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What are the pros and cons of dogs competing with each other on a track? Does it cause more losses? Does it increase track speed? I am open minded and would like to hear from those of you who have witnessed this first hand. Thanks

It is a good thing if the dogs know what they are suppose to be running. Andy

I kicked a dog square in the ass for it once. I'm not saying its a bad thing all the time within limits. I was trying to trail a lion and the track was bad. My cook dog was working on it silent but he was making a little progress by using his head. He'd flag his tail anytime he got a little scent. Well this other dog would run over and shoulder in and couldn't smell anything. But every time something. Cooks getting slowed down and fed up. I'm tired of it and the other dog wasn't even trying just watching cook . so after several hundred yards of this I decided he need a little lesson in manners.
But if a dog can take a track away from another dog and move it faster I have no issue with it. Its everyone's job to move the track to the best of their ability. But if there's any aggression or stiff body language over track tree or game that comes to a end real quick. Dogs hold grudges that's a fact. That pushing and shoving is read by the other dogs. They know if its just innocent or shows intent. And some dogs may not do a thing for days and then all hell breaks loose.
To me that's part of being a handler, handling these issues so your dogs don't have to.

I read a old book on sled dogs once that had this to say. The dogs most concerned with their position in the pack are seldom top workers and always the source of contentions and squabbles. Most mushers find the need to apply the whip or club in defense of the useful dogs. Those who support the bully are often in possession of a sullen and rather inefficient team.
Guess in short the working quality of any group of dogs relies on the leader and if isn't you his ideas of what matters probably are different.

pegleg wrote:I kicked a dog square in the ass for it once. I'm not saying its a bad thing all the time within limits.
But if a dog can take a track away from another dog and move it faster I have no issue with it. Its everyone's job to move the track to the best of their ability.

Couldn't have put it any plainer myself.

Running dog; Everybody has their own idea as to how a dog works a track and it varies with what you hunt. Some of them actually hunt enough and have watched dogs work a track to see what is really happening. First what Pegleg said about aggression among dogs especially male is true don't tolerate it. Heres how I think dogs should handle a track for bobcats. A dog should never open unless he has bobcat scent in his nose. When a dog opens out ahead on track every dog should run for the lead past where the last dog open and open when they smell cat scent. Never opening twice at the same place. This will leap frog a track through the country making it appear that you have a hotter track then you really do. This is not drifting a track, they should be within 15 feet of the line the cat walked. They should not be over running a track when it makes the turn but make the turn when the cat turned to check out a bush for a rabbit. It does not hurt you to bad having a drifting type of dog in there that will pick some looses ahead of the others but all need to honor the dog ahead. No off track or babble barking. I have sold and given away good dogs that could catch a lot of cats because they would not pack up or run for the front of a race or retire top cat dogs at a early age because they could not run for the lead. Heres why,I work several young dogs at all times, when you get an older dog or one that does not pack it will hold the young pups back with them when they should be trying to get back up in the race. Soon you have trained a bunch of young dogs to trail along behind getting father and father behind the dogs that are driving the bobcat track be it a hot track or a cold track. Dogs that are behind barking on a track don't stay long in my pack. A young dog needs to shut up and run its heart out to catch up. Most of the young dogs I keep don't open on a trailing track until they are 14 to 18 months old. For me the object is to catch the cat not trail it. Depending on what you are hunting and where, this may not be what you want. Each to their own. Dewey

Dewey you make alot of good points. I am always interested in how other hunters work their hounds. And I know you are talking about trailing bobcat. Which is something I can't claim to having that much experience with. I have treed a few here and there but not that many. My problem with the competing on track has always been with dogs overrunning. I am different than you in that I can find use in the hounds that do their own thing and lag a little on track. In other words needs to smell a track for themselves. I hunt alot of young hounds and have found they are more of a hindrance than help on a tough lion track. And have seen those hounds that lag come on and straighten alot of loses. Now all that said l only have one hound in my pack right now that works that way. And he has been a real help to me on tough tracks. A typical day for me on a tough track. I am not talking a good night old track that is basically a race to the tree. But a tough track involves alot of loses with plenty of chances for young hounds to trash. And that seems to be where the real competitive hounds can be a problem. They spend alot of time checking young hounds. Even if they are broke good. Their competitive nature makes them want to be sure they are not being left behind.
. Nathan the holding a grudge and hounds worrying about their place in the pack is real interesting. I am going to have to try to watch that in my own pack. And see if that is something I can pick out in them.

