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That's interesting. On the rigging colder tracks then they'd check on the ground. But maybe its just conditioning to rigg the slightest scent. Where on the ground my dogs can actually smell some tracks awhile before they strike. Mostly older dogs. Young started hounds open anytime they can more often. But I believe that's where their experience comes in. Those old dogs have learned pockets of scent sometimes linger long after the trail is workable.

About 6 years ago i bought a 7 year old dry ground lion dog because i thought my dogs were lacking in the cold trailing department. This dog wasnt cheap and came from one of the top SW lion hunters and was highly endorsed by another one. This dog was a " dirty cold nosed,dust blowing,rock licking , take a 2 day old dirt track" dog. So this dog shows up and after a few weeks of her settling in and finally honoring my dogs this dog that had never been on top the box in its life starts rigging tracks with and sometimes ahead of my dogs. Long story short the dog eventually became a fair little bobcat dog for her age and as good of rig dog you could ask for. I hunted her for 4 years and enjoyed her a lot when an old infection from a cat go inside her diaphragm and killed her. I had the dog on lots of cats in that 4 years and she NEVER once trailed off on a track my other dogs couldnt. Thats in snow down into single digits a few times and in 80-90 degree temps in early fall. Like i said before i really grew to like the dog and wouldnt of sold her for anything so she got a real fair shake. I am still trying to figure out why she couldnt trail any better than dogs bred and born out here in the perfect trailing conditions of the west coast. I am real open minded about this so lets here some thoughts on why she couldnt do it any better. PS i have no doubts about her abilities in the SW as i was in touch with previous owner and several others who had hunted with the dog on numerous occasions.

Mark, I think it is the brush. Dogs raised and hunted in the brush for generations have a big advantage in brushy country. Anybody that has never hunted the brush of the coast would not understand it unless they witnessed it. If I spent 2 days explaining non stop how bad the brush is I would not get even close to describe how terrible it is. It is literally beyond comprehension. My dog's eyes were draining pus for 2 weeks after I hunted there.

The dog could run fine and keep up with the dogs im talkin trailing ability here

Sorry D, didnt mean to sound so short. I should of waited till i had time to respond better. This dog was plenty capable of running and catching bobcats here once she settled in and trusted everyone. It had to be a big shock to her coming from a good part of her life being in the desert. It took her awhile to figure out that bobcats will double back sometimes and when this would happen she would keep trying to find it on out in front of her but she did figure it out in a short period of time. As i said before she was an excellent rig dog and would chirp on a track that had walked the road for a good distance until it left the road and then all the rest would fire off on it, a large percentage of the time the dogs couldnt take the track very far if at all.( and i tried the other end many times with the same result). How can a dog that can smell a track from on top of the box that is walking a gravel road or a paved road on occasions not be able to do anything with it in the brush? Especially a dog that has been bred for generations to trail lions in the desert. I have done a lot of thinking about this and not trying to prove anything to anyone but myself. I know other guys out here that have tried the same thing with pretty much the same results. Is it a dog thing or is it our perception of what we think dogs can do or what we think they are doing or should be able to do in various regions? One of the best cold trailing jobs i have ever seen was on a gavel road over a mile and probably another mile in the brush and it was done by a full running walker in the middle of summer in Arkansas. I cant come close to explaining what i have seen over the years as to why dogs can or cant trail some tracks?????????

My opinion on this is kinda mixed depending on the dog and other factors. That said I think its kinda been discussed already although not directly. Most dogs learn to age a track and gauge the chance of catching it. Now before anyone argues against this to hard. Wait until your good broke dog is acting a little catty but not showing any real intention of really working the track. Now do one of two things. Either put down a dog that can/will trail it. Or just flat lie to the dog and act very excited about that track like you expect it to be in the next tree. Most dogs will then try much harder on the same track they already said they couldn't catch.
Alternatively bring a dog to poorer scenting conditions then its used to and watch its behavior when other dogs are opening on tracks it trotted over. I think its not so much they didn't smell it. As they misjudged its age or catch ability .
Then there's the different experience in trailing they have early on that plays a role in their style not to mention the genetic style of trailing they are prone to.
Then there's lion scent and bobcat scent. My experience is this. Either you rely on popping up bobcats or you have to possess at least one hound that will trail a rapidly fading scent . sometimes this freshens up very fast. Sometimes it dies. Now I no longer believe these improvements are due solely to jumping the cat. Fact is in most cases I think its just getting close enough to a travelling cat to be in the range many dogs think is runable. ( I liken this to the first track a young hound really blows up on alone. Most of the time its pretty damn hot) most lion hunters here put a lot of time into starting lion tracks compared to some other areas. I don't think I've seen many that wouldn't give their dogs time and encouragement on even the poorest tracks. And foot or horseback hunters tend to be the most notable. There's not always a high chance in most areas of cutting ahead to freshen it up. So a lion track is always your starting point and you give each one a pretty good go and encourage the dogs to do the same. How many bobcat hunters will set there encouraging their hounds for half a day on a track they know there's a damn slight chance of catching?
Fortunately lion scent lingers better then bobcat.
But I don't fault the hunter or hound who knowing there's very likely a better track right ahead of pulling off and trying to find it.
Chris has been at this a long while and I bet he doesn't expect to find several lion tracks in a single day. Disregarding females and kittens. Or toms courting females. As these cases are for the most part the same age of track anyway.
I know lion hunters that will leave one working a old track and the other will take a hound or two and try cutting it fresher. But they have a impressively knowledge of travel patterns in their hunting areas. As such it has a chance of paying off.
Also the above example is one which the hound basically worked out. How about those many dogs that would try older slower tracks in their new country and you hear this about them. 1 oh sure is cold nosed but maybe too much and kinda slow. 2 well we just been using it to start tracks 3 oh that old dog was all right but didn't catch as many cats as our dogs.
And how about the other way? That new hi power dog that got brought down here and does alright along the rim country or with a good strike dog. But don't catch much alone?
This is about competitive hounds. And thinking on that I guess both types of dog I hunt are competitive in their own way.
1 . they insist on trailing there own game and can look a bit foolish double checking other dogs work. But look pretty good making sure you have something to hunt.
2. They can be hard to keep interested sometimes. They look brilliant running a track and cutting distance on jumped game. But alone your going to have long dry periods.
And I'm just like everyone else just doing what I can get to work. I'm sure there's variations.

