Question of intellegence

[Chris Todd]

I know most of you guys have heard alot of the talk from puddle owners and the such talking about how smart fluffy is. And perhaps a feeling or commment on how dumb our poor hounds are. Well a couple days ago while trailing a big tom lion I saw a few things to make me think hounds arent as stupid as some would believe.
I was out with the hounds riding one of my trusty steads. We were crossing a real deep steep canyon. On the far side was a bluff just under the top of the rim.When I reached the top of the rim the hounds were under a cedar tree wiggling their tails trying to get scent off of 3-scratches. None of them opened. As I watched them my young Scout dog came over and was trying his best to get scent off the scrathes. As I watched him he started digging in one of the scratches. Then he would stick his nose in as deep as he could wiggling his tail. He never got enough scent to bark. But I got to thinking I had never seen a hound dig in lion scratches trying to get enough scent off them to open. I have seen several hounds lick rocks and brush to freshen a track. Then I thought maybe he was looking for some scat to eat. But each time he would dig a couple times he would stick his nose in and wiggle his tail trying to get enough scent to open. Was this a matter of a hound just copying what he had seen other hounds do cold trailing a lion. Like I say this was the first time I had ever seen a hound do this. Or is it that Scout who is just 11/2 years old was just smart enough to figure out that he might be able to get more scent out of these scratches by digging in them. Which just makes sense,that some urine might be present in the duff of a scratch.
Just down the rim of this canyon is a water hole. When the hounds got near the water hole they opened and fanned out around this water hole. I watched my little bluetick male Chester trail straight into the hole. I hurried in behind him to try and find a track. Sure enough he was on a big tom track that led directly to this water hole. Chester trailed around the water hole to the north side of it. He dropped into a little canyon and opened. The other hounds had found a good smelling spot on the south side of the tank. I was watching the other hounds and here comes Chester running. He wasnt barking till he got to the rest of the pack. Chester ran into the middle of the other four hounds. He barked twice and took off back toward the north side of the tank and the canyon he had just been in. The other four hounds followed him and when they hit the canyon they all opened. They trailed up out of this canyon and across a ridge. When I got in behind them on this ridge there was a scratch and we were on the right end of him. Did Chester come back to get the rest of the pack. Or did he come back and check them real quick and realize he had the right track. Chester has been top dog on more than one lion track, and doesnt need alot of help to catch a lion. And has plenty of confidence to go on and catch his own. The thing that really got me is that the other hounds never hesitated for a second to believe Chester.
Now there might be alot of different explanations for these expriences. But I like to think maybe our hounds arent as dumb as some would like to believe.

[tman308]

I would have to agree. I have some young pups that my older hounds won't pay attention to. They seem to know which dogs to trust and which dogs not to trust. I had this hound one time that would bark and trail just about anything after a while none of the hounds would honor her bark. Hounds are smart animals.

[1bludawg]

I've found that hounds are like people.Some are sharp as a tack and others are dumb as a rock.The smart ones make the best bobcat dogs.It's amazing to watch a good dog take a bad track that's been all over the country and work it up.Those kind have the brain power to get the job done !

[Mike Leonard]

Chris,

This is a great subject and just the kind of thing i like to discuss. I have seen hounds that would dig in scrapes too and occasionaly despending on the soil conditions I have seen them get down to a little cooler spot where some scent hung and they would open up. I had an old flag tailed blue female some years back named Belle, and she was an ace on scrape line trailing. Now let's say and old tom came thru maybe close to a week ago and with wind, dew, sun and such they trails is just gone. Well I am riding along on my horse and i hear old Belle down under a shelf, or below a big dead snag of a pine or maybe in a saddle and she opens up. I get over there and she is pawing up a scrape and working herself into a fever but she can't take it away from there. so get down and tie up and start looking around and I can tell by the way the scrape is laid and even some older ones that Mr. Tom is going say left to right so i fan out and find a track. I call her over and point it out to her well she beleives me but she can't smell it but she has her diection now and away she goes and she knows the kind of places that a tom will mark, and in a bit we repeat the process. Now many times this is just spitting into the wind and you ain't gonna catch a lion but on the other hand you never know and more than once I have caught a female coming into the scrape line at right angles checking on the tom's message box.

