BigGameHoundsmen.com

This is my question......Primarily hunting solo with one or two dogs what type or strain of hound would you recommend ?
The dogs will need to have some handle and be broke to heel.

I hate having dogs chained up all off season so with that in mind can they be obedient enough to take fishing or for a hike without being a a pain in the ass??

You probably could, but do you know many different scents are in the outdoors? Now if they are broke off all off game then they may be listen well enough to stick around, but you have to remember these dogs are bred to hunt. Im sure instinct would kick in and you'd be looking for dogs more then fishing. Although slap a tracking collar on em and you might not have a problem. And if you are hunting like that you are going to want a very indepent dog that can do it on its own, also read up on which types or strains of dogs are eash to break of off game. Seems people have opinions on which ones are easier and some are harder to break.

Cur or Leopard.

i think any hunting dog can be a companion as well, it just takes time
i guess if a fella's got dogs chained in the yard all year till season comes in he's not gonna have much of a handle on a hound when he needs em to mind the most
its all about how much time you spend with a dog when its a pup..you cant just train it to hunt then tie it up all year till season comes in, you'll catch more headaches than you will game..
just my opinon

Every Plott I own can fetch, retrieve out of water, sit, stay, shake, one even dances.

Why?

Because I trained them to not only be sharks on the mountain, but to also be pleasant creatures I can take to the park and have fun with my friends. We don't go on camping trips without a truck full of dogs, it just doesn't happen lol.

Horshur, you can go to the pound and adopt a hound, train it, and it could be the best hunting dog on the planet... You can buy a world famous strain and after trying to get it to work, take it out and shoot it.

You can not force a hound to do something it doesn't have the heart to do, you can't make them tree, you can't make them rig, all you can do is take the rough rock, and shape it into a diamond.

When you get a dog, put a shocker on it and give it limits to how far away it can get from you while you fish or read a book, Apply these limits everywhere, make these dogs stop when roading them and run to the truck if you turn the truck off, train them to never get a certain distance away from you while roading, It will keep them safe, and keep you from wanting to give up hunting hounds all together. The better your dogs mind you the better they will hunt.

Treat them like a companion and they will act like one. It is not a hard thing to do, hounds love attention lol.

As far as breed goes, I think you could pick any... What is your favorite color? If you like bluetic patterns and hunting habbits, get a bluetic, like the way the plotts look and the way they hunt, get a plott, same for any kind of dog

Amen Nikki, you can make the right dog do just about anything, it is alot easier to start with a pup. As far as a specific breed, I think any of them would work.

-Hound

Thanks hound.

You can't pick someone's favorite color for them, and you can't make a dog do something it don't want to do... Especially a stubborn hound lol! Papered or not, they truley do have the thickest heads, but anyone who gets in them and stays in them learns to build a thick head, why else would we fight for them as hard as we do

I have two redbones. I coon hunt alone a lot. When I bear hunt, I usually bring someone younger and stronger to help handle hounds.
My redbones go just about everywhere with me, inside the car. They live in the house and share (hog?) the bed with my husband and me. I road them when the season is closed, and take them to the park to frolic with other dogs. They go mushroom hunting and just meander in the woods with me when I feel like it--with tracking collars. The one I raised from a pup is better about not hunting when I'm not hunting; the one that was raised and started elsewhere takes off to hunt more frequently, although he is doing more exploring than treeing out-of-season game. They have been known to find lovers in the woods, sleeping campers, eat other fishermens' bait or picnic, find buried diapers, and do other doggy things.
The farther they are from civilization, the more comfortable I feel about turning them loose. Both have free run of a fenced yard, and will hunt whatever's handy when confined--frogs, chipmunks, bunnies, grasshoppers. Both go on errands, play with other breeds when given the opportunity, and enjoy going to the lakefront beach for a swim (where they will raid picnics if left unsupervised).
On the other hand, they opened on a bear at a highway rest stop near the Delaware Water Gap and I amused a lot of foreign tourists. I tied them to a picnic table to regain control, but they tried to drag the table into the woods. I had to get people to sit on the table while I brought them back to the vehicle one at a time!
Be advised that coons love good fishing spots, so you may find the hounds on a den tree some lazy afternoon.

I'm gonna have to go with whats been said.

When I'm out hunting, my dogs hunt, and hunt hard. Alone, or with company it don't matter. When I'm up camping, hiking, at events, at home ect, my dogs are just like any other pet. I usually put a tracking collar on 'em if I'm hiking in the woods. But they know exactly what we're doing by where we are, what time it is, how I handle them, and what I tell them to do. When I say "stick around" they do just that. I take em and collar em up and drop 'em and say "lets go" they get gone.

I wouldn't own a hound that wasn't good for anything but standing around eating food and hunting a couple months out of a year.

I've noticed that dogs that weren't raised here, don't stay here very long. Nothing compares to raising a dog from a pup around you and its pack mates.

Redwood Coonhounds wrote:I'm gonna have to go with whats been said.