Interesting stuff here! I have no answer but I do have an observation from my tiny bubble...
I hunt lion and bobcat both regardless of conditions in MT. I firmly believe hounds "hunt" lions differently than they do bobs. I have never seen my dogs leave a lion track to go hunt the track up. On the other hand I can think of multiple times each year my dogs have struck cat on the ground or off the rig, pick around, then all of a sudden open on track (cold trailing) quite a distance away. Its almost like they figure out bobcat scent can vanish and they have to go find it. I have seen 3 of my dogs lick rocks to get scent on sunny days while working lion tracks. They do not pick and grub near as much with bobcat. That said I believe it is not physically possible for my dogs to take even remotely close to as old of a bobcat track as they can a lion in the dirt. That may be the biggest factor for Mark's scenario. The scent don't stick around long enough for the ice cold dirt dog to do its thing!

Uh we have lions here too. The dog would get her share of finds when trailing with the others ( very competitive for the track)

HA... flush that theory then!

I'm not sure what you mean by having lions there too? I am not trying to disagree with anything specifically. However I would like to bring up a conversation a few of us had the other day. The mtn lions moving back into the eastern portion of the USA . well I have hunted a few of the Dixie line states with other hounds and a pair of hounds I had then. And while we never trailed any lions there. I would have to say I feel that trailing ease on lions played a critical role in there disappearance from the region to begin with. For example they don't have the shear altitudes we have , however for cover most of the year they have more then we do and density of prey species also. Mtn. Lions when given the conditions needed are a true game animal for hound pursuit. But I correctly or not don't think they could be really difficult to hunt in those areas. And the accounts of hunting them at the time seem to support this. They never had the reputation of being difficult to catch in those areas. Bobcats can be pretty hard to catch just about anywhere. With numbers seeming to be very important to success. Beyond what population to success rates are for many other species.

What do you sw guys mean by helping your dogs out? Looking for tracks in the dirt or sand? I'm lucky to find a handful of tracks a year here.

Mark, I have seen that on roads too, where there seems to be plenty of scent on the road but not in the brush where you would think they could at least twig it out. I have also seen where they can't seem to smell a perfect print in wet snow but get all jacked up on a wet log where you can't see a track.

Pegleg, yes lions are easier to catch than bobcats and an area can hold a lot more bobcats per square mile than lions.

Lol well there's been times I would have damn near trailed it for them if I had the nose for it. But there's a lot of less drastic little things a guy can try. We don't get many actual tracks here either. A majority can be run with out seeing a whole track. A guy can't really help a good dog any. Except getting him in the right area. But young hounds can be guided more and sometimes you can get them to figure it out a little faster. Offer a little encouragement not to give up and go looking for fresher trouble. And make sure all that effort is headed the right way. I can't speak for anyone else but on a bad track me and my dogs stay in much closer contact. As it improves it tends to lessen proportionally.
I have to mention here I've really been dealing with mostly young dogs the last several years and its a lot different for me then hunting my older dogs. I recognize most guys probably only have a few young dogs on the ground.

Yes I have rigged bobcats that I have trailed over 5 miles several times. I hunt in the cascades most of the time bobcats travel much father there than the coast range. On the bobcats studies that I have read or worked on the home ranges were 10 to 12 times larger in the cascades than the coast range. Far fewer bobcats and a lot more cold trailing in the cascades. Dewey