Tree dogs

[Plott1357]

Just moved to eastern Montana and there are a ton of fox. I have lion dogs. Would it hurt them to run fox. Fox doesn't tree so do they just go in a hole?

[call-me-ish]

If your talking gray Fox, they climb.

[1bludawg]

Grey Fox tree ,red fox don't .
It won't hurt to run them EXCEPT you might be running fox when you want to chase lion .

[Plott1357]

Red fox is what's out here and there's a ton but is it going to teach them bad habits. And I'm not worried about fox when I run lions. Will them running fox help them or hurt them

[Plott1357]

And do they usually catch them or corner them or what

[1bludawg]

They'll have to catch ,bay or put them in a hole and if they can do that you will have some track driving ,running son of a guns !
The only problem i can see is your dogs might start messing with coyotes .That might be a headache you don't want .

[ozhound]

What is this rubbish? You don't have lion dogs you have dogs.. Your asking how to start your 1 year old hounds on lions in that section cause you don't have a started hound.

[Plott1357]

Well its not rubbish its a question. If u can't answer the question that's fine if u can great. There's coyotes everywhere but haven't seen any. And OK sounds good well if I get on a track guess I'll let them rip

[Plott1357]

And by the ozhound I do have lion hounds that's what there bred for and that's what I'm training them for so yes they are lion dogs to me and there the best in my opinion so let's not try to cause problems.

[southern fox]

I WOULD RUN ONE OR THE OTHER , CAUSE U CAN BELIEVE THEY WILL LEARN TO RUN ONE OR THE OTHER BETTER , EASIER TO RUN A FOX THAN A CAT ANYDAY FOX HAS BIGGER LUNGS AND WILL RUN ALOT FURTHER AND LONGER AND THE CAT DONT WONT TO RUN AT ALL , ME I RUN BOTH , BUT I RUN MORE CAT THAN FOX FOR NOT HAVING ANY FOX , BUT WHEN I DID HAVE MORE FOX IT SHOWED WHEN THEY WAS RUNNING A CAT CAUSE THEY COULDNT MAKE THE TURN FAST ENUF ,AND HE WOULD DONE BE DID ANOTHER TRICK BEFORE THEY COULD GET BACK UNDER HIM. THEN IT WAS TO EITHER TRAIL HIM BACK UP AGAIN OR JUST GET SLAM AWAY .

[Kevin Jackson]

[pegleg]

This depends on how you do it. How little or how much work you want to put into their training. I've seen good multi species dogs but nearly everyone was hunted by itself while being trained. The old timers said start and finish them on the hardest species first. That is not nearly as simple a statement as it sounds. Some dogs prefer one species to others to various degrees. Conditions can change how challenging each species is and then population numbers will affect this also. Cat tracks here start slow and cold most of the time so the dogs need to be paying attention. Fox and coyote tracks are often hot and fast and most hounds look good running them. If they like it enough to do it they will probably like it enough to prefer its ease and excitement to the work of trailing cats. One other method is to train the dog to Only take tracks you set it on. Its effective and nice having a dog capable of doing this. However not all hounds take to this or their handlers. Its also different then what most envision as hound hunting. Also much easier done where tracks aren't difficult to find. Fox run hard as said But aren't fast . a fast dog will catch them a slow trailing dog will give you hours of music. Decide what you really want from your hounds and work towards that. If you decide to run Fox the truth is you might end up with foxhounds that take easy lion tracks or you might only get foxhounds. But the chance of getting good lion hounds that will run Fox when season is over is a long shot.

[Mike Leonard]

Plott1357

Growing up in eastern Montana and starting my hound hunting there I can tell you if you want to have lion dogs down the line leave them red fox alone. Out there in those stubble fields and sagebrush you will just run them around and if you will seldom if ever catch one but you will end up at a den hole. When the fox kittens are young and dumb and Mom sort of runs them off they will follow you around at times wondering what you are and your dogs may catch one then and then you will really have them turned on to fox scent and with as many reds that are in that country you will have a heck of a time keeping them on a lion track. You are far better off running coon with your dogs to give them trailing and treeing practice even if they have to tree on a telephone pole in that flat country, as you generally won't run onto many coon in that cold country once you go after lions.

When I was pretty young I had an old Golden Retriever called Duke. He was no great shakes as a bird dog but he loved to trail a fox track. I would use my glasses and find a fox out hunting mice in a wheat stubble fields with a little snow and I would put him on the track. He would take the track and although he was painfully slow and silent unless he saw the fox he would go after it. I would hide in a weed patch or some of those lava rock piles and watch him. The fox would throw up it's head and see him run off a ways and a lot of times stop and yip at him and he would just keep coming up the track and the fox would trot this way and that way and get his attention on Duke. I had an old full choked pump action Model 12 Winchester 12 gauge and I would stuff it with some buckshot loads I had and watch the show. The fox would get to circling and playing games with old Mr. MaGoo Duke and at times he got close enough to me I would roll him with some #4 buck. I never skinned them I just took them whole to Baker Hide & Fur and I would get a few bucks for them to put a little more gas in the old 65 Chevy pickup so I could go again. A real fox hunter I was! LOL!


Grey Fox are a whole different critter and great hound sport but red fox are best left to those guys wearing those red coats and riding them fancy horses with a bugle and about 100 English Foxhounds. LOL!

[floridacathunter]

Never had the opportunity to hunt lions,or panthers, as we call them in our part of the country. Did get to enjoy hunting bears in north Florida a few years, before it was stopped, by the game department. The bear season was closed about 15 years ago. Road kills and nuisance bear complaints led to the re-opening of a limited, "still hunt only" hunt this past year. About 300 bears were killed in 2 days, causing the hunt to be stopped, prematurely. The hounds we used to run bear,back then ,were straight bear hounds. They ran bear only. For many years we ran grey fox and bobcat with our hounds. Fifty years ago, we would run deer with these same hounds, due to fact we could go to areas in a much larger hunting territory, that had, absolutely NO deer. Hard to believe there so many today.when the deer covered all of our territory, we had to break our hounds off deer. I think running red fox with MY lion hounds would creat more problems than running lions with MY foxhounds. Sounds like you have lots more red fox than lions. The first year I bear hunted, the hounds we hunted with were not "broke " off deer . It was disappointing to hunt a good track all night, put on that track, and have the hounds leave leave the road trailing good and then have them switch to a deer. I would, personally, not run anything but lions with my lion hounds. I recommend you consider the the experiences of the contributors to this forum , then do what you think is right! If you don't enjoy the results of your decision, break em and re- train em ,or get a fresh pack and start over. We don't have the right to tell others what to do. What's OK for me might not be OK FOR YOU, I just hope EVERYONE finds what they are looking for.