Chris: I have hunted lions in most of the western states including Arizona and understand the difference thoughts and conditions that you guys have down there. One of the biggest problems with a lot of young dogs out on the track is trash, which for me is not a problem for the dog but a problem caused by how the dog is bred, hunted and trained. One of the top lion hunters in Arizona hunts 15 to 25 dogs every time out, no dogs stay at home. I don't know how well he has done in resent years but not to far back he treed 51 lions in a years time. Every where I have hunted there is the way it is done in that area passed down from one hunter to the next. Just maybe things can be learned that are outside of the box by just trying something new and different. I have never treed a bobcat in Arizona just lions. I have trailed a few but not able to move them fast enough to jump them. It takes brush or moisture to do that down there I think. I know guys that tree several in the northern part on snow and some are treed on bare ground. Most of the lion hunters that I have know consider bobcats trash and don't run them. I have treed gray fox down in the Huachuca's in pretty dry conditions we did not hit any bobs down there when we lion hunted there. It would of been fun to see what they could of done down there with a bob. Good hunting Dewey

Dewey I have a partner I hunt with almost every day and between us we hunt 12to15 hounds a day. I hold to the belief that a young hound especially in the country I hunt has to learn to strike and trail before you start breaking them from trash. In other words my young hounds can be pretty trashy at times. I normally wait till they are pretty good at it before I start worrying about breaking them. Which on average I find pretty easy to do with the hounds I am hunting. Most of them are broke to trail nothing but lion or bobcat by the time they are two. And I have confidence in them to check other hounds and not trash with them. I have treed cats here on dirt but it seems to me it has to be a pretty good track for dogs to end up at a tree. I think if a guy knows his hounds he can tell whether or not he is wasting his time on a track or not. And if so go on lion hunting without spending much time playing around on a bobcat he won't catch. So o have always figured if I could catch one real quick it was good for the hounds. Foxes on the other hand are the worst trash a dry ground lion hunter could ever think of having his hounds run. In most of the areas I hunt there are more fox than there are deer.

Boy. Well I've been accused of a few things in my life. One recurring issue is .why you have so many dogs? My dad told me I was allowed two horses and one dog ,when I was 6. Never mind I had three dogs. Unless I was going to be paying for their feed. Well its not that hard for a industrious kid to buy dog food. Within reason.. I learned that also about two years later. Well my first hounds were black and tans. The kind that trail. It didn't matter to them if another dog was in front of or behind . they trailed each track themselves. The only word they took heed of from another hound was a strike bawl and that only if they weren't already trailing. And each dog would line out and follow the scent in single file. ( Mr Walton is pulling his hair out) they did catch me cats from the Arkansas to the Texas panhandle. I wouldn't say they were catdogs but they caught them just a regular as coons. The things that allowed them to do this were they had a good lope on track, they never quit, they never lost a track either.
Now of course there were exceptions and once in awhile a track would be lost but that was rare. Now lots of guys won't believe any of that.
Later on I got a speckled pup which was probably bluetickXwalker but he was called walker. Well hell he could catch coon! He'd tree ahead of the black dogs 80% of the time. And instead of taking all day or more of chasing a cat it would be a mornings hunt.
Well I found a yellow spotted bitch and she threw right in with him. But she didn't have a trailing bone in her body! If she wasn't running wind scent she was just pacing the male. Well I did let the black dogs numbers decline some. And them white dogs got more numerous. And then one day they were to old to hunt. My numbers fell hard that year and just continued. I looked for answers and made excuses.
Then in the nineties I moved to az. Hell we didn't catch anything. I SAW more game then they caught! Then I got to buying dogs in earnest. I bought pairs of dogs from every kennel and dog jockey I heard of. A few worked out once in awhile a shining star and rarely did it breed any further. But I learned a little about dogs, I like to think.
Then I got a big old dog he looked like a blanket back walker in color but bloodhound in build. He trailed like my old black dogs. I was so excited over that dog ! Now all those dogs in the kennel that occasionally treed game started look like pros. I wasn't fooled this time. Worthless damn mutts is what they where. Well I was able to do a lot of hunting and travelling around this time. I also experimented a lot. Now most of those dogs looked real good in different areas. And that ol male took a back seat. But if you worked everything together you got treed. Can the two styles be combined? Yes but its rare and you get lots of Frankenstein's. Do most guys need a trailhound? No. But where you do need them they can make or break a pack. And honestly if one of my swinging type dogs got to picking on a trail dog to the point it was a problem. I'd shoot him right there.
My favorite hound to this day is a trailhound that has a nice swinging gait when he can. They are seldom the first dog to a tree. But those other hounds may never have got on the track to begin with. I don't compare my different lines to each other its pointless. That's kinda what I've seen and I'm sure other guys have just as many examples of other things .
I'd like to point out ahead of time . I don't consider the dog that stands over one track bawling useful for anything .

