Registered: May 2016
Location: Palatka, FL
Posts: 5106

Does anyone else see that our dogs have naturally migrated towards being more like the coonhound we use to train.

50 years ago I know we use to have to do some serious training to get one to tree. To get one to hold a tree. To get one independent and not listen or go to another dog. We had to train them not to run trash and that was a full time job at times. We had to work on a lot of them just to make them hunt.

Now I see all those things naturally in a well bred pup. I also see this in more than one breed.

I think my opening statement of the dogs naturally migrating toward the things coon dogs should do might not be exactly correct. I think it was a combination of breeders understanding and breeding for these characteristics. I also think that all those characteristics are found in the winners and the overall picture is "Winners Are Bred" and they form the future of what we will be hunting.

I think our hounds of today are a lot more transparent than the ones in the past. Most of us use to have to relay on artfully written ads that may or may not contain all the truth about a dog. Todays world the good ones are hunted weekly for everyone to see and make up their mind which basket they want to get their eggs from.

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Registered: Jan 2014
Location: Ohio
Posts: 70

They have been breed to hunt the way you have described and for the competition Hunter the type of dog you get these days when you buy a pup is usually a deep hunting, get alone, tree dog. However. For a pleasure Hunter it is hard to find a dog that is better suited for that type of hunting. I personally don't like the dogs that get deep in the woods in a hurry. I like a dog that stays under 400 yards most of the time it's just easier to manage a dog like that especially if you don't have huge tracks of land to hunt without trespassing.

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Registered: Oct 2004
Location: Clarksville, AR
Posts: 1077

Facebook/the communications age has had a huge impact on coonhounds too when you think about it. Magazine ads and word of mouth used to dictate what got bred. If a dog accodentally won a big hunt and only threw common pups but had the best looking ad in the magazine, he was still gonna get some attention.

Nowadays, you can see vids of a couple dozen pups off most any stud dog on Facebook. You can hear their mouth and see how they're built. If someone wins a small hunt three states away, you have the ability to find out about it. If a dog starts to reproduce you're able to find out about it much sooner that before. You can retrieve all kinds of reproduction info to help in your decision making process. And if a stud is a counterfeit or a breeder keeps a kennel full of dud brood females you're able to dig that info up too.

Last edited by Cory Highfill on 03-29-2018 at 01:54 PM

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Registered: May 2016
Location: Palatka, FL
Posts: 5106

RedSea I understand completely what you are saying. To an old man like me deep and lonely is aggravating. To a pleasure hunter it is also. But deep and lonely doesn't always mean the dog passes up coons to get deep. It means they have the desire to keep looking for one until they find it. I have seen my dog tree plenty of coon close. I have also watched him get deeper and deeper if he can't find something. I will accept one hunting his way deep over one just going deep to hunt. I feel the difference is never explained and to much undeserved negatively is place on a hard hunting dog when they end up deep.

It is funny that I can sit here and think of a lot of quality dogs from 25 years ago my buddies had that would stay under that 400 yards like your talking about. One quality female I know of had about a 200 yard range. Buddy hunted her hard and was the top money winning dog in the state with her one year. Don't think he would come close in todays world.

When we walk hunted them back in the 70's they learned to hunt around us just like they learned to hunt and stay together with other hounds. Its a different world today. LOL

I know many don't believe in feed times. I do and we design a lot of our pleasure hunts around them. If we don't t we can be in for some long walks.

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Registered: May 2016
Location: Palatka, FL
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Cory you are 100% correct. So many play by plays but I can't keep up but I heard a Bone Collector dog the past month on one that had a tremendous mouth. Mine is loud but nothing like that one. LOL

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Registered: Jun 2003
Location: Talala, Oklahoma
Posts: 5208

I am vexed today.

Me and a buddy cut a couple of well bred Walker females loose last night.

One is a Dual Grand out of Bone and the other is a younger Wipeout bred female out of Zeb 3.

They streaked through the country like they were in a footrace and ended up treed over a mile away.

The Garmin revealed their transgressions.

I'm pretty sure they could have got after a coon in the good timber we turned them loose in if they had started hunting immediately instead of running a head of steam off before they started really hunting.

They were both fresh and hadn't been cut loose if a few nights.

When they are hunted down they don't always act like that.

I will not tolerate a dog that won't go.

But I miss dogs that aren't so hyper competitive sometimes.

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RedSealKennels
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They have been breed to hunt the way you have described and for the competition Hunter the type of dog you get these days when you buy a pup is usually a deep hunting, get alone, tree dog. However. For a pleasure Hunter it is hard to find a dog that is better suited for that type of hunting. I personally don't like the dogs that get deep in the woods in a hurry. I like a dog that stays under 400 yards most of the time it's just easier to manage a dog like that especially if you don't have huge tracks of land to hunt without trespassing.

