BigGameHoundsmen.com

macedonia mule man wrote:Regardless how you breed, whether yor line breed , inbreed or our cross or breed good to good or bad to bad there will be only a small majority make good dogs. For the small majority to make good dogs they have to go to good hunters. Ever once in a while an exceptional will come along and make an outstanding dog regardless . The ultimate bobcat dog deal is nice to dream about but regardless what kind of dogs you use and which ever way you decide to cross them I believe only a small number are really going to turn out. Usuall the breeder that makes statements like my kennel produces 80% has gone kennel blind, and most breeders are kennel blind. It's ok to dream but it's a whole lot of thing about breeding that's a mystery.

Dan McDonough wrote:Laikas, Elkhounds and the Mtn. Cur, ...

pegleg wrote:My brother who's been in Mexico with me talked one of the cowboys into roping some pups they found in a canyon off a dirt road. If I remember I'll try getting pictures I'm sure you'll enjoy them. I can't say if their tails are curly or not but they're a mystery to me. Probably the ugliest nastiest tempered canines I've ever run across. One guy offered they might have coyote but I countered with I'd never seem a coyote that ugly. They aren't very old and just slink around raising Cain or growling at people. .

Dan McDonough wrote:I'm still around. Just holding off on the next leg of the project until my youngest child goes off to kinder garden this fall. I'm still working lurchers. I've been trying to breed a stag that trees to a border collie female that also trees well but have not had any success so far. I put them together again a couple of weeks ago but never saw them tie. It may or may not have taken but I won't know for another month or so. I'm taking my time and doing each step fully so it's going a little slow right now.

I did get a little frustrated with not getting the above mentioned dogs to breed and put stag x mtn. cur cross together. Along the way I kept saying to myself, why don't I just breed a tree dog to a stag and see if I can't get a pup that will fall somewhere in the middle. The mtn. cur I used is semi open on track with a fantastic locate. He's a very good treedog and I'm interested in sorting through the pups. I may keep nothing or I may find something in there that works.

Another direction I'm coming at this is to breed Tommy to a Leopard female and then keep breeding that back into the Leopards. I want to jack up the speed and drive side while keeping the nose and treedog. Like the Gysies would say, "Put the speed on top." [ to M.D.] This is a long shot and will come down to my ability to pick the right dogs out of this along the way. If I can do this, I'll certainly be a legend in my own mind at the least. It's all pretty tough going but I've been taking my time and getting the best ingredients for the job at hand. Some friends have suggested that I just cross to the running bred dogs but I'm looking for a different type of brain.

On the flip side, I've just hit a new level with my Leopards. It's all inbreeding so I can't say for sure how it happened but it did. Just a nick-cross is suppose. No use looking a gift horse in the mouth. I'm waiting on another litter of those and that will be my next generation of Leopards. They aren't for everyone though. They're a little touchy about rough handling and training them takes a little finesse. They outcome is worth it though.

On the odd(er) side of things, I have a Whippet x Jagdterrier cross that is a fantastic little track dog and can catch cats quite easily but he's not treeing very well and sometimes not at all. If that little sucker was a good treedog I'd just about have this thing whipped already. It's very interesting to be able to see some of these oddball crosses do the job. I'm pretty sure he's going to get killed if he tags an adult male bobcat around here. Most of our males hand around 40+ lbs. and are nothing for a 30 lb. dog to fool with alone.

I don't want to come off like every dog I own is a "good one". I've had to cull more than I care to talk about to get these few game dogs. It's not as easy as my stories suggest. I'm working very hard right now to locate a BC male that is a bang-up treedog and I'm not having a lot of luck. I did manage to get an old Irish stock dog trainer on the lookout for that type of BC for me. It should be easy once it's found. I'm looking for a naughty BC male that likes to slip off and tree stuff while he should be working stock. You would think that it would be easy to buy that type of dog from someone that is at their whit's end from their dog getting distracted instead of working stock like it should. You guys that live in cattle country have it made for finding BC's. I'm going to have to do a lot of driving no matter how it turns out.

Anyhow, I'm still just a babysitter but I'm getting out about 4 days a week with the dogs and still pushing on. This fall it's back to the woods and things should move a little faster then.