I'm pretty sure foxes out number bobcats,coyotes and maybe skunks in some areas. Adding they might smell kinda like a cat to a hound, but they seem a lot stronger to me. They also don't travel as much as the average bobcat here. A fox race is usually never out of sight in most areas on horseback. A bobcat usually travels some then starts hanging in its chosen area.
I believe its also due to foxes here will eat anything even remotely edible . while bobcats have to eat meat. So it just figures they need to travel more to fill up.

Pegleg & Chris you guys sound like you have been there and done that. The fox I ran in Arizona the dogs were trashing. I refuse to become a fox hunter or let my dogs run anything but a bobcat. Not even a lion. Some people out here think fox are far harder to catch than bobcats, I disagree, not that the bobcat are hard to catch. When guys start running fox they don't seem to be able to find as many bobs. We are starting to get a lot of fox moving up but I have never ran one in years and think they smell totally different than a bobcat. I just don't have a trash problem I have not had a deer race in several years. I hunt free cast or rig cats when a young dog gets to smelling a off track I call them back and go on before he ever opens on it. If a young dog gets out of hand on trash it does not stay around long. It is rare that I have to use electricity after I get done tone training here in the yard. We all have are ways that work for us with what we hunt, maybe thats why there're so many opinions on here. If it works don't fix it. Dewey

A lot of guys claim that more than 1 or 2 on a cold snow bobcat track is a disaster but in my opinion if you run a minimum of 3 dogs that run together and trust & compete with each other will move a track forward 2 to 3 times faster than 1 dog. The same can be said for lions, though a lot of time on lions I will run 4 to 5 on a tough track.

With that being said I also hunt a lot more than most people do, so dogs that don't get run a lot, competition can be a disaster.

If you hunt bobcats rigging or freecasting you will generally be working lot hotter tracks, so figure competitive dogs would be even better.

My experience is that dogs will rig far more and just as cold of a track from the rig except in real cold weather them they will start on the ground. The only time my dogs get down is clean out or they just need some exercise. Hard to believe isn't it. I know there is a lot of different opinions about rigging bobcats depending on where you are from and each one own experiences. Just maybe that's the key it is just what one believes based on there experiences. No more or no less. Wouldn't competitive dogs that can handle a cold move the track faster also? Good hunting Dewey

Dewey,

Have you ever rigged a bobcat and cold trailed it 5 miles before jumping it? I have hunted bobcats on the Oregon Coast Range, so I know how you guys hunt and the conditions you hunt. I have never seen as much bobcat sign anywhere as there is on the Oregon coast.

I hunt a lot of bare ground rigging in the summer mainly bears but I also catch various species of cats by that method on occasion, so I know all about rigging tracks you can't run.