The sight trailing hound

[Mike Leonard]

This was brought up in another thread so I thought we might kick it around a bit.

I think any smart hound that is hunted in snow a bit will learn to do some sight trailing and will seek out holes in the snow and smell of them or run on them.

This can be a double edged sword in my opinion. Here's why I say this.

Scenario one: Your are driving down the road pretty good fresh snow but cold. You cross a good clean bobcat track crossing. You get the dogs out, and they can't smell a thing in the tracks. Well old sight trailer, sticks his nose in it, enough to say ok it's a cat. and barks and heads downt eh clean track line barking and bringing the other dogs along. Well things go right and the track warms up and sight trailer gets more scent and others too and they tree it. Good deal for sigh trailer.

Scenario two: Sight trailer and another dog head down a line of cougar tracks and they keep it going even though pretty old track for a long time. Later on you get to a place where the cougar or cougars rambled around in the rocks going this way and that way, and making lots of tracks. Maybe even a bit older track from another lion going the other way. Sight trailer is still not really getting much if any scent, and the other dogs is listening to sight trailer who is happly barking each time it sees and there track ahead of it and moves along. Ok things go to crap. Snow melts, cats hit rocks and rims for a bit, and no more holes in the snow to follow. Sight trailer shuts up and run around in circles, oh theres a track even though older and going the other way or maybe even backtrailing it, but it is a hole in the snow and has enough scent to say it was a cougar that made it. Owk! Owk! away goes sight trailer on another line of tracks bringing the me toos along and they head off in another direction completly losing the original lion that may have been a day fresher track.
this is where a dog that relies on sight trailing to much can really mess up you hunt. better to have a dog that gets the indication to start the track maybe by the sight of the track but then follows using the nose as the primary sense. this way they lock onto that particular lion's scent ( and yes to a hound different lions do smell different), and it stays doggedly hounding down that particular critter. this is the reason bloodhound could trail a particular human thru a crowd of hundreds. By sight on a crowded snow covered football field a top bloodhound would still find the person. Old sight trailer would be spinning in circles.

Your thoughts please.

[Budd Denny]

I have a 6 year old dog that I'm getting rid of now because he is a site trailer. I have caught several bobcat with him and it impresses me that he is smart enough to site trail until he can smell the track but you have to have fresh snow that is not tracked up in order to run him, and I don't want to feed a dog that I cant start a cat with in any snow condition. If he never had so much drive and wasn't a decent bear dog I would cull him.
I don't mind a dog that will site trail in open country then be smart enough and nose enough to put his head down in heavy or rough country and run by scent. If a hound can't do that I won't own him. I beleave these are the two types of dogs you are talking about and by eliminating the first dog you should have your problim solved. I guess it's up to you if you want feed and deal with the problims of the first dog, I don't. I would rather own and follow the second hound.

[R Severe]

Mike
Do you train your dogs to stay on the track started like the man trailers do?

[dgarrett]

I think you have to take the good with the bad when it comes to hounds. It all comes down to what the houndman will put up with. In your senerios both these types of hounds shine at differnt times and catch the game that the others wont work. Theres no such thing as a perfect hound. Each kind will work better then the other depending on conditions. We hunt snow and even very young pups quickly learn to start hunting dimples in the snow. Most wont open without scent unless they havent been run much and are just lying to get a run in. If the dogs are run down from hard hunting there not much into BSing you as to how much scent they get from a track. I believe the most consistant dog does both sight runs and just checks for scent here and there. No doubt dogs are capable of telling the scent difference between each cat or coon and it does tend to P.O. a person when ya turn loose on a tom and they switch tracks and ya end up with a female or when they take an older track when they get rocked out ect. Big Game guys tend to pack train and dont strive to make there hounds indepent so when one dog takes a diffent track and all the others follow is it some of the training methods that cause this? Even when ya end up with (senerio 2) its a better day then leaving the dogs in the box. At least they get out. People that have that old special dog that consistantly outshines all the other dogs by putting up the majority of cats ya turn them loose on no matter what the track conditions are usually great sight runners that keep checking for scent every 5 or 6 steps. These dogs run tracks other dogs cant even smell and seem to be able to have a lion treed at the end. Why?? They sight run till they can freshen it up then sight run and scent run till they catch it. A dog that just relies on scent is usally a slow trailing track straddler. They can tree there share of game but lots of times its 3 ridges further away then a dog that sight runs and just dips here and there to confirm he or she has the scent. So i guess id just soon have a dog that does both equally well. DG

[Mike Leonard]

Excellent feedback and very interesting.

On training my hounds like a bloodhound not to switch tracks. No I don't train them with most tree dogs strains that is the product of breeding. It can be encouraged but it has to be in there to come out. Many of the old timers liked to put that shot of bloodhound in their breeding to help it come out in the mix.

I truely agree that a combination is the best. Here is what i would like to order if I could.

I want that dog to be able to start an extreemly cold track on dirt or bad snow and ice and take it by scent, and stay with it. I also want that dog to take those cold snow tracks and smell them bawl, and start down them checking as you said every little bit on the scent, and if it runs out of track I want it to work it's behind off to find that scent he was verifying every so often again and move it ouit if he can tracks or no tracks. I want this dog to move his head up as the scent gets better and start to drift that scent channel all he can till he is flying and may be 30 feet off to the side of the track line running on airborne and scurff scent. I want him to go back to the ground if it gets tuff again and pound it out. I 3want him to fly on the jump, come into the tree locating and stay put and bark till I get there.

Ofcourse I want a lot of things that I don't always get, hound hunting and training ain't excactly like Burger King, but heck it don't hurt to dream a little does it? LOL!

[R Severe]

Good stuff, D & Mike. Mike, if you ever find the hound burger king let me know, I wanna get in line right behind you

[diego25Jaramillo]

Yea I think a combination of both scent and sight trailing is a good thing. I have one dog that will do both. She will scent trail when other tracks are present or when it heats up enough. She will sight trail on a track till the track starts crossing other track(elk and deer) then she moves into scent trail mode. Dogs that strictly scent trail take a long time to move a track because they have to smell every track in the forest. just my opinion