What's the difference?

[Justin Ryder]

there is good stress and bad stress ... exposure and over exposure .... context means everything .

In order to hunt in rough weather , dogs have to live in rough weather ... it's the balance that Mother Nature demands of her subjects ... two dogs in a barrel = nice and toasty in about any winter except maybe something like -70 ... but guess what ? nobody hunts in that anyway !

A hunting dog gains nothing from being in the house ...let's get that dang straight ... he gains when the hunter is off the couch and in the woods ... if you are endorsing indoor living , you can't also be endorsing outdoor living at the same time ...

Everything needs to be stressed to stimulate growth and constitution ... that is as true as gravity ... heat , sun , wind ,rain , cold , etc ... in the context of what's liveable ... they harden dog and man .... and make you and your dog better .... to say house living makes you tougher ... no way ...

It's the difference between sympathy and empathy .. subjective and objective ....

[david]

Justin, please tell us about the hounds you raised and kept in the house as compared to the hounds you raised and kept outside. What differences did you notice between the two of the same breeding and same hunting opportunities? Which caught you the most game? Which showed the most intelligence, and stuff like that?

[al baldwin]

Some of the best hunters I ever knew kept there hounds in heated areas during the cold winter months, one of these used his hounds to earn his living. That hunter had a shed near his house with a wood stove, after a hard days hunt those hounds curled up near that stove to rest for the next days hunt. Keep your hounds as you please, but hard to convince me a hound that sleeps in a warm bed at night is going to under perform the next day. Have often read competition hunters have there hound sleep in the motel room so they can rest well for the next round of competition. Would think, when first place prize was a new truck those hunters would have that hound sleeping outside in a cold barrel if that was going to give them a better chance of winning. But, maybe, those hunters are making a mistake. Good hunting Al

[BrandonCombe]

Suppose we may have to agree to disagree seems it comes down to personal opinion. I my self will never make a habit of allowing my hounds to sleep in the HOUSE I do beleive it would be more of a shock for a hound that was use to sleeping in the house next to my fire place to stay out in the snow over night hounds like people nead to be acclimated I know when the weather starts getting hot and starts getting in to the 80's it seems real hot but later on when we are have 100 + degree days those 80° days sound pretty good but at the same time hunting a hound hard and then sleeping in the cold will wear down a hound as I have seen this first hand with a dog I had witch happend to be the best and hardest hunting hound ive owned the long nights hunting and sleeping in the cold realy wore him down and found d that kenneling the dog in the house for a couple 2 to 3 night in a row made a world of difference seemed to help pick is weight back up a fair amount in just a few days. just my experience, maybe all's good in moderaition? Im not sure just figured I'd add my 2 cents

[david]

Brandon, I like your post and here is why: You gave a personal preference, and then you stated the theory behind that preference. Then you gave an actual example of your experience. The example from your own life experience seems to contradict your theory a bit however. Your experience seems to say a dog under stress can benefit greatly by a few nights inside where he is not burning calories to keep himself warm. His actual health and performance appeared enhanced because of sleeping warm for a few days.

I like it when some one says something wont work, and then tells me they know it wont work because they tried it a bunch and it just never worked. If they tell me it wont work, but wont tell me about their experiences which led them to that belief it does not seem like a very strong argument to me.

I will tell you why I believe a hunting dog benefits from being raised in the house for at least a few months and then I will give you an example.

I think the reason the Miller brothers found that all the unbelievably good hounds were raised as family dogs has to do with mental stimulation. A puppy raised in a busy household, (including going with the family or individual when they leave home for whatever reason,) is getting mental stimulus every hour, every few minutes and sometimes non-stop. Some dogs raised this way actually learn the meaning of many words, and certainly learn the moods and tones of voice of it's people. Many dogs study the behavior of people and begin to anticipate what that behavior will be before it happens. They begin associations: when I see this happen, or this object come out, I know this other thing is about to happen, etc. I have seen dogs allowed to develop this aptitude who can just as effectively learn to predict a bobcats behavior, etc. This is an old and never ending discussion, but in my experience, the most amazing bobcat dogs were given mental stimulation often as pups.

