!!! The Ultimate Bobcat Dog...Part 1.5 !!!

[chilcotin hillbilly]

I quite enjoy following Dan's breeding program. I have had the opportunity to hunt lynx with quite a few hounds that have been bred by people on this forum or from people who sell hounds on this forum one way or another. I have not had any desire to own one.
I also have had 3 hounds given to me from different guys on this forum.( Mark, Nick and Jeff) All of which I am happy to hunt. That being said the crosses I have made using two out of the three males given to me, have turned out better then the sire each time.
I have messed with different out of the box breedings, running 1/2 hound and 1/2 pet in the past and found a guy could make a full time living with those crossed up dogs. I just breed the best I have and decide which cross to make depending on the size of hound I am looking for at that time.
Each time these big name hounds show up here and under perform, I ask myself am I just lucky in my breeding or is it the fact I hunt the pads off their feet 150-200 days a year.

I think getting good dogs in the woods a lot is the key to making good dogs. Some of the worst dogs i have hunted with have come from the biggest name breeders, yet those same dogs make their owners happy.

At the end of the day isn't that what counts?

Keep it up Dan, it is worth reading.

[david]

[chilcotin hillbilly]

I didn't know that. thanks for the info David.

[Dan McDonough]

Speaking of crossbreds, I'll have two litters of Lep x Walker/July pups coming. The running hound side of that equation is similar to what Kemp has but has a dandy dog in there that he doesn't. Crossed to my Leopard stud should make what everyone already likes in a cat dog.

I'm not 100% on this yet, but I think Vicki took. I never did see her tied when I had her in the pen with Kuby but they had nearly two weeks in there to sort it out. I red two other females to Kuby during that time so they should have tied. Vicki has about a month before she'll whelp and the I'll finally get to start The Ultimate Bobcat Dog Part 2.0 . I'm not calling it yet, but I think it's coming and I'm pretty happy to get on with it.

[Jeff Eberle]

[NICK RILEY]

Dan I enjoy reading this post a lot keep it up it's very entertaining
Doug I agree with everything you said
I read recently that 65% of the dogs outcome is in the training every pup I sold to a good houndsman has turned out to be good or great dog
Treadsters grandmother is littermates to David's Rachel looks like you have a little bit of leopard in and all your dogs maybe that's why they're so good

[chilcotin hillbilly]

[deadmammal]

This is a great read and I applaud you Dan for striving to achieve what you have envisioned. Just seen a picture of a Mountain Cur/Stagg that I believe you owned. What did that litter turn out like? Silent or open, nose, grit, treeing ability, etc? I know they all differed, I guess what I’m asking is generally how would you describe the outcome. I’be been very intrigued by cross bred dogs for a few years now and the more I see of them the more I question everything I thought I understood about dog breeding as a whole. The common thing that the really impressive dogs I’ve been around shared, was brains. They made up for any weekness I felt they may have had with their brain power. Share some more crosses you’ve experimented with and what you felt the results were. I’m always eager to learn and it seems like you are trying to give an unbiased view into the results of your breeding process. I appreciate that!

[Dan McDonough]

That Doc x Rachel cross that produced Hank was pretty dang good but it threw a little of the wierdness back out there because of Doc. He was a Jug x Magnum Maggie pup and those had quite a bit more spook in them than the Jug x Sparklin Susie dogs (Rachel & Sadie).

Either of those lines of Leopards had loads of brains that worked really well for bobcats. For the few people that crossed them up with running hounds, it seems they've had really good luck. It's pretty much the same recipe as Turner, Walton, Kemp and the many others that have had great success with that cross.

When I found a man name Bruce over in MN that had much of the same blood as Kemp (running dogs) but also had a couple of important additions to that blood, I thought it would be a great way to possibly make some needed improvements to the Jug x Sparklin Susie line of Leopards. If I can do this correctly, I should be able to kick the cow-hocked legs and the flat feet out of the Jug x Sparklin Susie line.

