Making a loss

[1whitedog]

Interested in what people's opinions are on hounds/dogs over running tracks or "making a loss" are on the different species they hunt and how that affects results. What level is acceptable etc?

[Twopipe]

Are you talking about while cold trailing or on a jumped track? Any hound moving a track faster than a walk is going to over run it when the game turns, it’s just a matter of how long does it take to pick up the loss. A pack of dogs that work well together and honor each other will be able to pick up losses faster and keep the pressure on the game better than a single dog. I have seen some dogs that were so good at picking up losses it was almost like they never made one. In my experience a loss of more than 30 seconds can give a bobcat the edge it needs to get away. As in all hound hunting that certainly is not a hard rule. Now that’s on a jumped track. On a cold trail I can have more patience on a loss. Hounds that can drift a track will pick up a loss quicker that a track straddler.

[lawdawgharris]

I agree Twopipe. I also think tracks get over ran by the harder track driving dogs or faster tracking dogs more than the slower ones. They know when they’ve over ran it or lost it and should have the ability to pick it back up pretty quick. To me environmental conditions and terrain can have a huge baring on a loss, maybe the biggest impact. If it’s really dry and windy and they have to track across open ground or something like that, then it can slow them way down and make it hard to pick up a loss, even if it’s fresh. I know we have places here that the briars are so thick that you can’t see a hog buried up in them that’s literally laying at your feet. When they get in cover that thick it can make it really hard to smell. Lots of dogs will make a loss in this circumstance. Sometimes the hog will go out the other side and a smart dog will pick the out track up and drive on. My dogs do this regularly and if they don’t find an out track then they start navigating through the briars. This very thing happened to us two days ago. Ava was baying 6 feet from me and I couldn’t see the hog. I sent my catchdog and when he went in he had to look for the hog. He passed in front of the hog not being able to see him and the hog exploded into him broad side and left. We bayed and caught him 350 yards later. I think the cats that get up in the rocks do the same thing to those hounds. It’s like they were there and just vanish like the hogs in the briars. I’ve also seen hogs hit water and never leave it. One old sow got in a stock tank and swam over under some brush that was hanging out in it. She literally had just the end of her nose sticking out of the water. We probably wouldn’t have caught her if we hadn’t seen her do it. It was young fogs on her and they were just starting to give up when we made her move for them. They trailed up to where she went in, circled looking for an out track, and even went down to water in the brush where she was but couldn’t see her. That was neat. So those are my opinions and to me acceptable almost has to be a case by case basis.


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[macedonia mule man]

Law, I’ve always wondered how a dog can lose a hog track, I guess a hog, bear and rank cayote leaves scent that my nose can smell. Do they lose scent or just realize they are out run and sstop looking as hard. A loss to me is when the animal can’t mover any further and there is no proof of where it went. A check is an overrun or direction change by the animal that brakes the race for a few seconds to a few minutes but does eventually gets moved out. When you have dogs that can stick their nose in a dusty gravel road, hold their head up 6-8 inches off the ground in a thicket and then pick their head up to shoulder high in fairly open woods. I’ve found they can move a check. Dogs that work a check from inside to outside will keep a race going. They have to get back to the last scent spot and start from there. If a dog has a good winding nose and just drifts down through the woods in any general direction off a check is less likely to move it out. I’ve had dogs like that but they usually picked up to far for the other dogs get back to them or bumped another piece of game.

[lawdawgharris]

I’ve heard people say that it was like a bobcat could just vanish like they turned their scent off. It’s no secret that a big ole boar hog or a big ole bear is going to have a lot more trouble disappearing than something like a bobcat. Making a loss to me can and is final a lot of times. I don’t think it’s absolutely a staple though. If it takes more than a few seconds to pick back up then I consider it a loss. I’ve had it take 30-45 min to find hogs that ducked out into big really thick briars thickets. I remember earlier this year we caught a boar that weighed 285. He did that very thing. The dogs just kept on digging and grubbing until they found him again. The garmin screen was nearly completely colored in in that area. Yes they thought they knew he was in there and he was, but I consider that a loss because in my opinion they weren’t moving a track. It was more looking under every leaf because his scent wasn’t able to escape. It wasn’t like he took a game or cattle trail into it. He lowered his head plowed through. Once he’s out in it deep enough it’s like he vanished.


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[macedonia mule man]

Law, had a customer come in for some garden seed and we started talking hunting bobcat. He and his cousins were his dad (find) dogs they each had a persimmon walking stick about 6 ft long. When the dogs made an out in a terrible thick place and couldn’t move it out, their job was to start through beating on bushed and making noise to get the race going again. He said a cat would lay down beside a log,stump or just ball up in a patch of grass till something stepped on it. It’s not possible for anything to shut its scent off. Every thing has a scent before birth until after well after death. Being able to shut its scent off is shade tree dog talk.

[lawdawgharris]

Lol yeah I realize it’s an expression. It can sure seem that way though at times. It’s funny you give that example about them beating the brush literally. I have done it myself and I have driven the hunting buggy right up on top of all that stuff for several passes. We caught a boar the other day because it was so thick that he couldn’t run off. I got down low and all I could see was about bottom third of the hog and dogs. He heard the catch dog coming and tried to break. He was literally getting hung up and tripping which got him caught 5 foot from where he was bayed. It’s amazing to me how animals understand how to use cover, be it vegetation, water, rock, etc. to shake predators. Dogs working and figuring these things out is exactly what my biggest pleasure is in hunting dogs.


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[Twopipe]

When “helping” dogs pick up a loss you know where the cat is not and it’s general direction of travel and when you head in that direction the dogs may then pick up the loss. But if the cat is hunkered down at the original place of loss, having a human stopping and starting in that area may make it lose its nerve and break cover and then the race will be on. After doing that a time or two smart dogs will begin doing that on their own. And the really genetically blessed dogs will push through the bad spots in a track naturally and come up with the game.

[lawdawgharris]

I totally agree Twopipe


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[1whitedog]

Was speaking in regards to a jumped track. Have been getting around watching other dogs work on all types of game. Have been surprised the amount of losses their dogs are making and people are accepting as good enough especially on coyotes and jumped bear tracks. No coralation to speed in my observation, slow dogs just as guilty as far dogs. Cant positively effect amount of game caught.

[bowieknife50]

How long of a time period are you considering a loss? As in overrun one corner and make it back to the track on the first loop is a loss? Or a loss where everybody stops and takes 5 minutes to figure it out loss? Our bear dogs will overrun a corner and lip right back on to it a fair amount but never seems to cost us much. If we're going to get out run it's because it gets hot or bear is small and fast, not because they miss a turn quick. I guess the one exception is when it takes them a few minutes to figure out they have to cross the bigger rivers. Gives the bear a breather and basically like starting a whole new race.

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[1whitedog]

I would give a dog a swing or a loop to get a tight cornering bear lined out. Anything more than that I would consider a loss.

[Ross Seiler]

Making a lose while trailing is for the most part guaranteed. It might last a second or it could take a bit for a dog to work it out. That's one of the most fun parts about dry ground lions, working with the dogs to help them figure out a lose. Once something is jumped there's still a chance for a lose, but depending on species and terrain it just depends on how long it takes. Dogs that run a bear hard with their head up run a chance of drifting a little too hard out. Some dogs get good and lucky at swinging way around and cutting tracks off, but sometimes they miss and get thrown out. Dogs can get bluffed out,good ones will travel as far as they need to get back around and get back on the track. I guess I always just figured losses are something that just happen at any point. It's the dogs with natural ability, and experience from age that figure things out fast that make the the losses seem small or like they never happened.