OK, here is a story: The most hard to please houndsman I have been close to was Pat Melloy. He would buy dogs from John Wick from time to time, but John rather dreaded selling to Pat, because he was so hard to please and the dogs sometimes came back to John. I took one of them back to John myself.

John calls Pat about a red dog he wants out of his hunting/training territory. Pat is interested in the dog so John tries repeatedly to buy the dog for Pat, but Ranger's owner is not selling. Finally, a change in circumstances opens up Ranger to be bought. So John is sitting at the dinning room table at Ranger's house. Yes, Ranger is stretched out on the kitchen floor, just like he always is. His owner is spreading Peanut butter and jelly on some bread making a sandwich as he talks with John. He finishes making the Sandwich, and tosses it to Ranger who snaps it out of the air.

OK John is successful at buying the dog. And Pat gets his dog of a life time. Any one who has hunted with Pat knows he has owned quite a few "once in a life time" dogs. He usually has one, and if he does not have one at the moment, he is in the process of finding one. But Pat will tell you Ranger was by far the best dog he has ever owned.

Those who live in the north know that coon den up when the weather gets cold. There are many nights no one in their right mind would go coon hunting because there is to much snow and cold and the coon will not be moving. Well Pat decided he was going to prove something. So he hunts Ranger every single night until the coon hides start rubbing in late february. He caught coon every single night. Ranger would go as far as he had to go to get a coon found and treed. This was when coon were $50.00 each, and he was averaging 10 coon a night. Pat worked all day and hunted all night. He said he could not afford to sleep because every night of sleep cost him five hundred dollars. This was before tracking collars, and Ranger just had to be found out there some where treed. He might tree a lay up a few yards from where you let him go, or he might be across the river and five miles away, if that is how far he had to go to find a coon.

Here is a house dog who spent many a sub zero night in the woods. Near as I can tell being raised in the house didn't hurt him any. He would not hesitate to swim an ice choked river if it meant treeing a coon. Pat was as tough as they come and slept in a nice warm heated house when he did sleep. Not one day that season did it spoil him or cause him to shrink from a blizzard.

I know a guy who slept out in those sub zero nights for years with nothing but some canvas and a sleeping bag between him and the starry sky. He was no tougher than Pat who slept in a heated room and soft bed when he could get there.

[Justin Ryder]

A healthy hound out in the cold , is not himself cold .. but he is out there and is acclimated to it and far more prepared to also hunting in the cold .... same for heat , rain , often , etc.

For every way of doing something ... you can find successful and unsuccessful examples to try and justify , but that doesn't put it into real context and you can never judge hounds with control groups vs test groups ... we all should honestly be past trying to make that square peg fit into a round hole.

If you are a fair weather hunter , then you can have fair weather dogs and that's ok ... if you hunt hard and expect your dogs to hunt hard , then it is only fair to prepare them for it ... both are fine and neither need justification .

I'm fine with dogs in the house , it aint my house ... but I'm not fine with someone comparing a fair weather hound to a hardened hound .

[catdogs]

Exactly how cold does it get in Oklahoma anyway? I would bet you would play a different tune if you lived in the northern states.

[david]

I'm fine with dogs in the house , it aint my house

it's one thing to have a theory ... another to have experience.

I rest my case.

[Justin Ryder]

Every dog should have sufficient shelter .. if you live far enough north that doubling up dogs isn't enough or you need a fancy dog house then fine ... everything in it's place and people can be different and both be rigtht.

Point is ... dogs need stimulation and stress to react to in order to become tough ... if you don't want tough dogs then that's fine too ... but you can't have a tough dog unless he has been exposed to things that toughen him up ... there is a point where exposure becomes overexposure .... the discussion doesn't have to become a debate and then argument so that everyone is more worried about being right than talking dogs ....