As to the barking that Chester did. I have seen some plumb blabber mouthed dogs be yipping and barking all over the place and about ready to make me pull what hair I got left out and the old hounds don't pay any attention to them at all. But all of a sudden let that blabber mouth actually cross a track line he or she can smell and boom all them other dogs will throw their heads up and come a runnin. they communicate in strange manners to us but they are listening and watching all the time, and they know the difference.

One time Jeff and I were setting on our horses watching a bunch of dogs trying to sort out a lose and there were some really top trailers in there and they were grinding on it, but it was getting worse not better. The ground was just hard as woodpecker lips and you couldn't see a track to save your hide. There was some fairly tall dead grass in one spot and all of a sudden i see old Gunner come jumping thru that grass back our way looking about like a dog trying to run a rabbit , but he wasn't saying anything. I looked over at Jeff and said what in the heck is that crazy old dog doing? He said just grinned and said he has got the track and we been going the wrong way. sure enough, it wasn't but a few seconds and them other dogs threw their heads up sort of looked around as if to say where did he go? then here they came and in a minute or two they hit hard going down the other way and we left out of there going the right way on it. How he figured it out I don't know but he seemed to be getting his message high up in that grass, and the other hounds just knew he wasn't just playing.

Interesting critters these hounds.

[Chris Todd]

Well Mike you know the old saying, Blood will tell. Chester is Gunners grandson.

[Mike Leonard]

Chris,

Old Gunner put more than just brains in them he put a ton of heart in those dogs. Gunner wasn't a big dog maybe 50 pounds in runing shape and looked just like a good looking square headed blanket backed walker dog. He wasn't registered but had a lot of the old Nance stock blood in him from a line that was kept in Southern Utah for a long time. He was a very kind dog and never had a growl in him but he would lock jaws with any lion and he was too gritty to last long as a bear dog because he had no fear in him. He had another trait that was almost his undoing several times. He thought he could fly. One time on the north fork of the Virgin River country he went off a terrible bluff after a lion and fell out of sight. No hound could survive that so he was left for dead. Somehow he must have bounced or landed a few times and then hit in the top of big tree, and catrwheeled to the ground but he did survive. Bruised and battered he climbed out of the canyon a day later and made it back to where the truck and trailer were parked. this taught him nothing and I had several other close calls with him. Once he had a giant Booner tom caught in the bluffs and they were nose to nose going at it and his 7 month old son Little blue was right beside him while the other dogs were cheerleading from a few yards back. As we approached the fight really got intense and the tom sucked the little pup in and went to work on him and Guner leaped on his head and the rodeo began. My son Scott and I just jumped into the frackus and I grabbed Blue away from him and I told Scott shoot! He did breaking his neck and killing him instantly but he sailed out into space off the ledge and right behind went old Gunner. I heard the thud of bodies hitting below and was afraid to look for a minute. when I did I saw the tom's still body laying down there and here was Guner dragging himself towards the tom with all the air knocked out of him. By the time we got around there and down to them he was pretty well recovered and still really worrying that lion trying to wake him up to fight some more. Manhy other similar stories with Gunner but up to his last day he was a lion hound from the ground up!

[Grzyadms4x4]

Sounds like a book could almost be written around that dog and his adventures!!

