JTG wrote:The last of my cat hounds,of this . This picture is several years old now. My friends and family had this line for over 100 years.
JTG wrote:Thanks, I was thinking the same about yours, I like him. Mine in the picture has redbone, bloodhound, bluetick, running hound, cur and who knows what else.
Kevin Jackson wrote:JTG, that's a sharp looking hound...
JTG, I am very curious about your family line that is gone now. What where their traits? Lion only, or bobcat dogs? How and why are they gone now? What do you know of their history, like with who and How were they developed. What part of the country were they hunted in?
That dog looks like a clone of a dog I got to know a little hunting and staying with a good bobcat hunter in the Northwest; Last name of Walton. As I understand it that dog had some, but not all, of the same components as your line.
The hounds started out as fox hounds and they were hunted for fox and a few bobcats up until around 1980, when they used them mostly for bobcats because they ran out of places to hunt fox. The goal was to be the first to the bay or tree on horseback, and it was fierce competition to be first, something that I never enjoyed. The ranch I live on now and where my house is built, is one of the places where everyone would meet and now is the only ranch left in the area. The other family who is like family to me, lived on the National Forest since the cowboy days when the government took some of their property, before it was the national forest. To this day they never accepted it, and hunted the National forest like it was their own.
Wild hogs move in and they started to also hunt them, but they would catch them, mark the hogs ear and let them go. The same rules applied, being the first to the bay on horseback.
The hounds started out as pure fox hounds from England. One of the men, was a rich pipeline contractor and the other was a cowboy. The rich pipeline contractor had the fox hounds and the cowboy had some cross hounds with some blackmouth cur and plot hounds mixed in. They crossed the best of each family. The pipeline contractors son who would be around 80 now, came to see me, to tell me he was dying of cancer and to talk about hounds and asked me if I wanted the last ones. The cowboy son who is around seventy now, still hunts almost every day. He can hardly walk but can ride a horse from daylight to dark.
Around 1970 they came across a pair of pure redbones, that were also crossed in, by the cowboy and one of the two redbones was very good. They would not let anyone have their hounds, something that I never agreed with but understood. They would hunt the whole litter and the ones that were outstanding would get a collar, the rest culled for the slightest reason. They kept around 20 hounds total all those years, from pups to older season hounds.
The hounds were once in a lifetime hounds, all of them, and they culled many, which for most people would be the best hounds they ever seen in their lifetime. The cowboy still has some but they have been bred more towards hogs over the last 30 years. My friend lives across the street from the cowboy,and is down to his last hound and asked me if I wanted him. He took a job in Houston and can no longer hunt, like hounds need to be hunted.
Around 17 years ago, I started breeding and hunting blueticks because I like to hunt cats more and enjoyed hunting more with hounds than racing with horses. There is more to the story but that is the bulk of it.
Any time you think of something and feel like sharing it, please do. Unless you feel the need to keep it in the family, "which Is something I never agreed with, but understood"
It just makes me wonder about how many stories there are like that out there, and how many I will never hear about. I had no idea. I feel so honored to hear stories like this and to have rubbed shoulders with people like you and like so many on here. It is an amazing time to be alive.
It always makes me sad, however, to know how many great lines of dogs like that have been developed, and then slipped away into oblivion. Makes me really sad actually. I wish there was some way to stop that from happening. It seems like it happens or begins to happen every time the "keeper" dies.
