Az High desert

[dwalton]

Pigleg you are right on as to differences in condition and locales make a big difference in what a dog can do. Even out here in the northwest I have seen a lot of differences in what each type of dog can do. I have worked my dogs in OR, Washington, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, California, New Mexico and Arizona and have hunted with hounds not my on in Arkansas and Texas. Seeing lion and bobcat caught in most of those states. A lion dog is not what one needs to catch bobcat in my opinion. A lion dog takes a track much slower and from track to track and a bobcat dog has to move a track fast to get it jump in desert conditions. I have never treed a bobcat in Arizona, I have always been lion hunting when hunting there. I have trailed bobs on both the north and south rim of Grand Canyon but never jumped them. I have treed lion and gray fox In southern Arizona but never saw bobcat sign while hunting there or struck one while there. I have treed bobs in the North Eastern part of California desert in March thru June as long as there is ground has moisture. I believe that a top bobcat dog can only be run on bobcats to preform best to his/her ability. That is not to say that a lion dog can not catch bobcat and lion both. It is easy to catch bobcats in desert conditions with snow but to do it consistently catch them on bare ground you need moist ground or heavy brush. That said I have seen dogs in south Texas hunted in dry conditions make it look easy. It takes the right type of track moving dog that is conditioned to hunt in dry hot weather to catch dogs in adverse conditions. I think very few people have seen what a top pack of bobcats dogs can do in all conditions. The dedication for making or breeding a pack of bobcats to hunt and catch in those adverse condition is limited to a very few people. Heres what most people have trouble believing is there are hunters on both bobcats and lions that have dogs that run a old cold track so fast that it is hard to keep up with them with a good mule on dry ground. That said I have caught bobcat in most condition and not caught them in good condition, thats bobcat hunting the ultimate in hound hunting. Dewey

[davidg1!]

Well said Dewey!!

[twist]

If dogs are catching bobcats consistently in (Dry) areas that tells me there is a heavy population of cats in those areas and the tracks are fairly hot ones.

[david]

I have been through Arizona and New Mexico with bobcat dogs and stopped a few days just to see what they could do. And it left me feeling I needed a different kind of dog altogether, unless there was snow.

I think maybe if bobcats were killing livestock as often as lions do, we might have come up with fluid bobcat dogs for the southwest ranches.

I am watching with great interest as bobcat bred dogs are being used in South Africa where Jackals (canine) and Caracal (feline) can (and often do) do thousands of dollars of damage in one night to the domestic sheep and goat herds. One ranch I know of uses over eighty hounds in packs of around twelve. These dogs are all hunted five days a week. The conditions can be very dry at times. Some of the photos look like it could be Arizona or NM.
They HAVE TO catch these predators or go bankrupt quickly. The Caracals are bigger than a bobcat, but not by a lot compared to big northern bobcats. They probably have more scent. But they are developing dogs that catch them in difficult terrain and weather conditions.

I marvel at that situation. One man is in charge of an eighty or ninety dog operation (not counting pups) and the dogs are hunted full time; year round. And several men support their families on this ranch by hunting with hounds every day. And the ranches are way ahead by paying them. There has never been a better proving ground/breeding platform that I have heard of.

But the point is; necessity is the mother of invention. And the hunters/ranchers in the Southwest have never felt an overwhelming necessity for bobcat dogs. And historically, most would not even see any point in having one, and the thought might never have entered their mind.

[Goose]

I have been through Arizona and New Mexico with bobcat dogs and stopped a few days just to see what they could do. And it left me feeling I needed a different kind of dog altogether, unless there was snow.

I think maybe if bobcats were killing livestock as often as lions do, we might have come up with fluid bobcat dogs for the southwest ranches.

I am watching with great interest as bobcat bred dogs are being used in South Africa where Jackals (canine) and Caracal (feline) can (and often do) do thousands of dollars of damage in one night to the domestic sheep and goat herds. One ranch I know of uses over eighty hounds in packs of around twelve. These dogs are all hunted five days a week. The conditions can be very dry at times. Some of the photos look like it could be Arizona or NM.
They HAVE TO catch these predators or go bankrupt quickly. The Caracals are bigger than a bobcat, but not by a lot compared to big northern bobcats. They probably have more scent. But they are developing dogs that catch them in difficult terrain and weather conditions.

I marvel at that situation. One man is in charge of an eighty or ninety dog operation (not counting pups) and the dogs are hunted full time; year round. And several men support their families on this ranch by hunting with hounds every day. And the ranches are way ahead by paying them. There has never been a better proving ground/breeding platform that I have heard of.

But the point is; necessity is the mother of invention. And the hunters/ranchers in the Southwest have never felt an overwhelming necessity for bobcat dogs.

David correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t some clay hounds sent over there, I decided last November to give up Facebook for a year and I haven’t kept up with them since, I corresponded with some of the hunters over there , Roy Sparks was one of the guys and he sent me some photos of I believe Mr. Finneys son over there with it looked liked some red and white walker dogs...

[david]

Correct, the running walkers are making waves down there. It is really interesting.

In dry conditions the dogs keep tag teaming and leap frogging and reaching out hoping to find a trace of scent out there somewhere and it sounds like that is how they catch up to the game when it is dry. It is a beautiful thing.

I have not seen it. So this is about third or fourth hand information

[Goose]

Correct, the running walkers are making waves down there. It is really interesting.

In dry conditions the dogs keep tag teaming and leap frogging and reaching out hoping to find a trace of scent out there somewhere and it sounds like that is how they catch up to the game when it is dry. It is a beautiful thing.

I have not seen it. So this is about third or fourth hand information

I understand, I can see where they’re working as a team, I have to sets of f1 crosses of two cur gyps and a male of Harold’s, those dogs have just flat out amazed me at their natural game savviness and smarts, as long as I own dogs there will always be a high concentration of that blood in my dogs, can’t really say how good their noses are because I live about 30-45 minutes north of the Gulf of Mexico and the humidity is crazy bad, our scenting and trailings conditions can change with the flip of a switch, I’ll say this, they have good enough noses to catch game ( hogs) down here consistently and look good doing it, a friend of mine who I rarely hunt with hunted with some of them my best friend has and was just flat blown away at them and he brought a female over that evening to breed to my male and I sent him an 8 month old pup off that same male that had never been fooled with and was burning a coyotes tail with him in 3 days and within a week was running the track way ahead of his dogs, their not The Who’s who of the dog world and I know some don’t care for that blood some love them and some that will never verbally admit to envy of them, but what they have brought to my toolbox of dogs has satisfied me beyond expectations, has anyone tried those dogs in the desert type conditions out that way...

[david]

I don’t know of anyone alive who bobcat hunts more than Harold. You are blessed to be Freinds with him. he actually bought the dog pictured on the cover of my book. This was back in the eighties. He is hard core as they come. And he has bought dogs from everywhere. Now that I think about it, he might know as much about the various strains of dogs used for bobcat throughout North America as anyone I can think of. He spared no expense and tried any he could find.

[david]

has anyone tried those dogs in the desert type conditions out that way...

I don’t know Him, but I have heard of a lion hunter based in West Texas, who also is used by Florida in their lion program, who uses running walkers.

That is not bobcat, obviously, but it is interesting that he has chosen that breed for the arid circumstances he sometimes hunts in.

His Name is Roy McBride. This article talks about him:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... s-excerpt/

Here is a paragraph from the article:

“McBride was an unlikely character to be hired by a group of conservationists interested in the survival of panthers. The author Donald Schueler in his 1991 book, Incident at Eagle Ranch, presented a rare portrait of a private man who avoids the public eye. “During his younger days,” wrote Schueler, “he had more to do with bringing the mountain lion to the verge of extinction in Texas than any other single person. Given his remarkable stamina and the quality of his pack of hounds, a lion ‘almost never gets away’ once McBride goes after it.” “Let McBride do it” was the motto when a particularly wily predator was amok and needed capturing.”

I think one reason Folks like McBride and Harold and the South African ranch end up with running Walkers or related dogs is because of their conformation. Yes, even running walkers get tired eventually, but they hold up well in the face of hard daily hunting. And it seems MAYBE (theory) those that have been bred for intelligence eventually figure out how to adapt to and deal with arid conditions.

Also factor in that arid places don’t usually have thick forests of huge trees and extreme locating magic may not be needed.(theory; speculation)

[Goose]

has anyone tried those dogs in the desert type conditions out that way...

I don’t know Him, but I have heard of a lion hunter based in West Texas, who also is used by Florida in their lion program, who uses running walkers.

That is not bobcat, obviously, but it is interesting that he has chosen that breed for the arid circumstances he sometimes hunts in.

His Name is Roy McBride. This article talks about him:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... s-excerpt/

Here is a paragraph from the article:

“McBride was an unlikely character to be hired by a group of conservationists interested in the survival of panthers. The author Donald Schueler in his 1991 book, Incident at Eagle Ranch, presented a rare portrait of a private man who avoids the public eye. “During his younger days,” wrote Schueler, “he had more to do with bringing the mountain lion to the verge of extinction in Texas than any other single person. Given his remarkable stamina and the quality of his pack of hounds, a lion ‘almost never gets away’ once McBride goes after it.” “Let McBride do it” was the motto when a particularly wily predator was amok and needed capturing.”

