HOW MANY DOGS DO YOU RUN AND HOW MANY IS TO MANY.

[BEAR HUNTER]

Just curious how many dogs do you run in a pack. I mostly hunt bear and have 6. Like all hound hunters though I routenly have to fight the urge to expand.

[BuckNAze]

Between me and my buddies it depends. We sometimes only turn out 4 and sometimes more. We have let out 8 before and 7 made it down to the tree, then we brought a 4 more down which made a total of 11 dogs. We usually I think have 6-8, always depends though on how many we think we should let out. If its a hotter strike or we happen to see one on the road we will turn them all loose, if its a harder track we only turn a few of the better dogs out.

[BigGameHunter]

I run a total of 5 or 6 including trainers.
Off a bear strike I only let one or two down until they get it going and heat things up pretty good then the rest of them are off to the races. One problem with running a smaller pack of dogs is that sometimes on a long hard race, it would be nice to have some nice fresh turn-in's to give that bear an extra push up the tree but I'm all out of dogs.

An lion track I run around 3 - more if I have trainers.

Bobcat - 2 dogs if I want it caught - 3 if I am training.

The whole crapping box if I get to &%!* excited and throw open the doors.

[BuckNAze]

Haha it seems that way for us too, sometimes if we see one run across the road in front of us, of course the dogs go ape $*** but we get too damn excited and just let them all go after we get the collars on them. Its good in a sense to get the younger dogs on a hot track but it gets pretty nuts. Wish we would think about it more and save one of our better dogs for those long races and throw them in there about half way through so we could tree a couple more up.

[chilcotin hillbilly]

I usually ran 2 or 3 on bear. this spring I ran 1 ,3 yearold and 2, 10 month old pups they did great as they went 28 for 35 let downs. Only 2 twice was I wishing for more dog power to turn in on a long race but I got thinking that if those 3 dogs can't catch it the bear deserves to win one. Turning in doesn't really prove your dogs can get it done, it just shows that fresh dogs can pressure a tired bear.

[BuckNAze]

That would be fine with me, as long as the bear goes up the tree eventually. Tired of the 8-10 mile races behind those little work horse bears that are about the size of a greyhound and run like one. Then we have some races that we strike and tree within a 1/4 mile or less. Granted this is only my first year running bear so we did ok considering almost all the dogs we have, minus 1 or 2, its either their first or second year running bear. I guess I dont expect great things yet, next year we better catch more though, Im gonna have 2 prospects coming up that will be some fast dogs.

[livetohunt]

I hunt four but I got a buddy thats got a hole field full of them he must have 20 with all his pups.

[BEAR HUNTER]

Hey livetohunt he's probably raising his own bait? ]:]

[yellerdog]

If your dogs are trained it doesent matter how many you tern loose. I hunt with alot of differant guys, so its not unusual to have 12 to 14 under a tree. But 2 or three is probly enough

[livetohunt]

He could be all but them two red pups.

[tedsmith]

I asked the same question the other night. The man I was hunting with said how much dog feed can you afford! I run three.

[BuckNAze]

Damn no kidding, how can you afford to feed like 20 dogs? I struggle with 4, and one is a small mutt who doesnt even hunt, just a house dog mostly (also shed hunting dog). I may get another one this weekend and another pup around september. But my buddy will be helping me feed the pup, the other 5 I dont know how Ill afford it but Ill manage I suppose

[Idaho]

I asked the same question the other night. The man I was hunting with said how much dog feed can you afford!

That pretty much sums it up. How much feed can you afford and do you have the time to make sure they all get hunted? I have twelve dogs right now, from pups to old dogs. Between myself and the few people that I hunt with we can end up with quite a few dogs at the tree. The first which comes to mind is a bear tree this spring that we had twenty-one dogs to. Sometimes we don't turn that many loose but generally we will have at least ten dogs to a tree, many times more.

[Mt Goat]

I have 6 Hounds that are going good and working good together. I have also have, 2 five month old pups and 3 eight weeks old pups. My main hunting partner has around 8 Hounds with pups. He wants to cut back to 4-5 dogs. When we hunt together we put down 2 to 4 dogs to get it going then will feed in dogs along the way. We've dumped both our boxes before but normally we try to work different dogs, and keep back some dogs to have fresh dogs for the next days hunt, especially early in the season when dogs are out of shape. We hunt our dogs everyday during Bear Season, so having hounds to rotate gives them a break, and keeps the dogs fresh and running strong and hard everyday.

IMO you always have to be working on bettering your pack, plus having new dogs to replace older, and lost or hurt dogs etc.... Out of the 5 younger pups I have, I'll be running the 2 older ones during bear season this year starting the middle of September. I hope they both make it but who knows, because I'm only looking at keeping pups and or young dogs that have the potental to be lead dogs. With my 5 pups I'd be happy to have one, or two of the 5 make it, I'll give all 5 pups through next years bear season (2010) to prove themselfs and to evaluate their potental, unless any show signs they are culls before then. I personally dont want any just pack dogs. My goal it to have a pack of 6 hounds that are all Lead Dogs, that strike, and work a track, truck to tree, but that will also work together.

[Maverick]

3-4 will usualy get the job done. But when you hunt with others, well it ends upeing much more sometimes.