Dogs that live in the house cannot possibly build up the resistance to elements and excersize that they aren't even exposed to .... and dogs that freeze to death are dead ... now that we have got that out of the way ... where is the middle ground for you and your needs ?

[Plowdog]

I actually have a dog that lives inside. I always said I wanted a good lion dog and make it a pet. Well believe it or not I own one. She stays in the house every day and night and is turning out to be one of the best dogs I have owned. She turned 3 in may and has been on 10 plus lions and is ready to hunt any time. She goes with me all the time and even rides inmy boat while I fish. I agree not every hound is capable of this but I have been blessed with a special dog.

[david]

I actually have a dog that lives inside. I always said I wanted a good lion dog and make it a pet. Well believe it or not I own one. She stays in the house every day and night and is turning out to be one of the best dogs I have owned. She turned 3 in may and has been on 10 plus lions and is ready to hunt any time. She goes with me all the time and even rides inmy boat while I fish. I agree not every hound is capable of this but I have been blessed with a special dog.

Plowdog, how do you know every hound is not capable of this. Have you tried it with other hounds and failed? If this is the first time you tried it then it has worked powerfully for one hundred percent of the dogs you have tried. Your failure rate is the same as someone who has never tried it: Zero Failures. Is she able to do this because she is a special dog, or is she a special dog because of the great amount of mental stimulation and constant interaction from being raised this way?

What has this done for the enjoyment level of your hunts? Less enjoyable now? Does you dog show signs of lacking drive or being too soft or shrinking from difficult situations or extreme weather conditions? Does she seem too tightly connected to you to do her job well? What are the disadvantages of raising a hunting dog this way? Advantages? What breed is your dog? I ask these questions seriously and hope that the original poster can better get his question answered. "Whats the difference?"

[dwalton]

David: You are giving people the biggest gift you could give them[ Thinking outside of the box] It is interesting as to what people know or at least think they know. Thanks for your commits and the way you explain things. Hope to see you at the gathering again this year. Dewey

[Jeff Eberle]

My lead female lives in the house sleeps in the bed. Now we don't have minus weather here so I wouldn't know if living inside has any effect on her that way. My young dogs have house time as well but sleep outside. I can tell you that the bond and trust that it has built with me and my dogs can not be matched. I hunt with a lot of different guys that all hunt with running dog crosses , NEVER have one of mine come up short or behind. At one time living on the ranch they hunted 5 to 6 nights a week and slept in the cabin every night. The only draw back that I can see is with the family if Heaven forbid one of them does not make it home alive one day.

[BrandonCombe]

David. As for my previous post being contradicting yes it is just that I was trying to get acrost the hole moderation thing and that I beleive when it comes to prefurence there is no wrong answere I see exactly were you are coming from as hounds can be great hound in the house or in the kennel as I have seen both I have a budy who for one reason or another may it be lack of space or that he has moved a fair amount in the last few years but he seems to always have his new pups in the house for the first few months he always seems to make exceptional pups some of the best in the area now that could be do to the exposure like you stated in your previous post or that he is just one of those guys that seems to excel at consistantly making above average hounds I can not say for sure, but at the same time I see were justin Ryder is coming from as I do beleive that a dog that is acclimated to the cold will be able to hold up better in the cold than a dog that is not acclimated I am assuming that we can all agree on that as people are the same way but as justin Ryder stated there is exposure and there is over exposure and a dog use to the cold can still freeze to death i uave seen valid points from both sides so I gues to rap up my endless rambling my point is a dog will adapt that is nature do what you find works for you weather that is hounds in the house or in the kennel as I beleive thwre is enuff proof to say that great hounds can be made regardless of were they sleep if a guy puts in the work and as for witch is better for the dog I woll let you decide that for your selves and mine will continue to sleep in there kennel for no other reason than that being what I prefure

[john porter]

Guess this redbone is worthless because he sleeps inside everyday and has since he was 11 weeks...