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I have a 4.5 mo old Stephen’s cur in training right now. Compared to my other dogs he’s really really smart. I’ve been doing scent training with him and running some drags with bear and bobcat scent. He’s doing really good at running the drags. He’s not really locating or treeing yet. Not too worried, we’re mostly just having fun. Hope to walk him to a few bear trees over the next few weeks.

He will be 7 mo come December and I am looking forward to start working him on cats. My other two are finally good enough we should have a good cat season!

That’s the kind of stuff that’s fun with those young ones. I like to slice weenies in about 1/2” slices and warm them up just a bit and scatter them all over my back yard or in a field. You talk about making those pups use their nose, by the second or third time I do it they are flat getting after it. It’s even more intense if there are more than just one pup because then it’s a competition. Once they know what they are doing I start putting a piece up on the edge of flower pot planters or on the side of a tree, just to get it up off the ground. I think it helps them to learn to work high and low. You get to see who is more natural at different things. Sometimes I take pig tails from hogs we catch and lay a little track and let them find it and crew on it. I don’t know if it makes them any better but I don’t think it hurts them and it’s fun watching. A buddy of mine crossed some plott into our dogs. The F1 cross made some game hustling rascals. They are very instinctive and built nice. Everyone that got one seems to be really happy with them except me. I had two and they weren’t nearly as intelligent as my dogs. What my dogs would learn after just a couple of reps, the crosses would take months to pick up. There were other negatives as well but this was the biggest dislike for me. Like I say, they take to baying and trailing and all that kind of stuff very easy and made game producers, hey just aren’t my kind of dogs. One of the gyps turned out real nice and my buddy and the guy that owned her wanted to go back to my male. He’s an uncle to her. I have two of the quarter plotts out of that. They are better about the issues I had with the half breeds but still there’s a difference. We’ll see I guess. They already like a hog pretty good. They’re 8 months old so should be ready to start hunting live as soon as deer season is over.


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Law,

I considered trying a cross dog last go around. I have heard that first cross can be pretty good but after that you can’t reproduce the traits. I have had a rough go in my last few dogs because I’ve tried a few started dogs. One didn’t work outt, the other looked promising but got ran over and I had to put him down. I got really lucky with this pup as he from some rally good Stephen’s stock down from the rowdy lines that everyone used to use for bears. It’s tough with most of these cur lines now days because there aren’t many still using them for big game and dogs bred for squirrel are really hit and miss for carrying on the traits you need.

Right now my two older dogs are doing ok. My Mountain cur will run bears and cats. Her negatives are that she’s hotter nosed and for some reason she falls out of bear races from time to time. Haven’t figured out why yet. It’s usually longer races and she acts like she’s got a lose but doesn’t go with the other dogs. She acts like she wants to fight the bears so I can’t tell if the bear is stopping to fight and she’s turning off or what the deal is. Some times she runs the whole race.

My Stephen’s dog will not run a bear. She is better than my mountain cur on cats though as she is a trail dog and will flat out move a track where is my mountain cur drifts the tracks and seems to lose them a lot. The two are starting to work together pretty good though.

Nufo I understand completely about the curs being bred away from the necessary traits. As for the crosses, I don’t agree with the logic of not being able to reproduce well because they are crosses. The F1 usually works because it’s a hybrid vigor that is usually created. The problem stems from poor selection and poor direction or goals in what a person is trying to accomplish. How many breeds of dogs are in this ole world and how many of them were created by crossing different breeds, many having multiple breeds? Sometimes people keep a family of dogs so tightly bred that they almost become their own breed. They will usually display very dominant traits that distinguish them from other dogs in the same breed but of no common blood. That’s because of discipline in selecting for certain traits to accomplish their goals.

I’m interested in hearing about the progress of your bear bred Stephens pup. Does that pup have a different look and way about it?


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This new pup I have is half the old rowdy stuff bred to the Oklahoma stuff (earl Davis/blanton). I haven’t heard of anyone using the Oklahoma stuff for bears but they are dynamite coon dogs. This is a repeat breeding and the first breeding turned out as above average coon dogs.

The Oklahoma stuff is larger in size with longer/houndier ears and look. He has a similar disposition/personality to my other Stephen’s though. She is down from the rowdy stuff but not as heavy.

I see. I hope this pup is another above average litter.


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