treeing walker for fox

[flyingfinn]

I would like to hear experiences about using treeing walkers in fox hunting.
Edit. What I'm trying to solve I'm my head is treeing hounds generally comparing to running ones.

[david]

In general, my advice is to use fox bred dogs for red fox. Most of the tree hounds were developed for game that does not run as long or as fast as a red fox. Because of this; conformation, stamina, and ability to recover were never tested fully. Conformation got very sloppy compared to the fox bred hounds.

There are tree bred hounds that can look good in a pack of fox hounds for the first hour or two, and some even for the first day or two or three. But, in general terms, they do not hold up as well. And there are dogs that make amazing coon dogs that will not be able to keep up with a fox pack even for the first twenty minutes.

There are a lot of dogs that have some treeing walker blood that are used for gray fox. But most are not pure bred treeing walker.

[Irish Jack]

It might be a good idea for you to express what "FOX HUNTNG" is to you.

I have raised running dogs for 25 years and was lucky enough to hunt and stay with some of the finest hound breeder's/hunters all over the country.

So to start off, Fox Hunting may mean something different to different people, what I mean by that is your objective to - harvest fox with a gun, like running rabbits with a beagle
Are you running at night where a long houred dog is important (lots of bottom) such as many of the southern gentle keep. Many of them live for who has the lead at day break,

You mentioned in a previous post hunting many different types of game, and that trigs were of interest. Was this for their locating ability? RED or GRAY FOX

Also in a previous post you talk about entering field trials, If you could explain what that entails there ......how long do they run.....how close do YOU think a dog should run a track. are these a two or three day event such as our western derby.

More to the point of treeing vs Running hound, While there are physical differences most of what makes a running dog fast is between his ears. With that said Generally speaking most fox hound men value steady over a wide swinging hound.
These are some talking points for you or others to comment on, once you narrow down what you think you like, there are other points of discussion if you need them.
Hope this helps you in your decision making.

Jack

[flyingfinn]

What i see is fox hunting and also we hunt all other game the same way:
When the land is "dark" that means there's no snow. The dog has to drift and seek for fox trail. Trail might be old or fresh but it cant make any differ, dog has to be able to put the fox up and running. then run it, its hard to say how close but i believe you understand when i say the game should get some pressure. That is the time when we try get to good spots to shoot. Hound should be able to drive its game some times many many hours, i would say maximum 90 kilometers. main thing for good foxhound is to find its own game and chase it swimmingly.
Especially when the season starts there's a lot of young foxes which goes usually ground holes, it would be desirable if the hound stays and marks the hole. then we get terriers to work.
when there's snow on the round we can put the hound straight to trail.
In my experience triggs have been a little hotter for the game and they've also been into bear here in Finland. Also i was adviced to search for good trigg line from US.
But what i've learned in this short time of reading from foxhounds here, that there are many lines bred for different game, it doesn't matter so much what the hounds line is called. But still i'm starting to lean more and more to fox bred walkers.
But back to hounds abilities. it's good to run head up but also have to be cold nosed enough to figure out sometimes long night trail. (about 3-5km)

hound should be able to hunt at least 2 days in row. Of course depending the how long does the hunt lasts. But normal 60km days.

The field trail follows a lot of this hunting, when you have hound that have these abilites what i've said here, it catches good result in field trial.
it's one day hunt.

Raccoondog in autumn is usually on surface and is easy catch. but in the spring time trails usually lead to ground holes. then the hound should mark the hole.
Lynx hunting is about same as fox but ends up to tree usually, and then of course the hound must locate it.

I dont say anything about bear hunting here cause i dont hunt it.

Im speaking fo red fox hunting because it' the only kind of fox we have.
Hopefully this writing makes any sense.

[david]

Wow that is a great description. I can think of people who should respond.

Marking the hole and locating in a tree and marking it are two traits that have been culled for at different places and times in the history of the fox hound. As has the trait of staying with the animal once it stops on the ground (culled for this). And in fact, foxhounds who actually CATCH the game can be BANNED from competing.

There are walker foxhound people who LIKE those traits though and consider them in breeding choices; people like Perk on here.

