First tree dogs. Advice?

Talk about Big Game Hunting with Dogs
lawdawgharris
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Re: First tree dogs. Advice?

Postby lawdawgharris » Mon Sep 05, 2022 2:11 pm

Lol Renegade, I completely understand. No body my age was hunting them when me and my best friend started gathering our own dogs. The guys that did hint were old enough to be my dad or grandpa. I was just a kid and didn’t have any money so every free dog that was offered got a chance to decide if they wanted to be a hog dog. We checked the local pounds almost daily. We had places that we could hunt but no dogs. We started trapping hogs and doing mock hunts and we would go with the old timers any chance we got. We had the fever bad. We were hogging 7 days a week and twice a day on the weekends. We finally got a little core of dogs narrowed down and by the time they were 2 years old it took a pretty dang good dog to bay ahead of them. If I had the time and energy to hunt the dogs I have now like I did those dogs, these would be pretty dang special I think. We didn’t have tracking systems either. So when the dogs left we did too. If a bay broke we were in a run just like the dogs. We were in pretty good shape lol. It was fun and man did we learn a lot!


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macedonia mule man
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Re: First tree dogs. Advice?

Postby macedonia mule man » Tue Sep 06, 2022 10:26 am

You can have a round table discussion on dog hunting and training with people that hunt, have good dogs and this is the way it will go. Each person will give their advice on the breed to use and the way to hunt it. One guy will get up to leave the conversation for some reason and someone always says, that guy doesn’t really have the kind of dog I like and doesn’t hunt like I do. As each each hunter leaves the table the same thing is said about him and his dogs. Fellows, regardless of your years in hunting, whether 30 yrs or just starting, no two people think exactly alike. It’s ok to go with some occasionally but learn to hunt by yourself. It’s not rocket science, it is trial and error which takes time. You can hunt most any dog hard enough to make him a fairly decent dog. The hard part for me is to pair up enough like dogs to make a good pack 10-12 dogs. You can have several good dogs but if they don’t hunt together you don’t have anything much to enjoy. Don’t buy anything on someone else word or someone’s reputation. It’s best to go hunt with the man and his dogs before buying. I’ve hunted with good hunter that caught game but His way and his dogs didn’t fit me. You can make a lot of mistakes trying to hunt with dogs and I find it best to make my own mistakes without letting someone talk me into making one.
lawdawgharris
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Re: First tree dogs. Advice?

Postby lawdawgharris » Tue Sep 06, 2022 11:32 am

Good bit of truth in that mule man!


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1whitedog
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Re: First tree dogs. Advice?

Postby 1whitedog » Tue Sep 06, 2022 11:47 pm

Lots of good advice here with some common concepts here even though the details may differ.
1. Spend time, lots of time with them
2. Build confidence, put them in situations where they can be successful
3. Leave them wanting more, hungry for the next time out.
Personally I prefer starting pups way early on rabbits, followed by some coons then young hogs. Sometimes foxxes but prefer not depends on seasons in, time of year etc. All this before 6 months then on to big game. All pups are different, and progress differently, spending the time with them you will fill it out and know when they are ready for the next step. Good luck.
Renagade Curs
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Re: First tree dogs. Advice?

Postby Renagade Curs » Fri Sep 09, 2022 6:43 pm

Well said mule man everyone's style is different everyone wants something different in a dog I was talking about different styles and breeds of dogs above in my advice as I've owned and hunted everything from fox and coyote running hounds, rabbit beagles the deer hounds and deer beagles to curs and tree hounds. When said I usually had better dogs than the others I was referring to their pups they'd bring pups to the woods that didn't know anything or maybe seen a pig in a pen a lot of times I seen people give up on pups because they expected miracles when the pup was just that a pup. Over the last 20 years I've mostly hog hunted but I always had some treedogs to being able to turn pups loose with a rabbit beagle or beagles they learn to hunt and run game on their own the ones that started treeing squirrels and I started having to go to and get off a tree I knew were going to make good treedogs I didn't hog hunt. Almost all of my hogdogs were started without ever seeing a hog before being carried to the woods hunting. Yet they knew to leave with the old dogs and put in a race or go to a bay because they'd been running loose with the beagles since they was baby pups running whatever would run from them. Starting out with running hounds as I did most of the old hunters started hounds in that way even if they didn't have a beagle the hound pups running loose would start running rabbits on their own being left loose. I've known lots of coon hunters did the same exact thing started their coon hound or Cur pups the same way. If someone worries about a dog running trash it's probably not for you cause it's guaranteed your gonna trashy animals on your hands lol but with Curs especially they usually trashbreak themselves after they've figured out what you want to hunt.
Last edited by Renagade Curs on Sat Sep 10, 2022 2:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Bon Plott
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Re: First tree dogs. Advice?

Postby Bon Plott » Sat Sep 10, 2022 9:46 am

Learn from others mistakes, you can't live long enough to make them all

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Re: First tree dogs. Advice?

Postby Bon Plott » Sat Sep 10, 2022 9:48 am

Yourself

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