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today I was out with my hounds and took Cookie out for her first lion. Cut a fresh track and dumped My 2 1/2 yr black and tan , Burger 10 months whos a collie crossed with black and tan and his sister cookie. The first tree was uneventfull as far as Cookie went, she treed a while, ate snow and investigated the surrounding area always ending up back at the tree. The lion jumped the tree and Cookie took the lead and was right on the cat for about 400 yards before treeing again, this time in abig fir tree closer to the ground. Cookie treed hard but made little noise barking once in a while but not to often, and never used her great bay that I've heard only twice. the question is do you think she will come around and be more vocal , and if not being vocal will hurt the packs production. Let me know what you all think.
Cookie treeing with Burger in the back ground.

I would keep runing her, sounds to me she did darn good for her frist cat it might take a few to get her treeing good. but that is killer for ten months old.

"Every man's got his limitations" as the old saying goes.........back when I bear hunted, I figured half a dozen bear trees where the young dog actually could see the bear was enough to get the dog treeing pretty consistently. After that, if it didn't show me something, I didn't keep it long. Not saying that is the right way to do it, but that's how I did it.

There are always exceptions though. There may have been a time or two when I jumped the gun and got rid of the dog too soon. But I don't recall anything I was wishing I had back after I gave it away or sold it.

Part of my thinking on giving up on the dog's treeing potential after 6-8 bear trees was that if it would not tree good on a bear that it was looking at, it would be a very long process to ever get it locating and treeing good on a varmint (bobcat/fox).

I hope Cookie will start opening up as she is a really easy handling dog. Burger, her litter mate trees hard but tries to to keep an eye on the prey at the same time. She sure put the run on the cat when it jumped and she did lead the whole way. A few more cats should tell the story.

Yea..............just give her a little time......she'll probably be fine.