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It's supposed to be 101 on sunday and 104 on monday. I'm just wondering how hot is to hot for others around the country. I know the question about to cold has been asked and answered and has far more to do with scent than this one but I'm still curious. When it's hot like this i try to hunt till it's about 90 but sometimes that can come as early as 9-10 oclock in the morning. After that i have a hard time keeping a race going as dogs overheat and dehydrate quickly. hope to get some opinions and maybe ideas on how to help dogs cope with the heat a little better

When it gets like it is now I also usually only hunt 2 MAYBE 3 dogs as i can carry enough water for 2 dogs a lot easier than 5 or 6. Where i hunt water is not always available so this is important.

That'd be wayyy too hot for me to run my dogs.

Heat exhaustion follows heat stroke. Often, when a dog gets that overheated, there's no reversing the damage [ even with the necessary interventions ] and ultimately it dies.

Why take the chance??

Sounds like you have a good plan already AZ-Go getum.

I seek higher elevation when it warms up and try to get going as early as possible, but when it gets up around 90 dehydration really works on the dogs. I use to visit with the late Marvin Glenn about this and he and now his son Warner and Grandaughter Kelly Kimbro hunt about as hot and dry a country as you can find. Now then they run four packs of dogs so they can rest them for several days when they are hunting hard, and they carry a lot of water, but it is still mighty tuff. Marvin believed that scent is not affected as much as many beleive by hot weather but the dogs body temeperature gets up to a certain point and they lose a lot of theur scenting ability. Now dogs normal temperature runs hotter than a human over 100 deg. as it is so they really get to boiling when working hard. Many times guys will say the sun got out really hot and that old track just went away. Well it might to some degree but usually the dogs get over heated and they lose the ability to cold trail and they just seem to wind down slower and slower and then lose it. Water will help, but here is what i do. I carry canteen and orage juice jugs of water I also have one of the short flexible feed pans. I water the dogs and then have a spray mister bottle and wet them down especially on their legs and underside of their belly. Also they will want to put their feet in the water they absorb a lot of heat thru their pads so wet their feet as well. It is a pain trying to work on so many dogs so it is better to cut numbers back if you can. My Nance walker dogs can stand a lot more heat than my old strain crossed dogs with Hagar being the exception he can take hot or cold equally well but that is rare.. Not just because of the color but skin thickness and har have a lot to do with it. When it is extreemly cold and bitter those walkers hate to hit the ground and those old strain dogs will act like it is a summer day. So they each have their place. I am not saying the walkers don't work in the cold or the old strain don't work in when it's warm it's just that some work or stand different climates better.


Be very careful however when it gets really hot if you have ever seen a dog die because of heat stroke it is not a pretty picture. They go down and stiffen out and their heart stops and in just a little bit they are dead and stiff as a board.

At the risk of sounding like an idiot...

I have never lived in a hot climate, so I am not talking about blistering heat that would easily kill a dog:

I recently heard that some folks deer break their young dogs on deer when it is "hot" out, so it turns into a negative experience for the pups. Supposedly they find deer and put the dogs on them. No shock collar involved, just heat.

Anybody ever heard of this or done it?

I know that I ruined a couple promising pups by working them on game when it was too hot. They got real worked up as they should, but got so hot they eventually laid down and couldn't/wouldn't move. They never were interested in game again. Something for you young guys to take to heart: dont work those pups on game when it is midday hot out!

If those folks actually break their dogs off deer as effectively as I broke mine off of good game.... hmmm. I dont think I want to try it though.

david ,never heard of it done as a breaking method-

sounds risky to me -- lol



ive had 2 dogs get heat stroke - there tongue had turned purple


and u could pinch it hard and get no reaction--




1 never was rite after that - didnt break him tottally from running -he had been a very good dog and after that - kept him around- but he was about 1/2 the dog he had been


the other, took a whole day before he could use his hindquarters -- he was back to normal after a week - my dogs never really get used to heat-- if its 70 ,, at daylite---im not hunting -- doesnt happen here more than a few days a year -i can wait -


its sorta humid here i think -

i know if it ever gets 85- 90 here

my dogs are sufferring just laying still -

Personaly if its too hot for me to run then its too hot for my dogs to run. I did run track in college and it was 120 in pheonix one meet... don't know how I did now days I think that would kill me. June is our hot month here and is 90s... then it cools off to 80s in July and August but is some what humind so mid day is too hot to run but mornings are perfect. The way the seasons are now though works out, June and July no lion hunting or bobcat, foxes ect in my area. Bobcats foxes ect open in August and lion opens back up in September. I do end up running a few bear away from the orchard in June and July but dogs are all rested and bears are suffering just as much so races are 30 mins or so and caught.

