Bobcat dogs vs Lion dogs

[nmplott]

So now that there is a thread on lion vs bear dogs. I am wondering whats your opinion on bobcat dogs vs lion dogs. I know bobcat leave less scent are harder to tree most of the time than a lion. So I was wondering what your feeling are in the difference in these dogs.

[twist]

In my opinion bobcat dogs are born not made as saying that I mean you can take 3 different pups from different breeds exposed to the same amount of bobcat tracks and bobcat trees and thier may be one that is truely a bobcat dog and the others might not make the grade or just be ok cat dogs or maybe none will be top bobcat dogs. It takes that one certain dog not just any old dog. There is something special about a true bobcat dog that is just born into them, sure exposure helps but I know alot of guys who have played basketball as long as Michael Jordon but are or were they as good? As for lion most hounds that are exposed to a bunch of lion ussually make lion dogs that can catch them on a regular basis as for bobcats that does not stand true. Bottom line is if you dont turn your hound loose you will never catch anything. A hound has to be exposed to game to truely show its talent.

[blackpaws]

There is something special about a true bobcat dog that is just born into them

couldn't have been said any better.

i'll admit i have been one on the other post to argue about cold trailers. but when you have a bobcat dog that can consistantly cold track and catch them sneaky buggers, you have a heck of a dog on your hands. for me running and treeing bear is a ton of fun because i can get most of my dogs out all the time but when you tree or catch a bobcat, there's something different about it. i haven't been doing the bobcat thing long but man it sure is fun to put one in a tree or catch one.[/code]

[R Severe]

In this country a good bobcat dogs makes lion hunting look easy. Thats mostly not the case with good lion dogs on bobs. If you go to dry ground sometimes it fouls up that good bob dog on lions but not always.

I'd have to say, the good bob dog is in a class of their own.

[Buddyw]

R severe, I pretty much agree with that..

but I don't think it's just the Dog though.. I think that type of dog needs to be in the hands of an experienced cat hunter/trainer also to be great.

I've seen good "CAT hunters" lose there best bobcat dogs. And be able to Rebuild and start catching cats with young dogs. I think catching Bobcats consistantly is an equation of both good dogs, and good Hunters.

I know I've had dogs that would be better with someone else, Someone with more experience. But being greedy and not wanting to give up my dogs, I just keep pluging away and learning from them.. Allot of the time second guessing myself and Probably wrecking decent dogs along the way.

I think a good dog in the wrong hands, Will catch Less than a Average dog in experienced Hands.. Especially on Bobcats.

[Mike Leonard]

Well this is a good one too.

Andy you in my opinion are right on the money true bobcat dogs are born and not made. Now I said true bobcat dogs. there are a lot of dogs that catch a bob now and then, and some look pretty good doing it, but once you have seen a real dog I mean a bobcat master then you know. I got spoiled early in life in fact the first tree game I went to was a bobcat when I was 6 years old with my Grandpa, and old red was barking his heads off. He even helped me hold up the Steven's Crackshot 22 and i brought him down, and stil have a picture of that. Old Red wasn't really a bobcat dog but there were a few hounds around there and most were used on bobcat and coon. We had a lot of cats in that country back then and you could get on a good track most of the time as I remember. This was when coyote getters weres still being used along with 1080 by the Govt. to control coyotes and they just about wiped them out. Well the bobcats stepped up in production to control the rodent population and now then we had some cats. They weren't worth much back then and a good beaver hide was worth a whole lot more than a cat, but stil they got hunted. Well when I finally got my real hound education started in my later teens with and old govt. trapper/hunter who was a real bobcat man I got to see my first bobcat dog Old Ike. Yep Ike that's right. He always referred to him as Ikie however. He was a saddle back black and tan dog that had some dubiuos crossed blood in there that made him have fairly long wavey hair for a hound and he claimed there was an otterhound not far back in his line. Well old Ike was a cat master. He could run a cold cat track like he was running down a rail line. It was crazy to watch him because he really covered the country all bent low and low tail over going Yowk Yowk Yowk in kind of a low choked down voice. If he hit a feeding cat's tral with lots of circles he would just make a big circle thru there running with that head down and then Yowk, Yowk Yowk, he would hit it where the cat straightened back out and left and away he would go. I asked Leo how long it took him to figure that out, and he told me that dogs was born knowing how to do that and he start catching cats at less than a year old. He had some other pretty good hounds as well and several of them were related to Ike and a female half sister to him called Pike and of course he called her Pikey. she was nearly as good as Ike and the two of them were a deadly combination. Many times two dogs is too many on some cat trails but they worked togehter and when they got one jumped he was a goner. When Ike starting burning and churning on the trail and the cat was up and running Pike would fly out of there with her head up sweeping back and forth and when she got it airborne and let out a scream the cat was spotted and it was all over but the skinning.

