Tant Lines????

[mya]

Does anyone know where the Tant dog lines came from? I have heard several different stories???

[Mike Leonard]

Charlie came out of Texas, and started and did the bulk of his hunting in the Inyo County Area of California.I have most of the history given to me by my late freind Dick Muldoon who was a personal friend of Charlie Tant, and got some of his last dogs. I have photos and history to share but they are at my office and it will be a week before I get back in from Houston to go thru it.

Very little of this blood excists today. Some of the last of it was owned by Merlin(Milt) Holt or Utah, Leon Cox of Utah, and Jerry Hughes of Nevada. Bergin Riddle of Luna , New Mexico was a hunting pertner of Charlie's and he also at one time had some of the purest Tant dogs left.

These dog doubtless had a good deal of running blood in them, but he selected them for cold nose, and crossed in California tree strains to come up with his high eared, leggy somewhat snipe nosed walker dogs that were famous for their work on bare ground.

Charlie lived much like Ben Lilly and a cave was a good home, and he had many of them supplied around his hunting territories.

[mya]

Thanks Mike, i have a buddy who had a Tant dog that recently got killed, it was a hard huntin dog too. I heard that these dogs were once wild dogs that were trapped and bred too??? Rumor???

[Mike Leonard]

Not true on the wild dog part, however these dogs were so tightly bred and rather nervous of nature they would go what we older hound guys call COYOTEE on you if lost in the woods for a few days. I have seen other dogs like this, sometimes even their owners cannot catch them again, and some have to be lured in and live trapped. Once handled again the settle down, but running loose and alone seems the bring back mememories out of the dark past of their wild ancestorage. Young dogs that have not been handled a lot in these wilderness conditions will have a few night out with the night sounds and the coyotes barking around them and possibly even harassing them become very skittish. Doubtless some of Charlie's dog that were left on area ranches or given to other hunter/rancher types did go wild and were never caught again.These stories make for good campfire chat, but they are usually shrowded in a pretty good veil of b.s.

The history of the McNabb stock sheperd dogs of the coastal region gets out there pretty wild at times as well. Although these little dogs look and act a bit like a coyote their roots are a cross of domestic dogs. Again I am sure some have gone wild and possibly even mated with coyotes because coydogs are not that uncommon but they are quite different than the dogs used on stock.

In the area I live in bordering the sprawling Navajo Indian Reservation hundred of feral dogs roam those area. Simply dogs that have been wandering from dwelling to dwelling and mate and raise pups in the wild, and let me tell you they are wild. Paid trappers and hunters are used to clean them out just like the coyote because they cause tremendous stock damage. If you ever get to see a couple of these wild dogs hunting up and catching jack rabbits to eat you will ask yourself why don't my hounds hunt that smart or that hard? simple these dogs are doing it for their survival, and they get very proficient at it.

[nmplott]

those "res dogs" rarely can have agression towards humans and some of their dog roots also help with them not having fear of humans. I used to live next to some of the pueblos in Northern New Mexico, and when I would go running with one of my boxers I used to pack a 9mm with me because some of them were plain mean and I did not want to take a chance. I did end up shooting two of them as they did show extreme aggression to us on two occasions but that must have been two times out of 500 or so runs I made.

[mya]

Boy that would be nice if hounds sometimes acted like those rabbit catchin dogs. Its a shame this tant dog we had was killed. She was as gritty and mean as they come, sometimes she was like handling a coyote around other dogs, and i guess that was her downfall. Awesome on game though.

[Mike Leonard]

There a few strains left that carry some of this line but not many.According to Dick these dogs in their purest form were track dogs deluxe and could survice in extreme heat with very little food or water for a long time. Charlie knew these dogs so well he could catch a lot of game with them but other folks would cuss them a bunch for their skittish ways,made them rather hard to handle and deal with. Mixing with other packs was out of the question. Also some of these dos had very little tree in them and that came I would guess from the infusion of running blood.

[liontracker]

Sonny Beauchamp of Green River UT still has some of these dogs.

[hunt14]

I owned the tant dog that zach was talking about getting killed and I got her from Sonny. She was a good little dog and she did show me some nose on some rough tracks. She wasnt shy in any way so she didnt carry that typical tant trait no coyote here. She was a tight built, racey little dog though and she had stamina and held up well in the heat. She was gritty and she would lock down on a tree. Unfortunately I lost her about a two weeks ago. Sonny still has her half sister in Green River and she is even better than this dog she actually has what most would call a filthy cold nose. I plan on getting a pup out of her crossed on her brother. I like them old blood lines.

[mya]

Reagen,

Hey i bred that banjo bred walker dog i have to a Nocternal Nailer walker. These should be some super good pups. The lines are champion lines, if you know anyone interested in a pup let me know. Pups are on the ground now.

[hunt14]

Sounds good man. Maybe you should post some pics so we can see what they look like.