Plott1357 wrote:OK I'll watch my mouth any suggestions on these one year olds
Ya. listen to what these guys are telling you and stop with the drags and cage game. The way you said you are laying your drags you are teaching them to run backwards . Spend the rest of the summer getting control of your dogs.
Get them on good game. Don't be trying to break them until they know what there supposed to be running. Maybe get rid of one of the year olds and look for a pup trainer. If that's not possible work on getting a handle on them and take them coon hunting. Coon hunting is probably the easiest way to get them trailing and treeing. Or run Rabbits with them. How many Lions have they been on? If there Lion crazy...
You got a lot of good advice. If you will go back and really study this thread and the four threads I posted links to at the beginning, you will do fine.
Some of the advice is conflicting, so you can learn from that also. There are as many ways to train as there are trainers and many of them will train each dog somewhat differently depending on each dogs personality and gifting. Watch your dogs and learn from them. If your puppy is frustrating you by not performing like an adult dog, he is telling you he is not an adult dog. Leave him home awhile or whatever, let him play and grow up. leave him in the box listening to the other dogs to increase his desire. A couple of my best dogs frustrated me so much that I put them on the shelf for a couple months. Just fed and cared for them but did no training at all. I don't know if that is why they turned out so fabulous, but it sure didn't hurt them. (And I was about to. I needed it if they didn't.)
Your dogs are lucky to belong to you. I wish every dog had as much chance as you will give yours. You will make mistakes. I made a mistake today with my pup. But I bet yours and mine both will rise above our mistakes. I bet you will have some awesome dogs.
My advice is to work with each dog alone out in the woods. This is because of the comment you made about them running off 2 miles chasing who knows what...(personally I would suspect deer). You need to nip that in the bud, but you don't want to come down too hard on them before they are treeing target animals. So it will be better to set them up to succeed by hunting one at a time so you can control them better.
Once they each tree a coon then you can put them back together. This will also help you find out if they are all going to make it...
So I took them out tonight on a spot that I know there's coons in fact right on the other side of public there were three coons sitting in sombodys yard. I dumped them on the river and they took off I just let them run they were both trailing something prob a deer saw it on the GPS they were both running together for awhile I left that 6 month old on the box and as soon as he could here the other dogs opening he was bawling like no body's business on the box I let them run and they both came back to the truck. I think I'm gonna upgrade to the alpha tracking system so I can attempt to break this deer problem. And they have both been on two lions with older dogs. They treed like no body's business and as soon as it was shot out they started chewing. Any suggestions on deer breaking. I have dumped them on hot deer tracks and they won't do anything but they know better. They have been shocked hard on a fresh killed deer and when they have started trailing but it seems like if there in the woods by them selves they forget everything. There gonna be dam good dogs I know they are just need some guidance. I let that pup off the box and run with one of the older ones(mostly because he took a big fat stinky shit on the box) and he stuck with that older dog farther then he ever has. Those older dogs will trail and tree I don't think that's there problem think I need to work on the deer issue
Deer breaking is so easy these days its not really worth worrying about. Take them hunting and when you see deer in front of them zing them. I kinda turn my dial up and hit it. If they don't stop I turn it a bit more. Most dogs don't need fried at the highest level. Don't get upset if it takes a little hunt out of them for awhile. That's perfectly natural and all part of hunting young dogs. They will come out of that in time. My 3 young dogs right now are not running deer anymore and they are going hunting just fine but if deer get up in front of them or they are out there they come back to the truck instead of hunting through the deer. Its annoying but again all part of it. All 3 of them are under 16 months of age and they have been on a lot of game. 2 of them were started with just each other for the most part. None of them have ever seen a caged animal, a trapped animal, or been on any sorta drag.
So what do I do when there just running in the woods hunting. Let um do it until I know for sure what they are on? And should I just let that 6month old run with um if he wants not push him but let him do his thing
Absolutely! That's how they learn to "hunt" and eventually learn how to look for and jump game. Its not your job to do that stuff for em really. I have had whole litters in the woods very young just lettin em be dogs. I watched 2 4-5 month old gyps one time run a coyote. It was hilarious. Grant it they didn't run it for over 5-10 minutes but I seen the coyote several times and it had a very puzzled look on its face.
I can see that for coon hunting but is it the same for lions. I would like them to hunt coons in the off season but will them looking for coons screw um up.
Let me rephrase my last comment and tell u my plan and tell me if I'm wrong. Instead of running these drags any more I'm gonna take my dogs to spots where I know there is a lot of coons and run them till they tree a coon or a bear when they do that I'll take them to where I know there might be some cats and run them there. With that 6 month old I'll let him run and do whatever he wants for now. Should I skip the coons and go to where there might be cats. We don't have a huge mtn lion population here we have a lot but not a shit tonight
Just get them on good game walk the creek beds for coons at night look for lions during the day. Just work on handling no need to fry them for running off game just a quick bump and a holler just enough to stop them. Don't get grumpy when they come back to you just keep on a hunting and having fun with them.
Your area is different granted. But here's a similarity. I like running bobcat. Maybe its part of my problem. But any area usually has more bobcat then lion and if your dogs are hunting bobcat or coon they aren't running a lion. There's really only two reasons this causes me issues. First bobcat don't pay for dog food or gas in my area and second they are usually in slightly different habitat in a given area here. It takes a little while for the dogs to figure this out. Maybe I haven't seen good hounds but I haven't ever seen a six month to year old dog that has enough tools to catch either species here well enough to get on them. I have seen it other places where catching lion isn't any harder then trailing a old feeding coon track. Either way more time they spend hunting a preferred species the better they get. But it sounds to me like you need to stop hyping the pups up and start dialing them down. I know plenty of dogs catch game that are dumped from the truck and picked up at the tree. They also provide some spectacular trash races. You don't have a start dog so that method is even less likely to work out. The line between independent hunters and runaway wreck is slight at that age but you know they'll go now you just need them to understand they are hunting what you want for you. Or that things get uncomfortable.
Treeing is my pet peeve so I won't go on about it just remember most of any hunt is trailing game not treeing.
merlo_105 wrote:no need to fry them for running off game just a quick bump and a holler just enough to stop them. Don't get grumpy when they come back to you just keep on a hunting and having fun with them.
This is very important. Don't even act like you know what happened. When I first bump my dogs off deer if they come runnin back to the truck I might even kinda laugh with them and say shit like, "What the heck happened out there? That shit sux don't it?" But in a funny kinda tone so they don't think I'm all that crazy mad at em.
Actually I have found since I started using a shock collar in my early 20s my angry days and nights have gone away. I never get mad anymore.
So here's the latest and greatest caught a coon this morning and wraped it up in a tarp and put it in my back seat so the dogs didn't know I had it. Got it wet and let it go it went about 10 feet and tried to tree so I knocked it out and continued to chase it till it was a good distance away. I waited a couple min dogs had no idea the coon was there . when I was chasing the coon it kept hoping on trees and back tracking till it got across the rd then it was a steady deal. My dogs had a hard time on that side of the rd but I helped them and got um on this side of the rd and waited. My black and tan started barking tree and next thing u know my plott started treeing. The blue tick really went out and searched for a track he is ranging a lot farther. I got up to the tree and wouldent u know there's a bandit sitting in the top of the tree