[Mike Leonard]

He was quite a character for sure. He was not the coldest nose hound I have seen but he was a smart track dog and he knew where to look for a track. He was hunted on bare ground most of the time I had him but on snow he made most lions look ridicoulsly easy and he was so flippin fast and could get thru the bluffs like a magician it was just duck soup for him. I had another half brother to him at the same time called Booger and he was a little colder nosed and a little faster on a jump track but he was lighter on the tree and although he was a good bay dog he wasn't going to get marked up. Between the two of them they had a knack for getting into those old hard spots where some of those old really big toms will lay up and they would find them. As GPS data has proven in the last years amny times these really big nomadic toms will take a big feed move on and then at times just find them a real bad hidey hold and they might pretty much just stay dormant for a number of days. These boys would root them out and of the 4 lions over 200 pounds I have taken they were on 3 of them. Unfortunatly time waits for none and these old hounds have gone to the happy hunting ground but their blood lives on and still runs in the veins of the hounds I have todays as well as Mr. Todd's fine pack of dry ground lion dogs.


There is a certain big sandstone point on a high mesa out in this country that is a special place to me and at times when i ride up there and tie my horse and walk over to a lone dead pine with an aged leather collar wrapped around one limb and listen real close I swear i can hear Old Gunner's ringing chop off in the distance telling me he has the biggest one ever waiting for me.

[sheimer]

This is a cool subject. One I like to read about. I have a female hound that's of unknown origin, yet does a respectable job. In years gone by she took a lion track backwards in the snow. She ran it like a champ, till there wasn't even a mark in the snow. I've doubted her ever since. She opens, I go check. Last winter though we were running a decent tom with a friend and his two dogs. My two and his two trail up a coulee and kind of get hung up. On the GPS I see her coming back down their track in and the other dogs still hung up. As I'm preparing to fry her for running a backtrack, we run the machines around to the road heading up the bottom of the coulee and see the tom track crossing it. While we were sitting there looking at the track, we check the GPS again and she's coming right at us. We can see the two dogs of my friend trailing up the coulee at the same time. I decided to walk up the hill to where the dogs got screwed up. When I walked in, I took the tom track on the way in. The tom had walked up the coulee and run headlong into another tom who was heading down the same coulee. When I got to the spot where the dogs got screwed up, it looked like a kill site. Upon further inspection, it was a fight between the two cats. Both ended up leaving the same way they came in. My dogs were on the original cat and the other two dogs were on the other cat. In the end, we caught both cats that day(and into the evening). The point of my story is her ability to reason what happened and turn around and trail out of that mess of cat tracks and hang onto the right track going the right way on it. Seems to me that it took more thought than smelling to figure it out. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what it seemed like that day. I lost a lot of doubt in her after that incident.

Scott

[Chris Todd]

Mike, when I asked Jeff about Gunner he described him almost to a tee as you do. He said he wasnt the coldest nosed hound but was super smart on a track, and could really catch the lion. My Misty, litter mate to your Little Blue was the same way. She thought she could go anywhere a lion went, and took a couple real bad falls. But the falls didnt kill her. She also was very gritty, and thought she could take any lion in a fight. I was hunting a few years back early in the fall. Instead of a lion track we struck the track of a large bear that wouldnt tree. Misty ran in and got hit breaking her hip. After a few operations and not ever able to keep her hip in place. I had to retire her at the age of 11.

[outlaw13]

.

[Mike Leonard]

Chris,

That old Blue dog even at this age will still dive right on a lion, he is 13 now and still thinks he is a pup. LOL!

[HJRL]

BAD NEWS FOR CHRIS AND ME, BLUE IS DEAD, HE WAS SICK , HE DIDNT EAT AND DIE YESTERDAY, HE WAS A VERY GOOD DOG, HE WAS WITH US IN 4 LIONS AND 2 JGS.CAN U SEND ME YOU PHINE CHRIS, MY EMAIL IS HRAMOS1612@HOTMAIL.COM

[Mike Leonard]

Hector and Chris very sad to hear about the loss of Blue he was a fine hound.
Mike

[Chris Todd]

Hector, I recieved your e-mail on Blue. He was another son of my old Scout dog. Old Scout went to the happy hunting ground this past Friday. I have 2-daughters and 1-son of his that I wouldnt take the world for.

Chris