+2 and I would prefer one that opens more. Just a difference in pleasure and competition I guess.

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Registered: Aug 2004
Location: Chattanooga, Tn
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Can you take one of those deep and lonely dogs and train them to hunt close? And can can you train one of those super independent dogs to back another dog?

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Registered: May 2016
Location: Palatka, FL
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Richard having a deep and lonely dog that runs past coon to go a mile is no different that having a slick treeing dog or one that runs trash.

In my opinion many men that have slick treeing dogs don't do enough to correct it. Many men that have trashy dogs don't do enough to break them. Many men that have dogs that just go to be going. Don't do what is required to slow that down either. If they can live with it, its their dogs. All those things are faults. Some people people put up with faults. Others stop them or minimize them to the best of their ability or eliminate the dog creating them.

Loner to the point it is a fault that would better be dealt with by the elimination process.

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Registered: Jun 2003
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quote:

---

Originally posted by crooked ridge
RedSealKennels
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Jan 2014
Location: Newcomerstown, Ohio
Posts: 17

They have been breed to hunt the way you have described and for the competition Hunter the type of dog you get these days when you buy a pup is usually a deep hunting, get alone, tree dog. However. For a pleasure Hunter it is hard to find a dog that is better suited for that type of hunting. I personally don't like the dogs that get deep in the woods in a hurry. I like a dog that stays under 400 yards most of the time it's just easier to manage a dog like that especially if you don't have huge tracks of land to hunt without trespassing.

+2 and I would prefer one that opens more. Just a difference in pleasure and competition I guess.

---

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Registered: Jul 2012
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Bruce you are spot on in what you are saying BUT did you ever stop to think that our training methods have evolved.back in the sixties we would keep a dog till it was at least two years old hoping it would progress.now days if it ain`t treeing at one year old its on the chopping block.back in the old days did you ever live trap coons to turn loose on pups ? there were no such things as training pens to get one started.and almost no one around here would hunt one alone as a young dog.and another reason i think, is we have bred dogs to fit the rules we are using.i have a five year old that will bust a hole in the dark and you can get her off a tree somewhere.cant hunt her in the small patches like i used to.i have a nine month old that i am hunting alone in the same patches and two hundred yards is a long way for her.she was started alone and different .and i hope she stays that way.just my two cents worth.

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Registered: Aug 2004
Location: Chattanooga, Tn
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When you breed for dogs that will get deep and lonely fast, you can end up with dogs that get too deep too fast. Kinda like when some breeders tried to breed for dogs that would get treed quick. They got them so quick that they started beating the coon to the tree. We might need to use a little common sense and moderstion in our breeding. The same can be said for independance. We might get dogs that are independent to a fault. You can overdo anything. Ice cream tastes so good. But eat too much and you will get a bellyache.

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Registered: May 2016
Location: Palatka, FL
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Mr. Hardy my training methods was always geared to young dogs. That was my passion back then in the 70's. I lived in the city in Miami and had a coon in a pen on a rope and laid tracks around my 125 foot by 75 foot yard. Only problem back then is when you got a young one that hunted out. You couldn't keep up with it on foot and the culled themselves by getting treed out of hearing. On foot if you went the wrong direction, you never saw them again. The ones that packed and stayed close were the ones you brought back home after the hunt.

I took a 10 month old blue tick back in the early 70's up to NC to hunt with some friends. They were the ones that carried an axe under their arm and never saw a dog under two years old worth a darn. The were amazed at the 10 month old pup. It is all about what you are exposed to and how much work you put into the dog. Now you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear and that is where elimination comes in. Way to many today stick around a lot longer than they should because grand pa kept them for two years waiting for them to bark.

They are all different. One day with our hunting grounds going away we will all be back to the 200 yard dog.

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Registered: May 2016
Location: Palatka, FL
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Richard no doubt at all about being deep and alone can be a big problem. Here is a side of the coin you don't hear. All we talk about is the deep and lonely winners. Deep and alone has cost a lot of good dogs to loose also.

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Registered: Aug 2004
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We hear that "my dog got of pocket" or "found my dog treed with a coon after the hunt was over" or "my dog treed a coon out of hearing". But they don't see this as a fault when really it is the same as making a slick tree. What would happen if we started minusing a dog for getting treed more than 1,000 yrs from where you turned it loose.

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Registered: May 2016
Location: Palatka, FL
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Richard any rule put in like the one you mentioned or any other rule. If it could be enforced would determine the future of our hounds. If tomorrow UKC stated any dog that opened on track would be misused. People would find still mouth dogs to hunt and win with. The winners would be bred and in several years we would have a lot of still mouth hounds.

