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It all depends on what you what to know.I will tell you this at one time I had a real good line of farm Shepard's better than any cur except a leopard but on the same level as hunting and brains and I am not putting down curs.they were easy to teach and had the drive I was looking for.I broke my first hound with a farm Shepard. Uncle Sam came calling and when I was over sea's my old man got a good deal on them and got rid of all of them except my old male.the old male came down sick but he held on until I came home on leave and passed away the following day I buried underneath a big tree on the lawn.he was faith full to the end and my best friend from time I was 4 or 5 to the age of twenty.

Mr Lee: You mentioned crossing hounds,curs,running dogs, bird dogs, sight hounds, farm Sheppard and Airedale to study transmission of traits. I am asking if you will share some of what you learned about transmission of traits.
How difficult is it to do and how do you go about either acquiring or maintaining a particular trait such as treeing, track style, drive, nose, conformation, tough feet, temperature tolerance etc etc. Keeping one set of traits while adding other traits is of particular Interest. Also eliminating undesirable traits, while keeping the good stuff, would be great. I know that no one has a magic formula but your experience would be appreciated.
Thanks for your time and your sharing.

Reinventing the wheel !

justahunter wrote:Reinventing the wheel !

Mr hunter; You are so right. The dog [wheel] has been developed by millions of breeding choices over thousands of years. And the wheel itself has gone from stone to wood to wood with a metal tire to metal with a rubber tire to aluminum with a rubber tire with air inside and maybe in the future will be replaced by magnetic propulsion. I just want the domesticated wolf that will be superior in catching the game of my choice in the territory and conditions that I hunt in.

justahunter wrote:Reinventing the wheel !

A plott can't run like a greyhound. Most plotts fight, most derivatives of the greyhound have no interest in fighting, only killing and that's a big difference in efficiency. Most plotts are slow by running hound and sighthound standards. As cat dogs, most plotts are also not very smart in my experience, at least not compared to leopards and certainly not to anything with at least 1/4 border collie or more. The thing I like about plotts is drive to catch but there is so much of that in the sighthound already there's no need to look elsewhere. Of course, there's the obvious one too...I'm not interested in bear hunting

barksalot wrote:

justahunter wrote:Reinventing the wheel !

Mr hunter; You are so right. The dog [wheel] has been developed by millions of breeding choices over thousands of years. And the wheel itself has gone from stone to wood to wood with a metal tire to metal with a rubber tire to aluminum with a rubber tire with air inside and maybe in the future will be replaced by magnetic propulsion. I just want the domesticated wolf that will be superior in catching the game of my choice in the territory and conditions that I hunt in.

I've been trying to think of a ways to your automotive analogy to disprove itself in a self same argument but rather than just ending up sounding like a smart ass, I'll say it this way. There are a lot of cars that the US govt. won't let us have here in the USA. Okay, that didn't really get the point across either. What I mean to say is that general ideas of what to expect from the dogs I choose to use in this breeding do not necessarily apply because I have searched out and found extraordinary dogs. It's like if you found a treeing walker that also retrieved and had a double suspension gate. The stag I'm using runs track and also trees which is on top of the usual traits of a good stag. A good one winds well, hunts up, is very fast (40 mph + in open country), catches to kill (not to fight) and has extraordinary sight and hearing. Additionally, I would even think of breeding one that was not a really good locator.

Put that stag stud together with a very sharp border collie that trees and look out. That's my next batch of lurchers. That BC's name is Polly and she just came into heat two days ago. So, about a year from now I should start having some reports to share...it's a painfully slow process but maybe I'll find the fountain of youth with I'm waiting.

I just don't understand what your trying to do especially when there are plenty of dogs out there that catch bobcat very consistently . but I have nothing against what you are doing . I hunt with lots of sight hounds for coyote my cousin and my buddy got some of the best around these part . there's no denying the drive and kill they have . sorry guys for the rude comment didn't think it would offend you all like it did . but for the plott comments come on now . I will hold my self back .

Sorry barksalot I posted a reply yesterday hit the wrong key I guess and deleted it.but any how I can understand where Dan is coming from been down that road a few times myself but to find the answer to questions I was looking to solve. Well how did I do?well I did find the answer to a few of them.I don't have the time at the moment to get into a lot of details but will at a later date.

No offense at all. I'm just laying out my rationale. I like Plotts plenty and I had one I liked a lot. For my style and what I want in a dog I like Leopards the best. If I only had a couple of Leopards right now I would be happy and catching critters by the dozens. I don't think that most folks are familiar with the line of Leopards I hunt. There's quite a bit of Treeing Walker in that line, along with some other stuff over the years but the outside dogs were really good and that's fine with me. I've added outside blood to it myself but never put any papers on any of them. The main line could use a few things but there's no crossing in the registry right now. I did find a group of Julys that are really a lot like my Leopards but they aren't as good at treeing but they are built quite a bit better in my opinion. The key with them is that there are some fantastic locators in that line. I'm going to be crossing those two lines pretty soon. If I like those pups better than what I have I'll be on my own and away from registered dogs which doesn't bother me either way.

I would say that over all, very few people even have any real experience hunting sighthounds in the USA. Even fewer of those have any real experience working them hard. Of those people, I think I've meet a good many of them by now. There are a bunch of people that have crossed greyhounds with all sorts of stuff and I'm getting a lot of good advise from some of them. It's interesting stuff but I won't get a lot of experience with crossing with hounds (besides Bandit the Stag x July) until I'm done with the collie crossing. I don't think I'll go a whole lot farther than the upcoming Duce (Stag) x Polly (BC) litter because I'm very satisfied with what they are doing already (referring to Tommy & Vicki). It's just that, if I can get that natural tree in there, why not? After that, I'll go on to some crosses with hounds and I think most folks that are following this thread will be relieved that I'd finally getting be looking at some final products and actually getting to test them.

If I had to guess, the end result would be closer to the hound side than anything else I may augment the "Ultimate Bobcat Dog" with but if I don't put an equal amount of effort into what I'm adding to the hound side, I wouldn't be very good or very qualified to be cross breeding in the first place. I'm just doing my due diligence. It's been a pretty good time though. Besides, I've met a few great people along the way too.

Anyhow, that's enough for now. It's overcast and fairly cool out so I'm grabbing some dogs and going to go have some fun.

Dan theirs is a genetic link between the three they all are heavy in July genes or Irish hounds ya I mean plotts and leopards.

Dan the trait for running by sight is dominant over trailing you will have to go back to a hound cross.

?? . leopards plotts and July are related??? Please explain .

Or do you mean traits ? Like trailing?

Not trying to open up a can of worms but yes all three are related.I found this out researching hound history.at one time basic color for Julys was brindle but also merle.a common trait for Julys was run to catch and catch to kill which is also in plotts.conversations between Dale Brandenburg and Tony Brown mentioned this. A talk with Rex Bowers also kind of confirmed what I was lead to believe already.

Jimmy Lee wrote:Dan theirs is a genetic link between the three they all are heavy in July genes or Irish hounds ya I mean plotts and leopards.

I'm aware of that and most of my first information on that subject came from Rex. He's nuts for dog history and one of the best. He's got quite a collection at this place. I always wondered who he would give that to when his time is up.