Karelian Hounds

[bob baldwin jr]

Does anyone have any experience hunting behind this breed of hound or know some one who does ??? PLEASE CONTACT ME

BOB BALDWIN
PH 502-647-3768
E-mail :bigbob817@hotmail.com
THANKS

[chilcotin hillbilly]

A friend of mine had a Karelian. It loved to chase bears but never put enough pressure on them to tree them often. When my buddy finally got one in a tree with his dog he shot it out and the dog was terrified of the bear and would not come within 20 feet.

[bob baldwin jr]

Chilcotin Hillbilly : A friend told me they were used USA rocky Mt area and BC for protection mostly from Grizzly bear and MT. lion. I am assuming you live in BC is that a needed necessity in your area or overkill. ???? I have hunted the Cranbrook are of BC a few times but had never heardc of them before. I have heard that a few guy's were hunting Grizzly with hounds ,but to me that would seem crazy .Maybe I am wrong but How many grizzlie are going to TREE??? Seem like a good way to loose your hounds. Could get real nasty unless they are REALLY REALLY SMART

[mnb&t]

i know a guy that had one a couple years ago. he was planning to retire and move out west and hunt it with some friends that bear hunt. it ended up being gun shy he said and gave it away. ill talk to the guy that bought his business and see where he bought it from.

i dont know much about them but i heard somewhere they were good guard dogs for livestock.

good luck.

[broncobilly]

Chilcotin Hillbilly : A friend told me they were used USA rocky Mt area and BC for protection mostly from Grizzly bear and MT. lion. I am assuming you live in BC is that a needed necessity in your area or overkill. ???? I have hunted the Cranbrook are of BC a few times but had never heardc of them before. I have heard that a few guy's were hunting Grizzly with hounds ,but to me that would seem crazy .Maybe I am wrong but How many grizzlie are going to TREE??? Seem like a good way to loose your hounds. Could get real nasty unless they are REALLY REALLY SMART

Bob,

I don't know anything about karelian hounds, but there was a guy in NM that used to hunt grizzlys with hounds, I think it was bloodhounds. He wrote a book about it, I believe the title was Meet Mr. Grizzly, by Steven Montgegue. Your right, they don't tree, but he killed quite a few anyway. I got the impression from reading his book that he considered black bear and lions to be kind of boring.

Bill

[Jake Bell]

well from what ive heard and read, if your hunting grizzlies you want some loose baying fast dogs because them S O B's will run a dog down and kill it and dogs that bay close dont last long.

[chilcotin hillbilly]

Bob , From what I understand Karilean dog are used to run bears out of tourist type park areas in BC. The Karilean is not just a bear dog but are breed to hunt moose aswell, they tend to love chasing any type of ungulates. My friends dog never really used his nose but seem to only get really fired up if he saw the bear.I know there are a few guys that hunt grizzily with hounds in the Kooteney area of BC. these are outfitters and seem to only use the hounds if the are having problems finding a bear. Most chases are long and it always ends in a bay up. Your dogs better not be hair pullers or you won't have many left when you get there. Grizz are a completely different bear and you better not like your hounds to much your might you might go home in tears.We have so many grizz around my place a and summer you have to break your hounds off grizz like any other trash.

[Spanky]

here is a greenie link but it explains exactly what they are used for here in montana. Also they are not a hound but rather belong to the shepard dog breed. We already have enough dogs being called hounds so lets get this one right argument

http://www.beardogs.org/

[bob baldwin jr]

Spanky : Thanks for the GREENIE LINK .From looking at some pictures it is not hard to visualize the shepard part of that breed of DOG .I have since received another e-mail from a friend in BC stating that they are mostly owned by guides ,forestry workers, loggers,etc; for protection against grizzly's and cougars.I guess it depends on the density of such and what you would describe as protection.I am assuming they are trained to stand their ground between owner and critter.I have only seen 3 in the wild ,closest We ever got was maybe 125 yards ,never felt threaten by them ,but they sure got our attention. I would still like to hear from some guide that is chasing grizz with hounds

[larry]

went to the griz center in Mt and saw a demonstration on em, video of them doing their stuff. What a joke! They treed one blackie only after they were walked up to it to see it, and they are not turned loose on griz, held by leash to bark as the rangers pelt the bears with rubber bullets. The girl that brought them to the states as this great bear training tool sure did get the last laugh. I talked to the guy that insures these dogs, one has an $80,000 coverage policy, thats 4 zeros and one dog! Imagine if they had just started with some plotts instead.

