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I was bear hunting in Arizona last week and I had four dogs die. these dogs ranged in age from 9 to 2 years. These dogs are used to hunting in 90-plus degree weather and were in decent shape. It was in the mid 50's when this race started. It was not an exceptionally long race considering some of my past races. I have had dogs go down with heat exhaustion and as soon as I get them to water they bounce back. In total there were 9 dogs on this race. The race went down into a steep nasty Canyon where the dogs eventually lost the bear due to drop offs and what not. I have been chasing hounds for a long time and never had anything like this happen before. I'm looking for ideas of what killed my dogs. My initial thought was heat exhaustion however it was not that hot and one of those dogs I carried to a spring and it didn't make any difference. One of the dogs look like he just tipped over in his tracks. The other two dogs were sprawled out under a tree. Has anybody ever heard of anything like this or had anything like this happen to them? Looking for ideas I know I will probably never know exactly what happened.

POISON BAIT IN THE AREA , I WOULD HAVE A AUTOPSY DONE.

I'd try and find out if WS or a private predator control company was running 44's in the area for predator control. There is also a chance there was an illegal crop growing down near the area and they will litter the area with rat poison and dogs love to eat it for some reason. Sounds like a poisoning of some kind to me.

Whatever happened it sure sucks and a crappy thing to deal with.

I doubt it was 44 getters but outlaw broadcast poison is a likely scenario. If the dogs were running on a bear they usually won't stop and pull a getter, but they sure can pick up a pellet or two.
With the old getters they usually don't make many tracks.


Are you in a wolf area?

Some ranchers will put out poison.... I can't remember the name of it now but they can get it from farm supply and salt a dead animal with it ... kills 2 or 3 times .. I lost a good hound picked up a bird that had ate off of a dead cow .. killed him in minutes

Thanks for the responses