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I gave a female Bluetick who is just a coon hound but I have a running cross dog for bobcats but I was wanting something to go with her something to cold trail my running cross dogs plenty fast I just question her ability to cold trail very well and thought maybe I could breed my bluetick to something so I have a dog I can cold trail bobs with until my running dog can get it going. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Trailing ability and speed aren't impossible to find in a single hound. A dog with a good nose Should be faster on track then a warmer nosed dog. Cold nosed does not mean slow. When someone calls a slow dog that hangs around a track bawling cold nosed I can only guess its a attempt to class the dog based on limited experience. A hound with a really good nose doesn't need as much time or scent to trail. A dog bred to trail the line slowly and on the line will. Beagles are the best example. They vary less then biggame hounds or most any hounds. So its clearer when nose or drive/style is the difference. Some are bred to trail the track like a someone tracing over a line. Some are bred to run the track faster but less accurately. If two dogs have the same style the dog with the better wiring in its nose will average faster hunting.
Now there are tracks so faint and spotty that even faster trailing hounds with great noses will have to work right on top of and they probably will look slow. Until they get it freshened up. In order to gauge a hound there's two ways. One follows the other in order to be accurate. If a dog only ever has two speeds slow and slower . its bred to be sticky on the line. It might be cold nosed and it might not. If a hound starts out trailing at high speed all the time its most likely warmer nosed. If a hound will take nearly any track it comes to but its speed varies in the beginning but progressively speeds up its got a better nose and is willing to run a track if it can. The second method of gauging a hound is compare it to one who has been honestly tested by the first.
For me a warm nosed wide trailing hound is the least useful. They spend more time confused or at a loss then trailing . some conditions favor this type hound. Limited space to hunt. Lots of game to run. Hunters who want to catch quickly or not at all. Mostly great trailing conditions.
Now your hoping to breed a litter of pups that are willing to push a track as fast as they can and have the nose to take poorer tracks. The issue is even if the two hounds are prime examples of their type the pups will be various mixtures. Also just how warm is your running dog? Is your blue dog really cold nosed or just average and sticks the line? Maybe its really just a slow track straddling type. Be as honest and thorough as you are able in rating these dogs. Then do the same with what type of hound you really want. Do you have the resources to go through a few generations to get the type of hound you want? Its cheaper in the long run to find hounds that already meet your needs up front usually.

If a hound doesn't have the ability to locate game in a tree, it don't matter how any of them trail.

Mike

Well said Pegleg. I feel most people think a dog that makes a lot of noise on a cold track is cold trailing. No matter what breed you hunt the ability to catch game is the ability to move a track, time and distance, moving a track the farthest in the shortest time puts game in a tree. There are running dog crosses that can cold trail with any breed if you look for them. A good way to tell if a dog is trailing a cold track is to follow their tracks in the snow. If it is not going back and forth on the track or off the cat track more than 15 feet then it is working the track as a dog should. One dog in there that swings wide will not hurt you to bad if it only opens when it has a clean track. It should only swing in bluffs, rock piles or on a bad loose. With a cross with two different type dogs you could get pups with any combination of traits. It is pretty hard to get the best of both worlds. Dewey

mike martell wrote:If a hound doesn't have the ability to locate game in a tree, it don't matter how any of them trail.

Mike

That has to be the quote of the year!, when breeding for bobcat dogs. Yes Pegleg it would be easier to buy from a breeder who is breeding the finished traits one is searching for in bobcat dogs. But where does one find it? If i had a dollar for every time a young hunter, or old hunter has purchased a pup from a breeder who is suppose to have it all figured out, then the pup is just average or worse, believe I could take a long vacation. I sure enjoy reading your post, agree on lots you write, however, just believe there are a lot more pups culled trying to find bobcat dogs than some breeders like to admit. Best to all. Al

I sure like a dog that has enough smarts to know when it is struggling with a track and will leave that track and go to where it knows the cat went. A cat smart dog can cut off a lot of trailing and make a track grubber look awful slow. If the track grubber will honor the cat smart dog you have a good combination i think.

There has been a lot of dogs culled looking for a bobcat dog I agree to this, probably needed a lot more culled. Just maybe the reason why this is, there has never has been a breed [bobcat dog}. WE that try to breed bobcat dogs are mixing different breeds and different dogs to make a bobcat dog. Some of us, like Mike feel the tree is the most important, I feel the ability to move a track is the most important and some people, just want to hear a lot of noise. For me most of the treeing walkers, blue ticks, black and tan, plots ect. have not been bred for bobcat not saying some don't make fair bobcat dogs. There are breeders in the Northwest that catch most of the bobcats that they hit treeing 50 to 200 bobs a year. Then there are breeders that are happy with dogs that tree 10 to 20 bobcats a year. Numbers mean little, what you want in a dog is important to you and only you. I have never seen a litter that has produced all top dogs but my idea of a top bobcat dog is far different that most peoples. For me just because a dog trees some bobcats don't make it a bobcat dog. I have seen and know of a Lab,Airedale and a Beagle that have treed several bobcats. I have owned good bobcat dogs but have had great bobcat packs. A bobcat dog is in the eyes of the owner if it works for you hunt it. Dewey