[bob baldwin jr]

Larry : $80,000 Lets see I could get a new dually,Supersized ATV,New Sled,New handgun shotgun,rifle,Good Boots ,new hunting gear and still have money left to buy a pack of plotts Sounds like some kind of Govment program to me argument Where do I sign up

[DesertDweller]

Well since I am sittin here looking at 2 of my buddys, I will say there about like a curly tailed border collie, he uses his on wounded bear that clients wound at baits, there hot nosed but will trail, bark only when animal is found and if its dead, you won't hear them bark cause there chewin on it.

[Eric Muff]

Conservation Officers in Southern Alberta have been using these dogs to help with bear "conditioning"for several years.Basically they send the dogs out after a problem bear that has been in town raiding garbage cans or fruit trees as well as using bear bangers and rubber bullets.The thinking being that if they make a bears human contact as unpleasant as possible it shouldn't come back,works sometimes.
In my experience being around these dogs they are not a "hound".They show more intelligence than the average hound as well as have generally better handlability.They are mostly not very coldnosed and have very poor tree qualities as compared to a hound.The CO's would disagree but then they are not houndsmen either.
Something that sets hounds apart from other breeds is their heart and desire to track and tree game no Karrelian that I have seen posses these qualities to any where near the same level.Having said that there will be someone out there reading this that will have a Karelian that does hunt this way but that dog will not be the norm.There have been those in the hound world near me that have tried this breed several times and always gone back to hounds.There is just no substitute.

[TomJr]

I did a search on this dog breed a while back after seeing a show about using them to run bears out of a town. Reading up on this dog breed I saw even the breeders say thier dogs are abit dog aggresive and they don't recomend running more than two together because they will fight over the game... Seems they also can be aggresive towards people they don't know, according to the breeders. I would guess that those that have made it to the US and Canada are not being bred to hunt but rather for thier guarding abilities, since it seems like alot of the people breeding them are anti-hunting types.

[Lynxhunter]

Let me tell you guys a bit about the Karelian dogs,because these are dogs, and I know some things about them.

Its right as some of you have said, they are dogs. - To be coreckt: Spitz dogs. In their familie is the Karelian BEAR dog(it's their real name), Great Swedish Elkhound, Vestern and Eastern Laika, Norwegian Grey and Black Elkhound and a coupple more, who is more or less aknowledged breeds. These dogs are bred for hunting, but in a totally different style than the treeing hounds.
They original breeders of the Karelian bear dogs kept "tame" caribou, thats why the dog got some "garding" in its nature.

Originally they came from the Karelian mountains in the eastern part of Finnland/vestern part of Russia. Bred for hunting Brown bear, Moose and probably Lynx.
They hunt with their noses high, in loops against the wind, to catch the direct scent from the desired animals. They were bred to hunt this way, to find the animals that were closest to the hunter. When these spitzdogs work the best(in my opinion), they wont take on an older track than lets say, 2-3 hours. That way they wont trail one animal past another, that is close to the hunter, f.eks. down wind.

Over the years these dogs became more and more moose dogs, because of lack in the bear population. When a dog bayes up a moose, it needs to keep its distance. If the dog puts to mutch preasure on the moose, it'll start running and then there are no dogs or hounds or whatever in the whole wide world, that will put a stop to it!!! This ment that the breeders bred a slightly different dog than the origin and this has given the result that very few of these Spitz dogs, dear to handle a bear in the right way today.
- There is hope though. In the later years bear population has increased in Scandinavia, so now a lot of breeders are trying to get back the genes that once run in their weins, when these dogs were predator hunters.

If you want to see some pics of brown bears hunted with hounds go to this page: http://www.plotthund.se
Its in Swedish, but the pick(bilder) are the same anyway.

Hans