I have a Leopard stud right now that is doing that on his own, but as good as he is, it's still not as good as bringing the improvements in from both sides. Besides, I like the locate and toughness of the line of running hound that I'm using. I have a feeling there will be a few out of the two litters I have coming that may make this whole ultimate bobcat dog journey seem foolish. It's really hard to beat one of the better examples of the Leopard brain on bobcats. Quite frankly, if the line of Leopards that I hunt has one fault above the others, it's that they are not as hard hunting, on the average, that I would like to see. I have to sift through a few to get one that really slams in there and finds a track on it's own when the tracks are few. Much of the time I just drop on a found track but I know this country well enough to know where the cats are hanging out even if there isn't a track on the road. Plus, I've always complained that there weren't enough of them that rigged. I think that the running dog will help that also.

I'm only going to keep a few of them so I hope I pick right and end up with at least one exceptional dog out of it all. If the majority of these make really good dogs, I'll no longer be a registered Leopard man because I think there's a good chance this cross could move me on to something better.

I've been neck deep in Leopards for closing in on twenty years and while I've made a few cross breedings with them, I've never done it with the mind to breed any of them back into the Leopards I have. This will be the first time for that.

I should mention that, while I was able to continue this line of Leopards and keep producing good dogs, I don't feel that I had the knowlege to outcross and end up where I wanted to be until about two years ago. That information about what parts of the brain are donated by which sex was the final lesson that I needed to keep from shooting in the dark, so to speak.

I'd like to throw another thing out there that has been helpful. It's a tip that I got from David Rogers, one of the co-founders of the Canadian Cur breed, who also happens to be a master pigeon racer. He told me about a method of selection that works on pigeons and puppies alike. In order to select the pup that has the fastest muscle reaction time, there is a simple method that nearly anyone can use.

To figure out which of your pups (or anyone's) has the naturally fastest muscle reaction time, you take a litter of pups into a dark room (or dimmly lit) and bring a light into their eyes, one at a time. When you do this, it's your job to compare the speed at which their pupils contract and, through a little repetition, determine which pup's pupils contract the fastest. This allows you to find out right away, which pup has a physical advantage over the others in the litter.

While I use this method of selecting pups, there are some other similar tricks that have similarly rational foundations that I use also. I wouldn't base my pick on the eye test alone, though it is one of the major factors in my picks.

All of that being said, Nick has made a few that I really wish I had in my yard. I don't have as much bobcat hunting land as Nick and he seems to have the whole family hooked on it. Pretty nice setup in my book.

Hopefully, around Christmas 2019, I'll be hunting a split pack of Lep x Running Hound and Lep x Lurcher crosses.

Over the course of this thread, it has not escaped my attention, how well the treehound x running hound crosses were already doing. In light of that, I thought it might be worth raising a few of each cross along side each other. That should make for a good comparison and also get work done on my two main projects at the same time. It should also make a few people that have been following this UBD project a little more familiar with how the dogs are performing ecause they will be able to compare them with a cross that is more familiar to them. It will be very interesting to me also. The tree hound x running hound lines seem to be the ones to beat.

The silver lining to all of this extra work will be that if my UBD doesn't whip the best things going...I'll still have the best things going.

[Dan McDonough]

One more thing. I really enjoy hearing about similar projects! Anyone is welcome to add stories of similar projects to this thread.

[Goose]

Dan will share your thoughts on what parts of the brain come from which side?

[al baldwin]

Guess I misunderstood what this breeding was all about. People have been getting SOME good dogs for years by crossing running & tree hounds, good hound to good curs &etc. I thought Dan was trying to breed the UBD without using proven stock. Al

[Leapordcur1]

Do you water heads reelize Denim Dan DOES NOT hunt

[david]

.

[Bneill]

David, can I join your fishing club too? I think I could run for #1 reelizer if given the chance! Lol That was the most creative response to some really poor trash talk I have ever heard. To misspell even your internet warrior handle is hilarious. Keep burning them David.