The right treeing walkers have been known to stay at game trees barking for over; well over twelve hours. They can be very persistant with marking holes also, although some people have broken them from holes. Treeing Walkers have largely been bred for independence. I have had an eight month old pup that would hold a tree for hours while other dogs are chasing stuff all around her. This independence sometimes means they won’t harken to other dogs when you wish they would.

These traits can be found in well balanced, fast, hard driving, tight to the track Treeing Walkers. If it is not a balanced dog you will be walking to empty trees, however. And I already mentioned other disadvantages. But the right pre-potent walker as an outcross could definitely bring as much desire as any dog has, and the marking of trees and holes like you may have never seen before.

I am not saying you should get one.
For myself, I wouldn’t for bobcats or fox. [Well I might if It was the only hound left on earth]. For me, the disadvantages have outweighed the advantages. But I would certainly consider the right Treeing Walker as an outcross to try and gain or strengthen traits I needed.

[flyingfinn]

Well that sounds pretty pretty (beep) up to my ear.

I've talked with perk here, and i'm lucky that he is willing to help in finding the right hounds.
It's just hard to find a good hound cause they have to be registered.
Even it could be great to cross them for those traits, it's not worth to bring unregistered hound from so far.
I believe when you say that treeing hounds don't match to running ones in red fox hunting. Even the name tells that.

And thanks, this clears my head.

[Beastmode]

[flyingfinn]

Of course the dogs has be kept in good shape. But there's always desire to find the best hound for the job.
The question here might be that if treeing hounds are able to keep the fox running and pressured long enough.. I had few years ago one plott and it had a good chase for a while but the speed just dropped too much during long hunts.

But that dog teared it's way trough anything if there was a critter hiding in a hole.

[Andyva]

This is why houndsmen have packs of hounds. The strengths of one overshadow the weaknesses of the other. They might all be the same breed, different breeds, but putting together the pack relies on picking the strengths and weaknesses and pairing them accordingly. Hard to find it all in one dog, and if you do, there is a cement truck just around the corner waiting for him. You will get no longer hours than in a competition bred running walker, but he might not be the greatest jump dog when they fed early and laid up, and he might not stay at a hole for very long. Coon or big game bred tree stock could make a start dog, pull him out when he gets behind and dump him back in after he has had a rest. Slow dog makes for a slow race. If it weren't so you could never kill a deer in front of slow beagles. Game pushed by slow dogs often doesn't make as wide of a loop, until you start shooting. For catch and stretch, fast can help, for run and gun fast is often a liability.

[Andyva]

[SASS]

Great posts Andyva I enjoyed reading them.

[macedonia mule man]

Andy, people of today don't realize that the dog we use foe enjoyment today were dog od necessity back in the day.

[Andyva]

Well on the necessity thing, I think a lot of the people that found it necessary to kill game with dogs to be able to eat weren't in a position to travel long distances to buy dogs, didn't have money to buy dogs, and couldn't invest much into any kind of breeding program. The various cur breeders of today have spent a great deal of effort promoting the cur dogs as being pure as the driven snow, bred with a purpose in mind carefully selected and bred for centuries. That might all be so, but my guess is that whenever a farm shepherd had a litter of puppies by the rich guy down the road's foxhound that wandered through, the ones that could grub out a possum track and bark up a bush at it got some chicken bones and cornbread crumbs. People traveling around trying to grow corn on a mountainside to struggle to feed one milk cow, four chickens, two hogs and sixteen kids through the winter, and trying not to die from some kind of fever PROBABLY weren't in the position to have extensive kennels where planned matings and such were possible. And you know that everyone with dogs running loose breeding at random wanted the exact same thing out of a dog, just like today.

It wasn't necessary to have good foxhounds, but according to history, it would help your career a lot. If you wanted people to take you seriously in business or politics back in the 17 to 1800's, it was better to have a good pack of foxhounds. People with money had foxhounds, foxhounds were imported, and foxhounds were bred on a big scale. All of today's coonhounds started as foxhounds. Seems that a lot of people have forgotten that.

