogs are driving a jump track when they loose is made they are looking for that wind funnel that they were driving and will walk over that track that is a walking cat that they have to trail again. I have seen several times dogs on a jump track come into heavy cover such as a black berry thickets and go to a slow cold trail until they get it out the other side. I have seen this running cats come into a thick with the dogs driving them at a run, when the cat hit the thicket it started to walk. When the dogs hit it they started trailing at a slow pace as if it was a cold track and I seen the bobcat less than 30 feet ahead of the dogs. when the cat hit the more open ground the race was on again just circle back into the briers to go to cold trailing again. Realize everything about scent we make up from our perspective not from what is truly happening. We can not smell what the dogs can or have all the information that has really happened. Thats not to say that story we made up is true or not true but made from a very educated or experience mind that may be right on. Dewey
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Re: Nose

Postby lawdawgharris » Sun May 17, 2020 2:41 pm

That's very true Dewey. I always tell the boys, that hog didn't get to be as big as he/she is by being stupid. They know a lot of tricks and some that you wouldn't if you didn't see them with your own eyes. I once watched a big hog leave a briar thicket and hit a pond that was in the woods and had some small trees hanging low out into the water so that you could hardly see under it. I watched it swim from one side to the opposite where those trees were over hanging. About the time the dogs came over the bank he squatted and all you could see was his nose sticking out of the water. I let them work for a while. They ran circle after circle around that that pond and would go to the waters edge under that tree but would leave because they couldn't locate it. When I saw them start getting frustrated, I made the hog move and we caught it. I thought that was a pretty slick move though.

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