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Your on your way. Just keep the game to them if you do that again wait even longer next time

I just figured out your problem.

You don't have a walker.

You are a hard working trainer. More power to you!

Check your state laws. Some states it is illegal to transport live game. I don't want any surprises for you.

They are ready for the real thing.

If you find out it is illegal to transport live game in your state, I will make the suggestion that you contact Buddy and politely ask him to pull this thread. Either that, or go back and edit a bunch of posts. I know you didn't know about it, but sometimes law enforcement does not think much of that excuse.

David, But if he had a Walker he wouldn't have walked to the dogs treed...

I talked to the game warden and he said it was legal frowned upon by anti trappers but legal. Ya I hope it works. I thought they lost it but called them across the rd and away they went. They went a lot farther then I expected. Now is there anything to work on in the mean time besides sit stay come all that. Should I drag a crttier for that 6month old until he can find it or tree or just let him with those older dogs.

So what's my next step do that again and wait longer. Or go and dump them all on a fs road and hunt um

The only reason for all the gimmicks is to give your dogs an idea of what they are looking for when you go hunting. They already have that figured out. My only worry for your pup, is some pups can be burned out by too much exposure too soon. It can take something out of them and you may never know how much you took out of him. I take my pup with me just like you do because I can't leave him home to bark and wake other drivers. But I try to protect him and hold him back and keep him wanting more. Watch your pup closely, never push him beyond his attention span. When you see the first sign of distraction or boredom, put him in the dog box. Don't let him get bit by critter or grumpy dog at the tree. Tie him back away from the tree where he can watch everything and feel like he is getting left out, but can't possibly be hurt by critter or over zealous dogs knocking him around. He's just a little kid. Suit him up for the little kids game and don't send him out to play in the NFL.

Now HUNT YOUR DOGS. I think several have already said this. If you don't want to do it, that is ok, but don't ask any more what to do.
GO HUNTING. It is the only way to make great hunting hounds. Hunt at night to catch coon. Early in the evening will give you hotter tracks. You can hunt early morning to give them practice cold trailing. They probably won't tree it or if they do it will probably be a den. But it is excellent practice for cold trailing.

Hunt them in the day where you know there are not any coon, so you can see how much they are fooling with off game, and you can see tracks and see the actual off game much easier.

Go hunting as much as you can. You are doing great!!

One other thing. Two young dogs are much more likely to run off game than one young dog hunted alone. You can go backwards in a hurry because of bad habits being formed. It is hard to say it and even harder to do it, but if you will hunt your dogs in good coon territory with only one free casting at a time, you will have WAY more control. You can try it the other way and use this if you can see you have to get a handle on things.

Road hunting is awesome for keeping control and observing what is going on. Hope fully you have a great road in great coon habitat.

If you just can't help yourself, and have to release stuff; like merlo said, let it go, go home and get your dogs, and hunt them in the area. Make it real. The only thing fake about it will be you will know for sure there is a coon here somewhere. (And that should be your attitude every time you go hunting). It will give you confidence to hunt hard for him just the way you want your dogs to hunt every time you turn them loose. Don't show them the track. Make them find it after hunting awhile.

So I guess I might be getting confused with the go hunt them. I'm asking should I just let them run where there might be a cat track or do I need to wait until I have seen a track. I have spots for coons but I want them on lions aorry for being repetative

I am not a lion hunter. I have treed some lions though. Most were snow lions keep in mind, but my dogs trained in the way I am describing (hunted often and hard on coon, year round, because this was legal back then; broke off trash, handling the best, coming when called, hunted on bobcat in the winters) these dogs made lion hunting in the snow quite boring if not for the amazing scenery and majestic animal. Their first lion they looked like they had been doing it their whole life.

Focus on coon, is my advice to you. Get them broke, reliable, hard hunting machines. And you will be more than ready for bobcat and lion when the snow flies. There will be other things to be said at that point. If you can cat hunt with an experienced cat hunter, go when ever you can. Otherwise, you need your dogs broke and focused and coon is going to be the best way for you to do that right now.

If you see a cat track, lion or bob, and your dogs want to run it, by all means run it. But there are many trials troubles and temptations for a young dog on a faint cat track if that young dog is not broke and focused.

It's my opinion that you don't have 2 old dogs and 1 puppy, you have 3 puppies. That being said, more often than not, 3 puppies running together is asking for a train wreck. If they were mine, I would run them separately (the 2 one year olds), 1 will more than likely show more promise than the other. Get that dog going where you have trust in him and slowly incorporate the other dog into the mix. Once you have those 2 one year olds going and trusted, then start letting the young pup run with them. This process could take months depending on how much game you get them on. I can't stress this enough, a young dog is very susceptible to bad habits and can be a real pain to break them of them. It will make your life a lot easier if they don't learn bad habits to begin with. I'm not much on freecasting so I have no clue the proper way to train for that style. Oh, and never hunted coon in my life so I could be blowing smoke...lol

Like David and Mondom have stated get them going and get them handling and Broke. It take's a lot of hunting before there going to just start catching game for you. Once you get to that point where coons are getting easy for the dogs then they'll be ready to handle some Lions. Don't rush your dogs take your time. Don't be to eager to be catching game right away it takes some time especially when your starting from scratch with three pups.

Well good news fellas I was out having a coupl with my dogs like I do just about every day that I have off. 1 because I like being with my dogs to because I like beer. Some people call it addiction I call it my second job. Somebody has to keep the beer company's going. I have a led light bar on my truck and I spotted some eyes. I was in the woods about 6 miles from town and it looked like to me an OK barn lion. Drove up closer and wouldent ya know its Ol ringtail him self watched him for a couple mins kept in mind where he went off the rd and waited a good 10 mins finished my silver bullet and dumped dogs about 50 yards from where I origannly saw him dogs took of and starded up the rd they caught the scent and off they went coon was treed about 200 yards from the rd. The pup didn't do much but the one year olds got it up the tree pretty proud prob have the best hounds in the state;)

hurray!! Probably best in the state.