The Plott people get all patriotic over their dogs. The Plott's came from one tiny little area that was too steep to cut every living tree to the ground. They could have cut them, sixteen kids taking turns with a crosscut saw can do a lot, but it wasn't practical, too far away from coal to be used as timbers, not enough valuable ore to smelt, or too far away from a river to get it out once it was smelted. So they still had bear, there and the other handful of places in the east that wasn't cut, burned and plowed. Had to be steep, swampy, or have no mineral deposits. They even cut the den trees in most places, to see if they could get a log. If it was hollow all the way through, they took the tan-bark and left it, not much good for coons but the fox loved it.

So the story goes, a german gamekeeper rolled off the boat and settled with five dogs, and there hasn't been an outcross made in centuries. How many people have heard of a Calhoun foxhound? They came from pretty close to where the plotts originated. All black most of them. How many people have seen a brindle July? I've seen some big arguments among July breeders and people accusing them of crossing to plotts. Old July got bred to a lot of gyps, maybe one of them came from germany, who knows, but the brindle gene is there, and it's been there for a very long time. Could be the chicken/egg argument.

For that matter there are a lot of leopard spotted Julys, and Goodman's will come leopard spotted and glass eyed sometimes. The point I am trying to make, of the hound and cur breeds in this country today, if they didn't come from foxhound stock, they missed a lot of darn good opportunities, seeing as how the vast majority of canine genetic material available at the time all this took place was bred to run fox, and most of the area this took place in was devoid of any kind of suitable habitat for tree game, but ideal for fox.

[Andyva]

I had a point that pertained to the original post, I promise. Got sidetracked.

The Treeing Walker was once, in the 1850's up until maybe the 1950's. a fox dog. From a a fox hunter's perspective, for the dog to be suitable for possum, coon and other game so unsporting as to need to take refuge in a tree, it needed to devolve a bit. From a coon hunter's perspective it evolved though.

Random, off the shelf treeing walker hound today is probably going to not have enough hours to do what you want. You might hunt for just the right bloodline that will do it for you, the "big game bred" walkers are supposed to have more hours on them, but you get into some of that stuff they better have more hours, because they will take a whole lot colder track, and give a lot more voice on a track that is going to take a long time to result in game that is jumped from it's bed. Worse case scenario is that you have a dog that has so much tree bred into it, it goes on a very long race, gets really deep in the woods, and for whatever reason decides to tree on a tree that has no game in it, and you have to walk in to get it.

A lot of your modern field trialing fox walkers are going to have so little tree in them, if you want a dog to mark a hole for terrier work, it might be hard to find that model. They are out there, people have them. There are triggs that tree I've been told. There is a difference too in treeing a fox just out of reach in a pine tree and staying there because all of it's buddies are there looking at and barking at the fox, and a dog by itself that goes to the last place it has scent and stays there and barks every breath until you get there, no matter how long it takes you. I have heard that the Croghan line of walkers has more bay and stay than some of the other lines. I've also heard that that is because of a tree dog outcross at some point.

I suppose to get a dog with more bottom or hours than a treeing walker, and more speed, and more stay on stopped, holed or treed game, you could either cross or run a mixed pack. There are some bear hunters that are doing good with the cross option and some cat hunters too.

I run coyotes. I could use more bay and stay than what I have, but in some of the country I hunt, it's nice to have dogs that I don't have to worry about messing around at a hole too long. Too much no man's land, either too deep, too steep, or has hostile inhabitants.

[Irish Jack]

flyingfinn

If I were you I would read and reread what Andyva posted and then reread, it will save you years (20 plus) if you can understand what he said.

In his response are many points I had hoped would come up for discussion here, and frankly had about given up hope of any meaningful content.

I don't want to comment on everything and confuse what has been said, but would like to add that there are full running dogs that locate......when hunted properly. In his post he stated that when hunting more than one hound they compensate for each other, and I would add that when talking about a full running dog that LOCATES and trees while it comes 100% natural for some I believe it is drawn out or learned by many,(if hunted properly) meaning if a pup is started and run with my dogs he has a very good chance, but if he were to be run with dogs that do not check pipes dozer piles and such, and they just swing and look for the next track, it is less likely.

Jack