And yet if it can't trail it to the tree its ability to locate is useless. Finding a bobcat hound is more difficult but I'm going to flat disagree if you think its going to be easier to take the two dogs he described and breed cathounds out of them. I don't care what style hound catches cats with it will work best with other hounds similar to it. And in breeding this is more important. I've seen great dogs come from this type of breeding but what about the rest of the litter? What about the next generation? Yes it might gradually improve and in some cases people have put the work in to make it happen. All I pointed out was he needed to think if he really wanted or had the resources to go that route. On the other hand there are dogs that catch cats in about any region I can think of and once you dig a little you find they are mostly related somehow.
I disagree with bobcat dogs being impossible to breed to. It won't work to try breeding them like bird dogs or coon dogs. But you select dogs with the intelligence and ability to think for themselves with the desire catch for themselves and their owner your pretty close. We can argue over the little differences between areas but the truth is bobcat dogs are a type of dog and while it varies some the fixed traits out number them. How many harded headed slow tree crazy hounds catch bobcats regularly?

You are right breeding two different types of dogs will give you everything. Some dogs of all breeds will make bobcat dogs and breeding like to like will reproduce these. The part running dogs that I have, have been bred for forty years out here for bobcats, a long time ago they were a cross treeing walker to a running walker which is where the treeing came from. One or two pups might turn out, taking the best line breeding crossing out once in a while is what produced the part running dogs out here that work well. Most dogs crossed on running dogs will not work out well except to clean up conformation and endurance. There is no breed of dogs that are bobcat dogs but there has been more than 40 years of breeding trying to make one with a fair amount of success. 40 or 50 years ago when the treeing walker was not far from the running walker I thing they were a better dog. Now the treeing walkers that I have seen lately have been bred for coon trials and the running dogs have been bred for pen trials. For what I want it is breeding backwards. Look at the Bluetick, Black and Tans, Red ticks ect a lot of them have been bred just for color. Just my opinion which only holds water with me. Each to their own. Dewey

I agree most of our hounds aren't getting any better. But focusing on single traits is a quick way to loose everything else.

I thought I'd point out that 50 years isn't all that long in the scheme of things. Bobcats won't ever have the huge number of hunters other game does. But look back at hound history and the amount of effort and time spent developing them. From deerhound to foxhound was a struggle and from fox to treehound the same. I'm sure most of us have seen dogs with a natural preference for cats. Seems like that's a good start.

Now we got a good debate going! Was not disagreeing with you at all pegleg & yes one sure has to have a dog that knows how to push a track a little before the locate & tree is any good. But, at my age in this country a good locating tree dog is a must for me. Mark is in my opinion correct, the combination of a good grinding cold trailer teamed with a level headed drifting type track dog has been hard to beat if they honor each other & work as a team. I suspect that is what Dewey had with his ole pepper female & his running crosses. Now I have seen a few coon bred walker & bluetick crosses that sure work well and caught their share of bobcat. One would have to hunt with this young mans blue female before I could pass judgement if she would be worth chancing a cross with a particular male in my opinion. Also could depend what traits one is searching for in a cat dog. In my opinion a dog that moves a track fast enough to break the cats pace forcing the cat to tree after a good race, then be a good locator that trees until I can get to the tree is much more enjoyable to hunt, than what some others like in a cat dog. However to each their own. I have a feeling this young man is going to make a cross with his blue female no matter what others say, I wish him well. I too, believe there are some good pups out there with the traits one needs to catch bobcats, but, one will need a little luck in getting the right pup out of the litter and that is all I was trying to say. I f I had the money I have spent over the years searching for a better dog, only to find the ones I owned were better than what i bought I could take a long vacation. Don/t believe me, just ask my wife. Good hunting to all. Al

A man came in the store one day to buy some butter bean seeds and said, I hear you are trying to start a bobcat pack. I replied, yea I am. He asked how was it going. I told him , not to good. He kinda laughed and said I hate to have to be the one to tell you this but you can't breed and train real bobcat dogs. He told me he and his daddy had some good cat dogs that caught a lot of cats and every dog was given to them by fox hunters. When a dog started breaking up a fox race to catch a cat he had to go. Real fox hunters couldn't handle that and they would call them to come get it as soon as possible. He said they made several breedings without much luck, and the dogs they bred were real cat dogs. Never got a pup as good as their parents. When the outside fox hunters died out he and his dad had to go out of cat hunting. Sure didn't want to believe that but the more I try the more I believe Fred knew a little more than I do about cat dogs.

Treeing is the least important to me. Starting is number one for me you must start it before you can tree it, and must trail it and jump it and run it before you have to worry about treeing it. I like my pack to be 50/50 on tight running dogs and drifting hard hard casting dogs. The more dogs looking the better chances you have. Now for making that cross. You might not need to that running cross might be warm nosed cause it never had to really cold trail. It's odd how most people who have cold nosed dogs always have cold nosed dogs, a lot of the reason is there running with dogs who teach them to cold trail some are of coarse better then others.