Well a lot of years have gone by since those dogs past but i still carry an old leather collars from old Ike as a good luck charm in my dog bag.

Since then I have seen a few more that could be called Cat Masters but not many and I have been around a lot of dogs. I have also been around a lot of hunters that think they are cat hunters but not many that really are. I found out a long time ago by spending time communicating with guys like Wallace Griggs that I was not a cathunter, but I sure did enjoy when I got to spend some time visiting with a real one they are as scarce as the dogs.


I have seen some snow bobcat dogs that had caught a lot of cats that were not all that good on a snow lion track. Wow! that's about weird statement that goes against everything i have ever heard. where does he come up with that?

Well consider this last winter. I was hunting a female that was known to be an ace bobcat dog. Now i know she caight a lot of cats i think 45 in one winter was her record but that ain't bad in this kind of country. Now then I could get her out in the snow on any kind of a bobcat track that was there, and if it had even a trace of smell in it she would run it. I mean she was the sight trailing figuring out little bugger you eveer seen. And if she went far enough with it she generally got it up to where there was enough scent coming out of it that she would catch some of them. Well then why not on a lion they leave a whole lot more scent? Ok I trail this old smart tom down into a canyon that's kinda on the north slope and I know that old fart has a kill in there cuz i got his tracks going in and out several places all aimed at the same point. I had run him before and I knew he was well aware of what a hound was. well i find the freshest looking track going in there and put her down with another dog. Well she just leaves out on that track and I figure that tom is as good as caught. Well they go down in there and back and forth and around and around, and they can't take it out of about a half to three quarters of a mile circle. I know that tom was layed up down there in a rock pile, I know he was. But here is what happened to her. She trailed him hard down in there, and then when he came off the kill and made his circle of deception as they do many times when they get smart and they will hit little rock tops and boulders and stay away from easy ground as not to leave a lot of scent around then they hole up. that is why some times dogs can be almost on top of a bedded lion and not get a whiff hardle until they nearly step on him. Anyway he did that and she run out of scent and she run out of tracks. Well not quite run out of tracks, actually there was tracks all over down there but they were not the ones attached to the lion at that time. Well she had always followed up bobcat tracks even by sight and got some where so she starts running tracks. this wayno good. That way no good. maybe this line no good, well I will try that one again no good. I mean I would see her pounding down the lion tracks but I knew she was on an older track then when she started out. Now she was trying her heart out, and she was a honest little dog, and not stupid she just couldn't get that old tom figured out. Well the other dog who was a good bit younger and less expereinced came back with her on a few runs and then looked at me as if to say what do i do know? I just said Jiggs that lion is down there go get that lion. Well he looked at me with those big hazel type eyes and then trotted off. Never heard a peep out of him. The female came back and around a few more times, and Jiggs he never did show up. Larry who was with me said he thought he saw him poking around in a rock bluff on the other side of the canyon but just caught a glimpse of him. We had just about given up when all of a sudden RRRooooAAARR! and old Jiggs let out with abawl that made the canyons rin and up and out of there towards the indian reservation he goes. We jet around there in the truck and sure enough he had jumped the lion and it had crossed the road and he was in hot pursuit. Well we knew if he didn't get it tree in the next little canyon it would cross over the next big canyon and that was no land for a white man. We cut him off and the lion track clearly led into Jube's country and as far as I know that old lion may still be running. But getting back to the point that bobcat dog(not bobcat master dog) was hung up in her own mind because lions don't do the same things that bobcats do and bobcats don't do what lions do either. But then again if either had been a cat master they probably would have had it in a very short time.


Sure keeps things interesting. LOL!

[david]

My experience with lion is so limited. I have never hunted in the dry southwest, for example.

I have hunted bobcats in two areas: one with snow, the other without snow, but generally some moisture in the ground.

My very limited experiences with lion hunting went something like this:
Take dogs that have never smelled a lion, but have been hunted hard on bobcat, are broke off trash, or at least lightly broke, with one reliable check dog. Take those dogs, put them on a lion track in the snow and follow the dogs when I could hear them, and the tracks when I could not, walk to the lion in a tree. Once the lion was jumped there was never what I would call a cat race, the lion was forced to climb pretty much immediately after being jumped.

I am most positive there would be situations where liions are not easy to tree. I have never experienced it though, and it leaves me with the impression that any broke dog that will trail and tree could probably be a fine lion dog. Wouldn't have to be fast, as far as I can tell.

I agree that there are certain dogs that have that special something that could allow them to become exceptional bobcat dog befor the age of 18 months if hunted enough. I have also seen dogs though, that actually were on hundreds of bobcat races befor they put it all together, and became what folks could rightfully call a bobcat dog.