When I'm out hunting, my dogs hunt, and hunt hard. Alone, or with company it don't matter. When I'm up camping, hiking, at events, at home ect, my dogs are just like any other pet. I usually put a tracking collar on 'em if I'm hiking in the woods. But they know exactly what we're doing by where we are, what time it is, how I handle them, and what I tell them to do. When I say "stick around" they do just that. I take em and collar em up and drop 'em and say "lets go" they get gone.

I wouldn't own a hound that wasn't good for anything but standing around eating food and hunting a couple months out of a year.

I've noticed that dogs that weren't raised here, don't stay here very long. Nothing compares to raising a dog from a pup around you and its pack mates.

What you said last is very true! A lot of people can ruin a dog for the rest of it's life and not even know what they are doing. We call these dogs victims, for it may not be their fault that they are worthless... When bad habits are left un-handled, they can make that dog a pain to train for someone who knows what they want and how they want it in a dog.

Not everyone trains there dogs to shut up, to go straight for the truck when turned loose, to load up, or to come to the dog box door one at a time and only when their name is called to get turned loose or collared up.

Hounds don't take a mile if given an inch, they take 10 miles if given half an inch!

My dad always said, if 300 degrees will cook the pie, then 300 degrees will do, but if you need to, crack that sucker up and cook that pie! He said this when telling people about the shocking collars for dogs... If 3 or 4 doesn't work, maybe 6 will... I find hitting the button on 6 really fast, is almost like I invented a 10

Bull Arab my man... If you're hunting hogs anyway.

If you want to walk hunt try a Bull/Stag. You might be surprised at what you will catch.

cobalt wrote:Cur or Leopard.

Yep.

Couple weeks ago I went with my brother and my nephews up in the hills to screw around.. They just wanted to play in the snow, shoot their .22 and sit around and roast hotdogs.. They all kinda looked at me funny when I loaded up my 3 hounds with the heeler.. Now, I did collar up the hounds (tracking and shock) and when we got to the spot we wanted I let them all out.. The two younger ones goofed around checking scents out, always coming back when I called... and the older one figured out what we were doing, did a quick check to make sure we hadn't built our fire anywhere a kitty had been.. then curled up by the fire and spent his time begging for hotdogs..

Mine were all raised to be a part of the family.. They have always gone everywhere with me (maybe not all at the same time) but they have all been to nephew's baseball games, fishing, camping trips and I can leave them in the front seat of my truck without any mishaps.. Will I let them roam without tracking collars?... Nope.. I know would ruin my lungs calling them back (not sure what my chances would be on that) if they actually came across that hot screaming track... But they are going to go.. They had better go.. ANd I have to be smart enough to keep them collared since I want to take my hunting dogs on family outings..

You can do it with one (a hounds).. They aren't going to be my heeler who can't stand me to get 5 feet away from him.. but you can enjoy them if you raise them that way...

BTW I like those big overgrown beagle types LOL.. Never tried it with anything but a Walker... I'm sure ya could do it though

has anyone had a situation where once you told a person your dog was a hunting dog they got kinda uneasy around them? LOL
well i got kind of a funny story about that

i had a paycheck i had to go deposite at the bank one day., well i came out of my bedroom wth my boots on and of course my gunner do thought we were goin huntin,l he jumped off the couch and started actin all excited..now i didnt wanna leave him home so i opened the front door and told him "in the truck" he ran back to the tailgate like he always does and waited for me to open it..i dropped it down, up he went and we were off
after the 20 minute drive to the closest WAMU, i pull up in hte parkin lot..this well-to-do type fella gets outt his BMW eyeballin my muddy, beat up pickup..and watchin me pet gunner
well he approached me and started askin about him, his name, breed, all that good stuff..todl him he was an AKC beagle blahh blahh and that he was a rabbit dog..well this fella in his dockers looked real uneasy after that last bit of information but i encouraged him to pet him and ol gunner dog gave him a good tongue bath like he does everyone LOL..he asked if he was a good gaurd dog so i told him, "yeahh as a matter of fact watch this" took my truck keys outta pocket and said "gunner watch the truck".
he then got all alert and put his front paws up on the bedrail and gave that man a death stare hahaha
i tried talkin him into tryin to get the keys outta the bed but he wouldnt do it..finally after a little coaxin he went for em..now old gunner dog did what he alwayd does when we do that trick..just watched!! tail waggin and all LOL
he was like man i thought he was gonna bite me..he actually said "i thought all hunting dogs were mean, i mean dont they have to be to wanna catch and kill animals??" so i informed him that i raise and train all my dogs like a regular person would do a pet dog..i consider them pets, not just tools..we talked a little while longer about he breed and what all i do with him...he didnt think you could take a "bloodthirsty" animal into an assisted living home to socialize witht he old folks..which something i've done quite a few times
sometimes i get a kick outta talkin hounds with people who've never heard the thrill of the chase more so than i do with the old timers who been doin it since before i was born
seems like most people have a bad taste in their mouth when it comes to hound huntin, when they dont really know about it..it kinda makes you wonder how it got there? what makes the general public give a guy with a dobox with a few dogs in it give him such weird looks? it aint like i'm parading dead animals around town or nothin, hell i hardly kill anything..except for doves and rattlsnakes..