BigGameHoundsmen.com

Hello,i have a 15 month old walker,she hasnt done much until now , i took her the last couple months with other hounds in our NY bear training season,i would put her down at the bait with the start dogs and she would leave with them and go a couple hundred yards and come back every time. if you took her to a tree and shook the bear out she would run it to the next tree and tree good.now she just got real gamey and wants to run anything that moves,we run bear fox, and coyote. i took her to the fox pen she will jump, and run the fox between a couple hundred yds to 800 yds, leave it come back and check in, go jump another and do the same thing over and over.she did this at least 10 times yesterday. what do you guys think? will she come out of this?does she need to be culled? she has see a lot of game and doesnt seem to want to break this pattern. just wondering what to try or do. also i know they all dont make it but she is out of a good line of hounds!!!
thank you for any help
Tom

If she is a treeing Walker and doesn't make it for you, she might make some one a good coon dog since races are usually not long and the handler can often get quickly to the tree.

I had similar problems with some cur dogs I have raised for bobcat hunting. With them, they hunted for me and they did not hunt for themselves. They wanted me to be involved in the hunt. If I was coming along on the track they would finish the track. If I wasn't coming they would eventually quit and look me up. It drove me nuts, and I did not stay with those dogs, although they sure caught a ton of game.

I don't know how your dog was raised, but if she was closely bonded to you, it might be an issue. I know bear and coyote are not the type races where you are going to want to walk up the track. But maybe it would work on a circling fox for you to get more involved in the race just to see if this is the issue. If she comes back on the track correct her and send her back up the track. You would probably need snow to do an accurate job of this.

Just a thought.

Hopefully she will come out of it on her own.

I think the fox pen is very unrealistic and it is making her lazy. It is a lot less work to jump a hot fox than to pound out a track and try to finish it. That is just an opinion, but I know I would never take her there again if it was me.

Another thought, if you get completely frustrated with her, lay her up for a few weeks or months. There are a couple dogs in my past that I wanted to give up on and I just put them away for awhile until I forgot what I was so frustrated about. When I took them out of storage, in both cases, they went on to make excellent dogs.

I would speculate that in both cases I had been pushing them too hard for their age.

You might try that if you get to the point of wanting to give up on her.

David,thank you for your reply and yes she is a treeing walker,i took her to the pen because she wouldnt go to another dog and she was jumping game i didnt want her to run on the outside,i have taken her to where she quit the track and she did the same thing took it a bit and came back.i know what you mean about pens but i have had good luck starting pups there, i dont over do it just a couple times so they learn what good game is.if there was snow i would just find a track and put her on it.how would you correct her when she comes back? she used to come on her back track but doesnt always any more.she is a real nice hound except for this, maybe ill have to wait for snow.
thanks Tom

Has she ever had got her mouth on any fur? Sometimes, with pups or young dogs, it is beneficial to let them get their mouth on some game. This lets them know there is a reward at the end. As the dog gets older and progresses, it will need that reward less and less, but pups sometimes need that incentive.



Tex

As far as the correction goes, if you can just keep walking up a snow track, when she comes back to you, I would leash her up and make her walk up the track with you until she is really pulling and showing desire, then let her go.

Each time she comes back, I would put her on the leash again and make her walk up the track with you.

Hopefully she will get tired of being leashed up and pulled out of the fun of charging around. And at some point I might try just encouraging her to get back up that track.

Once she knows for sure what she is supposed to be doing, and she comes back, I might carry a long willow branch or something flimsy with fine twigs and bring that down on her face and tell her to get out of here and get on up that track.

Competition hunters are well known for disciplining a dog in training for showing up at all. They don't allow it because an over zealous judge can scratch the dog from the hunt for not hunting; just by showing up. So once she knows what you expect, you could try their methods. The dog simply gets in trouble for showing up. I would hate to go that far myself because I don't want my dogs afraid of me. But in desperation I might try it as a last resort.

Snow (and your Garmin) will help you to see what her track style is. If she is a wide swinging dog, and also very independent of other dogs, she might be simply swinging out and loosing the track; over running it etc. if she is independent and does not pack, (and competition Treeing Walker breeding includes Independance) she might come back to you for help.

Young dogs that swing wide can look like idiots for quite awhile until they understand their gift and begin to be able to predict the behavior of their prey. But if they make it past the culling process and get tons of practice they can look like rock stars because they will pick up game out to the side when it turns, and way out front when it doesn't. But a lot of good houndsmen won't have that type dog. I like them because they make me smile when they hit the jackpot. I might feel differently if I hunted for a living. I hunt because I like to smile.

Here's another thought. I have never tried this and I always marvel when I hear about it, but here goes:

You could try coupling her to an older and more powerful dog. This was so common in European fox hunting that if they had fourty dogs they wouldn't say fourty dogs, they would say twenty couple.

I have heard of some one doing this in the USA as well. He said those dogs learn to lean over each other when going through brush.

It sounds crazy to me, (probably like "rigging" used to sound to people that never tried it) and I really should try it but never have.

Another thing I have done with pups: anytime they come back to the road and I can't or don't want to walk up the track, I scoop them up and put them in the dog box. They get to enjoy hearing the rest of the race from in there.

For one thing, it keeps them from getting too tired. Secondly, it intensifies their desire to go. Thirdly, it teaches them not to come back unless they are done for the day.

Bar Bar 2, last winter when we got a coyote i would show her and she would chew on it , i would drag it through the snow and she would chase it and bark on it, i even let her run a track a couple hundred yards long with a dead coyote at the end and she finished it.
David, now that you mention a wide swinging dog there is always a loop at the end of the track on the garmin maybe your on to something there thank you for all your suggestions im up to try anything about now, i like the idea of keep putting her on a snow track and maybe she will figure it out.
thanks Tom

Bought a year old beagle that would run with other dogs but as soon as the made a short loss he would come back. Have a lot of rabbits around my house so I turned him loose with some other beagles and he came right back. Tied him up in the yard and let the other dogs run all night long. Ran right past him several times and he would raise cane. He quit coming back.

I'd be careful coupling on a actual race. I couldn't imagine it would turn out good on a walking bear. Might get a dog killed like that. I had a pup that wouldn't leave me more than about 10 yards. I did put her on a coupler and she learned to take off after that. Biting some fur will probably help at that age.

I think coupling dogs would be a recipe for disaster in brushy country. There are a lot of good suggestions on here. If the dog comes from a "good line" did you hunt with the dogs parents? I would get a hold of the guy that raised the pup and get his feedback though some guys that breed pups get very unhappy about negative feedback and blame the handler.

dhostetler,i did not hunt with the pups parents but the man i got her from is a outfitter,he told me when i got her to give him feedback on this pup good or bad and i have been,he also told me recently that he would replace her for me if she dont make it, but he wont have a litter until spring. i want to do the right thing thats the reason for this post she is a nice acting hound but still acts immature. i have only raised about 10 hounds and never had a cull and never had one start this late. i thank everyone for there help!!
Tom

T Malone you activity with your dog is illegal. Hounds may not be used to pursue Black bears in NYS and baiting is also illegal. I would suggest you stop both these practices before you get a visit from the encon man.

T Malone I apologize after looking up the regs there is indeed a training season so I apologize. When I left NYS many years ago there was no such training season and baiting was illegal . Would be nice to get the hounds a bear season for hunting. Good luck in your endeavors.