I like the "bobcat dogs are born" thing, And I have been lucky enough to see a couple of those dogs in my life. I have definately caught some bobcats with dogs that took an awful lot of hard work to get them to the point of being able to catch one. But they got there. I would not call them born bobcat dogs. But they were bobcat dogs.... eventually.

I am certain there is a spectrum from the absolute born bobcat dog who catches cats solo after just a few times on bobcat (at one end), and the dog that can catch a bobcat by the time he is three if put on hundreds of races (at the other end of the spectrum). I have had one that was at the born bobcat extreme end of the spectrum. The dog pretty much ruined me and made me difficult to be around for most houndmen. I myself will not wait the three years, and no longer have the numbers of bobcats to wait and make the dogs at the other end of the spectrum. Most of my dogs have been some where more in the middle: They took a ton of work, but eventually made me smile once in a while.

I have had dogs that could never catch a solo bobcat if their life depended on it. They stayed with me though and one in particular was "responsible" for a truck load of cats that never would have been caught without her. She was the best rig dog I have hunted with, she was a very reliable cold trailer, and I could hunt her day after day after day, all day everyday and she worked just as hard on the last cat of the day as the first cat of the day and on the last cat of the week as she did on the first one. But she lacked that overdrive gear that is pretty nessesary for getting a bobcat to stop on the ground around here. Can she wear the title "bobcat dog"?
Well, in my heart she does.

[ryan goodwin]

just my oppion, i think bobcat dogs are few and far between a good bobcat dog that catches cats on a daily basis is hard to come by i have been fortunate enough to hunt with dogs like that and it is awsome to watch a good bob dog on the other hand lion dogs i think in my personal experrance are esayer to come by. i know guys that hunt there dogs on cat,bear,and lion and are succesfull but the one guy that i know that only hunts bob's catches twice the amount of cats then the other guy that hunts every thing sure i can catch a cat to but i dont claim to have a bobcat dog. it makes me laugh hearing alot of guys say they have a bobcat dog then you go hunting with the guy and all his dogs do a me to
and there aint nothing worse,

[D/S-hunter]

I beleive this too a true bob cat dog is born and not made.it takes one hell of a dog to catch these little rascals sometimes.My dogs can trail and jump them with no problems but then all bets are off.I have chased a jumped bob for hours in the rocks and scrub oak and never went over a mile.I have caught these little boogers before but i have to honestly say i do not own a bob cat dog.I don't know if there is any truth to this but a freind of mine told me cats can hold there sent. I've seen first hand what mike is talking about lion holding in the rocks.In fact I trailed a lion one time and of course the dogs took him too a big rocky bluff the dogs where runng the track hard and fast barking every breath and then sillence nothing.I went up too see what happend and the lion was under a rock pile me nor hound knew he was even there.After what had to of been 20 minutes of searching for a track the lion bailed out and the race was on.

[Budd Denny]

David, did ya ever get ahold of Mike W. Me and him have ran quit a few bobbers together. He is up here at his cabin now, I just stopped and visited with him today after roading my dogs.
As far as Bobcat Dogs go, I like the bobcat dogs are born theory, but they will never reach that greatness unless they are put on LOTS of tracks.

[R Severe]

Really enjoying this thread, good stuff.

Buddy, I gotta agree on the bob guys also. Wished I was one

Mike, you gotta write a book. Nevermind,I'm gonna start savin your posts Good stuff.

[Rockcreek]

Great posts guys. I think Mike nailed it. You can hunt Whitetail and Mule Deer with the same gun... but the tactics change.

[david]

Budd, I did get my update with Mike. Thanks to both of you for the invite.
Jcathunter told me "the only thing better than owning a boat is having a freind who owns a boat."

I have not forgotten you and Mike have the boat (cat dogs). I hope I can get in it with you one of these days and go cat fishing.

The more I think about this thread, the more it seems like "lion dogs" and "bobcat dogs" really dont even belong in the same topic together.
Their differences far outweigh their similarities. I mean, they are both dogs, they both eat and poop and stuff, but other than that, I think a discussion on coon hounds and lion hounds would have a lot more similarities. From what little I have seen, any decent cold trailing coon dog that was broke enough to not run deer or elk, but not so broke he would not run a lion, would make a real good lion dog. I think coon in some ways would be more of a challenge to the dog than lion.

Wish I could say the same for bobcat dogs. Then we all could have one.

If one is looking for bobcat dogs, I dont beleive lion dogs is the place to start.

[Budd Denny]

David,
Hope ya take us up on the offer someday.

[nmplott]

I heard from somewhere I can not recall right now that some bobcat hunters cross in squirel dogs, as supposedly squirel dogs check a tree more frequently before they began to tree. I wonder if any one has heard of this and if it holds true.