I remember around 5 years ago in June I ran a big 300+ lb bear up canyon a mile and half. Barking stops and I rush forwards only to find all of my dogs in a big pool of water and then 50 yards away the bear in another pool of water. My dogs took one look at me and rushed out of the water and two of them jumped right on the back of that ol bear. He burst out of the water shedding those two dogs and race was on again. I thought it was sorta funny, everyone taking a break like that... That same bear is still around too but getting sorta old now. Chased him away from the fence last friday. But didn't have the heart to run him too hard and called my dogs off after only 1/4 mile. Poor thing just walks slowly along now, no running... someone should put him out of his misery

I stop hunting at 65. I primarly hunt bobcats and have little success in weather hoter than 65. The risk is far greater than the occational tree job.

I was once presented with a lesson while having a dog bred. That was one expensive pup!!!!

Mr. Leonard I will definitely be bringing a squirt bottle along with me on the next trip. Wanna see how that works. Generally if i know there's some water close I'll take the dogs to it let em swim then go back to the track but the going is very slow this way and never seems to get any cooler.

I remember i read on here somewhere about some fella from sierra vista who trails lions for miles in 90 degree temps. Personally when it's 90 my dogs are pretty much finished.

You really see which dogs have the heart when the conditions get extreme but once they start searching for shade i'm pretty much done. I've also noticed that the lighter colored dogs (walkers, curs etc...) seem to be able to go longer in the heat, I've got mainly blueticks now and they seem to overheat a lot sooner than the old white cloud dogs used to. Maybe it's global warming.

URE thats pretty interesting if I stopped hunting at 65 i could hunt maybe 2 months a year at most. Where are ya located?

Have any of you guys heard of K9 Hydrations Tabs? my buddy gives them to his working narcotic dog and I bought some from him. They seem to work pretty well at getting a dog rehydrated after a hunt but don't seem to extend hunting time any say if you give a dog one with water while hunting.

TomJr- you probably know what i'm talking about with the heat. I played baseball in the summers and high school football started in august with 2 a day practices I have no idea how we did that with pads on but nobody died. Every year 3-4 kids would get heatstroke and be out little while. But they always recovered.
Thanks for the responses, happy hunting everybody, AZ boys get out and chase those kitties only 2 more weeks till they shut us down.

Buy them good pump bottles and just turn them to mist on their tummys and legs. Those dogs get to love it quick. My quail dogs can drink out of a bottle better than most people. Well my little walkers dogs figured that out quick and they can even catch it out of my camelback off my horse. Dogs are pretty adaptable and when you team up it makes things more fun.

If it was easy everybody would do it...............................................................................................................................................ML

its to damn hot plus the snakes are out and thats not a good thing.

freeze up a couple gallon milk jugs and put them in the box with the dogs right away in the morning,it helps

i agree AZDOGMAN i was trying to go out this morning as todays high was only supposed to be 89 or so. woke up at 4 am to 30 mph winds and went back to bed. piss on that. I wanna get out a few more times before they shut us down for the summer though.

yea the wind is nasty down here too I did go out for abit but the dust in the face got to be too much so came home... maybe better tomorrow. Atleast all this wind is blowing some cooler air in!

gogetem Im pretty sure the quota units still stay open year around. There are a few good places to go here by my house that are in one of the qoata units. If you are ever headed up this way let me know. I also hate the wind this time of year, i caught 3 lions last year in april but trailed 5 or 6 more good tracks that i got screwed out of by the wind. Back to work for me and getting the bear pack ready for some bear chasin.

hey azdogman, in the regs it says the quota hunts are July 1 2008-Jun 31 2009. was last years season from july 2007-june 2008 i can't find my regs from last year, thats probably the way it is which, which works for me, i had planned on running coons for the month of june. I'm putting together about a 3 week hunt in one of the quota units right now. I figure since it's so far away from me might as well stay a while we got perfect hunting weather today if it ain't raining i'll be running in the morning.