I think one reason Folks like McBride and Harold and the South African ranch end up with running Walkers or related dogs is because of their conformation. Yes, even running walkers get tired eventually, but they hold up well in the face of hard daily hunting. And it seems MAYBE (theory) those that have been bred for intelligence eventually figure out how to adapt to and deal with arid conditions.

Also factor in that arid places don’t usually have thick forests of huge trees and extreme locating magic may not be needed.(theory; speculation)

Interesting read, thanks for sharing...
And to keep from getting to far off the original post I’ll add one more thing about Harold, I’ve never cat hunted with him but have heard from 3 different men whom I’m hold their option things in high regard and at different times, all being top houndsmen themselves and they each described him and his dogs and all had nearly the exact same things to say word for word, I’ve seen him take a pack of man eating kelpies that him and ONLY him could touch if you appreciate your appendages,(20 or so) and control each one of them from the cab of his truck and put 5-600 yearlings where ever he wanted to by voice commands and his truck horn, for a dog man it’s definitely poetry in motion, David I’ll pm you...

[Goose]

“Opinion in high regard”, it should’ve read, damned autocorrect, all in the name of progress they say...

[scrubrunner]

David, I think you are right about them using the running walkers due to their endurance. The Walker foxhound has been bred for nearly 150 years with speed and endurance key traits bred for. I'm sure many don't understand or have knowledge of the fox hunting culture in the southeast. I have read numerous times on here that the competition is between the hounds and the game. That is not true throughout most of the south, the competition here is between whoever and everybody that shows up in the woods. When another hunter shows up in my woods, my intentions are to out run em and out last em. A hound that can not run the front or quits a race is not worthy to breed in most situations in the Walker foxhound world. A quitter is given to a deer hunter, in the old days they were done away with. The competition is who has the fastest hound that can run it right and if it is there at the end. Even field trials are 5 hours a day for 3 days, the USO is 4 days.
I said all that just to give some insight to some that may not know the endurance of the Walker foxhound and why they have it.
I had a big strong male several years ago that was hunted all day for 82 days straight except 1 day. He was running n couldn't catch him that night, he came to camp at 4:30 am, he didn't come out of his house to load up n go the next morning so he was left at camp. I ran him in 2-3 day field trials, he won the combination at both, placed 2nd in speed n drive at one and 6th speed n drive at the other with over 130 dogs entered at each. Just an example of what a good foxhound is capable of in speed and endurance.
Note: these field trials were not in a fox pen.

[macedonia mule man]

My high desert experience is limited to a 20 ft wide gravel road. They are hard to trail and run anything for any distance. Other than that , I wear rubber boots 365 days a year to keep my feet dry. Scenting conditions in damp, thick under brush can be bad sometimes. High desert is not the only place that makes you scratch your head and wonder why???????

[Ed Moore]

Well said mule man.

[Wht]

Hunting the high desert for bobcats is the hardest thing a bobcat dog can do.We have scrub oak,cliffrose,cactus of every kind with some cedar,juniper and mansenita thrown in,and lots of rock piles everywhere.On snow you can put one up now and then.West coast dogs don't have a clue what to do here,Tex bobcats dogs have no idea how to run in this stuff.I can cut over 20 bobcats tracks in a morning we have a lot of cats,but you won't find very many cat toilets to rig a cat from.And it is so dry most of the time you can't rig just driving down the road.I have tried to buy west coast dogs,most guys won't even comeover here to try,and the ones that have have run some races but no cats caught!!!I don't know what type or breed it would take to catch bobcats here but i wish I knew???I hunt from 2500 ft to 7500 ft .If you think you have what it takes I will be hunting all Nov and Dec come up and give it a try!!!!!!

I have dogs that can and do catch bobcats in AZ. I hunt between 3000' and 7000', and catch 30+ bobcats a year. We've caught 6 in the last month. It takes smart, fast track dogs, with a lot of nose, and at least one really good locator. 2 or 3 dogs works best, but I have caught with as many as 5. More dogs means more mistakes on the jumped race, too many mistakes and they will get way ahead, and you'll never catch them. I'm hunting 2 registered English and a grade Walker, running walker cross. And I rarely see tracks, I hunt them freecast, from horseback, on foot or from my truck. I also hunt lion and coon with the same dogs. We caught 9 lions last year during the drought, and you know how bad the conditions were last year. Anyway, just saying, it can be done. I think it's more about the right individual dogs, more than what breed they are. Conditions are everything here. The daily window of opportunity is small most days, hunt early.
You're welcome to join me sometime... Good luck and keep lookin up!