The rules govern the future of the dogs. That is why I like rules that don't leash lock dogs. It gives the hound that can run and tree the most coon a chance to do just that and win. Which, I think we are all wanting.

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Registered: Jun 2012
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quote:

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Originally posted by Richard Lambert
Can you take one of those deep and lonely dogs and train them to hunt close? And can can you train one of those super independent dogs to back another dog?

---

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Registered: Aug 2004
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I love a dog with a handle.

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Registered: Feb 2015
Location: NW Arkansas
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I hunt a dog out of go hunting get deep blood lines. But I trained him to the tone before I started hunting him. When he got as deep as I wanted him to go I would tone him in. He is now a dog that hunts the woods like he doesn't want to miss a coon. Will get 900 yards deep (most times about 700) but then will circle back almost never coming back the way he went. I will always wonder how he would have hunted if I hadn't started him the way I did. I can tone him off a track and off a tree. Now the second thing is I think you can also get a dog to go deep. When I was younger I hunted in western Oklahoma where nearly every mile is another road. We would turn dogs out and if they went very far we drove around to the next road. Didn't take them long before they thought they didn't need to come back. Now back then we were ruining dogs because we didn't have a way to keep up with them. With the alpha now I wish I had some of those dogs back.

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Registered: Oct 2010
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quote:

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Originally posted by Richard Lambert
I love a dog with a handle.

---

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Registered: Oct 2010
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quote:

---

Originally posted by Richard Lambert
I love a dog with a handle.

---

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JOE WILBANKS
423-802-4115
The home where the big time winners come from

UKC PREFORMANCE SIRE Nt ch pkc ch BAM BAM The only one out of WORLD CH BIG D X GRNT SKIPPERS UMFORGIVEN SAIGE she has 21 pups 4nt ch 5 grnt ch thats 42.85%
He is a coon dog!
Nt ch ch Insane Minnie MouseInsane cain x Malden Branch Mouse

HOME OF 2 TIME AQHA HORSE OF THE YEAR
World champion working cow horse snaffle bit
SMART LITTLE LEGEND
ETCHA CHAMPION
HCHA CHAMPION
Top 16 NCHA WORLD Champion
Home of GHSRA All Around Cowboy Champion Chris wilbanks

Jerico Rebel our Movie star horse hes been in three films now 35 years old
Just passed away February 4th 2016

MY OLD DOGS GONE BUT NEVER FORGOTTEN
The one I will allways miss now deceased 01/09/2013
GR CH GRAND NT CH Handosme Trudy
SIRE PKC WLD CH GR NT WHATS UP DOC
DAM GR NT HUTCHINS SUGAR

GRCH GR NT CH COBBLER CREEK WENDY
GR NT STYLISH TUFF - WENDY X STYLISH LIPPER
GR NT STYLISH TACK - WENDY X STYLISH LIPPER

NT CH SOUTHERN STYLE - JP'S HIGH STYLE X HOUSES LADY

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Registered: Aug 2004
Location: Chattanooga, Tn
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Does training a dog to "handle" hurt them in a comp hunt?
Does taking some of the hunt out of a dog or training them to hunt closer hurt them in a comp hunt.

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Registered: May 2016
Location: Bethel springs TN
Posts: 92

I sit around talking dogs with my dad alot. He did alot of comp hunting back in the seventies with some luck. Now he pleasurw hunts from time to time but loves my stories. He and his buddies sit around and shake their head when i get to talking about independant dogs and making them that way. When i get to dogs with no reverse or cutting small pups behind hard hunters to make them start babbling a little they look at me with disgust. Their opinion of most of todays dogs being deep and lonely ever cut is so it can tree a coon by itself. Well it should be able to do that before ever entering but how fast is it on track with other dogs. Noone truly knows. They enjoy turning 3 or 4 dogs loose and seeing which one consistently gets an honest first strike in honest company. They enjoy seeing which can get treed first with the coon with the rest of the pack breathing down their back. The one who is first and first consistently is the only one getting fed long. Their dogs hunt a circle and if nothing is struck in 30 minutes their coming back and they move. Been a many a night as a kid they would come back we would move tree coons and 3 hours later go back to the first spot and tree coon that time. They dont like my dogs lol

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Registered: Aug 2006
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They're already calling the deep and alone off the garmins so why not change the rules and legitimize it.

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Registered: Sep 2003
Location: Kilkenny, MN
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Rooster731- I like the way your Dad thinks. That is exactly the type of dog I want and train for. Deep and lonely in my patch woods hunting is often found dead on the road or will get your arse chewed by someone when they get treed by their house. If I wanted to hunt a mile away I would have turned loose there. If your Dad has a good to sell, let me know!

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