Making a silent dog

[macedonia mule man]

I’m still at it. Had a little down time this past year due to 30 day radiation for lymph node cancer that originated with skin cancer on my arm. Every thing is going ok at present. I’m taking care of 8 running dogs and in the truck roaring a couple of times a week if possible. I have a camp about 2 hrs above where I live that I stay one night a week and run up there. I put dogs in the road and start driving, whatever they hit, I pull over, pour a cup of coffee and listen.

[macedonia mule man]

I had a first this past week. Jumped a cayote and after about 1.5 hrs he was hit and killed trying to cross a main State Hwy. rounding up 8 dog from the middle of Hwy. 63 in Livingston Parish Louisiana at 10:30 in the morning is nerve racklng. Nothing got hurt but that was a miracle.

[lawdawgharris]

Man I bet that did get a little nerve racking.


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[Bearhunter247]

I think sometimes silent has to do with how smart a dog is too. I have a Walker male thats 14 now and don’t hunt him but bout twice a week. But anyway he started very early and I was hunting with very good dogs of an uncles at the time, the walker is talking about was opening on track and treeing with them at 7 months old. At 8 months old he treed his own coon (one I saw crossing a road one night going home). He ran that track barking hard treeing hard like he usually did with the other dogs, the next night we went he happened to strike first the other dogs fell in and they all treed together. None of these dogs were fussy there was never a fight between them that we knew of, but since that night I never heard him bark on a track again. Why? Idk. But for the rest of his life and we were treeing around 150 coons a year you only ever heard him when he treed. And anything could honor him and it’d be no fussing and he’d still get in races with other dogs and tree but he wouldn’t bark on the track.


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[macedonia mule man]

I’ve seen older dogs change their bark on a pick up, slip out away from the pick up before opening. I have a 11 yr old that’s doing it now.

[twist]

A dog that has brains that is hunted consistently with a dog that says very little on a track can learn over time to be very conservative with it's mouth or get left out on the race have seen it several times over the years.

[SASS]

Here is my own opinion and you know what they say about those. I have run both silent and open dogs. I was always told mainly by hog hunters and people who started out as hog hunters and switched to something else how important it was that the dogs be silent. But the more I hunted big game and the more I traveled the more I found that not to be true.

If you are hunting an area loaded with game like some places are with hogs where there can be sounders of 30 plus hogs then I can see how having 3 or 4 silent dogs all finding their own hog would be beneficial. You can really put up some numbers that way. Also many people catch hogs with a single dog, so in those cases silent or open doesn't matter as much as long as it can find a hog and get it to stop.

Where I see the importance really change is with big game, especially bobcats but bear, fox, and lion too, especially on bare ground where team work is needed. I have hunted cats in 8 states and they do run different in different regions but in all of those states a good pack of open cats dogs could catch them, and do it in style. If you need a silent dog to catch cats I don't think it is a style issue but more of a dog issue. When you see a pack of cat dogs working as a team like a well oiled machine it is one of the most impressive things you will see in the hound world. Scarcity of game, the less scent, or the trickier game runs will make teamwork and open dogs more valuable.

Lastly my favorite part of hunting is listening to the race, listening to the different dogs run for the front, hearing it go silent and then listening to which dog makes the pickup, listening to them turn it up on the cat until it goes silent when they catch it. To me it's one of the best things in the world.

[lawdawgharris]

I can totally understand the enjoyment of listening to a good race. I also understand the team work aspect of things. To me though, it just stands to reason that if the other dogs don’t know where the silent dog is, then neither does the prey. If the prey doesn’t feel as threatened then they aren’t usually thinking so hard about how to shake the predator. If they can head the predator coming the whole time though, then they are going to flee faster and try to pull some tricks out of the hat. If it’s in a place where there several people hunting regular then they are sure enough savvy and hip to the pressure. Another thing is that if the silent dog has a good tracking and game IQ, if they make a loss, they have time to line it back out because the prey isn’t in AS big a hurry from several singing hounds roaring behind them. Now that being said, a pack of singing hounds that can really move a track can still put pressure on game to either stop, climb, or make a mistake. I’m just a hog hunter and I coon hunted with hounds. I don’t pretend to know half of what a lot of you guys in other disciplines know. This is just what I’ve witnessed in hog hunting and coon hunting.

I’ve told this story before, but I use to have an open gyp. I caught lots of hogs with her but there were times where I wished I had not taken her. One hunt I took her on, she got about 400 yards away from us to our north. The track was evidently fairly hot and she was singing about it. She hit the wood line and disappeared into it about 200 wards headed west. I looked south about 400 yards and a sounder came out and were in that all day trot hogs have that they can go for miles in. About a mile and a half later we ended catching one little shoat in a ridiculous jungle. The next time I went there I didn’t take her and we caught multiple hogs without leaving that place. The hogs there are wild wild as they are in many of the spots we hunt because they are pressured in every way everyday. Again, I’m not knocking either stile because both obviously work. It just boils down to preference. It’s kinda like tomaaaaato or tomoooooto, same fruit either way you say it,lol.


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[al baldwin]

Silent dogs have never been my choice, hunted hounds because enjoyed listening to the dogs work. However did like having one tight mouthed dog in the pack, often those dogs were good at putting cats in the tree. Owned one hound named Rowdy, he was a good open trailer, very gamey, ran to catch. On a dog wise cat that was out front of dogs, leaving very little scent, Rowdy would go silent at times, and catch the cat on the ground. Rowdy was not perfect, but he sure was a nice hound. Would love to be healthy & have a dog like him in the pack. Good hunting yo all. Very lucky to have a good friend with hounds & still have 3 myself. Have enjoyed listening a couple good races, one ended with a cat in a hollow log, another in a covert. Also made it to couple trees with a bobcat in them. Then there have been days when the cat made the hounds look bad, that/s cat hunting. Al

[lawdawgharris]

Al it sure sounds like ole Rowdy was a thinker


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[al baldwin]

Not sure if Rowdy was a thinker or just had such desire to catch that made him go silent sometimes, know for sure he did go silent sometimes in those situations. On a few occasions he caught cats out in front of the pack near me & I could plainly hear the pack trail into him for a few hundred yards. Rowdy had not barked once before he bayed the cat. Al

[lawdawgharris]

That sounds like a fast tracking dog that maybe knows how to cheat a little. Those kind catch lots of game that would get away from lesser dogs no matter what discipline. Some people like hearing the race but the situations like you just described is what I enjoy most.


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[SASS]

Lawdog All great points and I could understand why people would want that, and how in certain situations that would work well. To each their own, not knocking anyone else or how they like to hunt.

But I look at it differently, kind of like the old Packers teams under Lombardi, with his power sweep left and power sweep right, you knew it was coming but you still couldn't stop it. Let'em know were coming, I want my pack to be good enough to still catch them. If only killing game is what I was in it for then I would just use an ecaller or start trapping. I'm in it for the dogs, and the challenge of my team vs the game we are after. So if they know we are after them then GOOD. Let the best team or game win.

[macedonia mule man]

What makes a dog bark when running game?

[perk]

Muleman I'd assume it's natural. I've seen coyotes giving mouth while chasing game. Few years back heard 3 fine mouth dogs coming down a swampy creek running something, thought they may have been some young dogs running a deer and needed some good old fashion correcting, the deer came by and 30 sec later 3 coyote came thru on the track giving mouth. So I'd assume nature is what makes dog bark when running. Happy hunting