Registered: May 2016
Location: Palatka, FL
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Couple things we talk about pretty regular is the difference in a pleasure dog and competition dog and training pups. I think where we get confused sometimes is. What perspective are we looking at this from. Let's start with pleasure dog. I have a dog that is 11 years old. He was and is a very hard going dog. I won close to 10,000 dolllars with him back about 8 years ago. Biggest win was 3rd in Super Stakes. He was not a pleasure to hunt. Because I wanted him to stay sharp and not make mistakes. He took me to trees a long ways away. However roll the clock forward. I hunted him last night. A true pleasure to hunt. Why? Because with that tone button I have complete control over him. I had that same control 8 years ago but didn't exercise it. I felt I wanted him to stay sharp and know I was showing up at every tree. Now, I just want to have fun and he gets to far or in a rough spot I just tone him back. Last drop last night. He was about 400 yards and getting into an area that holds a lot of coon. However it was getting late (for me) and he doesn't need one more coon. It called him and hit the tone button. He was at my side. I went home, after having a pleasure hunt. Dog didn't know the difference. I do.
Now hunting very young dogs. My intention other than general obedience, which is done at home. Is not to take them to the woods and train them. But to handle them correctly. To eliminate outside influence from another dog. At first you feel you may need another dog. But watch your pup. If the older dog goes and barks and your pup perks up and wants to go to that dog. Your handling that pup wrong. Keep doing that and your training that pup to cover. Pups only need a very short period of time of different exposures to get them going. Maybe a cage coon once or twice. Maybe an older dog a time or two. Then that pup needs to be on its own. Now here is the kicker. If you have several dogs. No need to rush the pup. That's when your handling it wrong. Because you generally have it with another dog. Expecially if it's 4 or 5 months old. I know it's your only pup and want it in the woods. Be careful because you might not be handling it wrong and implanting things you might have to correct later. Like going to the old dog. I would rather tree less coon with a pup than teach it to relay on an old dog and tree more.

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Last edited by Bruce m. Conkey on 03-29-2022 at 01:10 PM

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Good post. Guessing that you are likely someone who primarily hunts alone and always hunts just one dog at a time?

Back when I had coonhounds I hunted more alone than I did with others. Yet there were 4 or 5 guys that I hunted with occasionally. Usually it was no more than 3 of us at a time. Most often just me and 1 of them when I wasn’t going alone.

I enjoyed the fellowship and I enjoyed hearing (2) sometimes (3) dogs hunt together. They would honor one another, treed well together and gave us a little friendly competition occasionally.

It seems guys like us would be well in the minority today. I have only had beagles since 1993 but still coon hunt some with my best friend of 40 yrs. He still has coonhounds and I go with him occasionally. We have run beagles together also for the last 30+ years.

So when you go with someone else do you ever turn more than one dog loose? If so, do they just ignore one another and punch a hole in the dark being totally oblivious to the other? I enjoy hearing 2-3 decent dogs go together and enjoy the comradarie between us as friends and hound owners.

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Many times when I go with someone else I don't take a dog. When I do it is generally an experienced one. I hate hunting pups with someone unless it is a regular hunting buddy. The reason is that all dogs mess up. However you take a young dog with somebody and It messes up. Then you get it straightened out at a later date. It becomes a nice hound. The story that guy tells everyone is how sorry the dog was the night he hunted with him and he wouldn't own it. Nobody sees my young dogs until it's ready to tree it's own coon and doing it on a regular basis. When I do take an older dog with someone I just cut it loose and see what it does.

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DO GUYS HUNT DOGS THAT GET DEEP AND ALONE BECAUSE THEY RUN PAST COON THAT A PLEASURE DOG WOULD TREE

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We have bred dogs with different styles. We in some breeds have taken the breeding to the point of having show dogs or hunting dogs. On the hunting side we want to label it two different ways. Pleasure dog or competition dog. I don't think that is exactly how it should be looked at. As many dogs are both and also many sorry hounds are labeled pleasure hounds. Which is one I never understood. A sorry dog is not a pleasure to hunt. Everyone that has a choice in their style of dog exercises their right the have more like that dog everytime the breed. Looks like more are breeding for the go yonder hounds. Either that or they are not culling any and just breeding. Our hounds are a product of many years of breeding. How have we done. I say don't blame the dog. Understand the dog and if your not happen with your understanding. Do a better job breeding.

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Registered: Jun 2003
Location: Minnesota
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Who wants or who doesn’t care?

Bawl mouth on track (NOT TIGHT) chop on tree
Checks tree before locking down
Checks back after 30-45 minutes of hunting if no COON found
Cold nose, one that takes a track more than 15 minutes old even if it’s a couple hours old

Basically one with BRAINS that you don’t need a $1,000 collar to hunt😉

I think the column written by Sam Buff page 26 this month in Coonhound Bloodlines OR American Cooner, John Wick page 8 covers it pretty good too. JMI

Here's the way I look at pleasure vs comp hounds "TODAY". Their like the Camry or Mustang you drive to work, they're NOT the Camry or Mustang you see go fast turn left on Sundays. And as 'most "true pleasure hunters", they're fun to watch but we would be darn to own one.

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Last edited by OLD TIMER on 03-31-2022 at 04:58 PM

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quote:

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Originally posted by OLD TIMER
Who wants or who doesn’t care?

Bawl mouth on track (NOT TIGHT) chop on tree
Checks tree before locking down
Checks back after 30-45 minutes of hunting if no COON found
Cold nose, one that takes a track more than 15 minutes old even if it’s a couple hours old

Basically one with BRAINS that you don’t need a $1,000 collar to hunt😉

I think the column written by Sam Buff page 26 this month in Coonhound Bloodlines OR American Cooner, John Wick page 8 covers it pretty good too. JMI

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quote:

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Originally posted by DL NH
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Sadly, it appears that the days of the type of dog you describe are numbered!

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quote:

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Originally posted by OLD TIMER
Who wants or who doesn’t care?

Bawl mouth on track (NOT TIGHT) chop on tree
Checks tree before locking down
Checks back after 30-45 minutes of hunting if no COON found
Cold nose, one that takes a track more than 15 minutes old even if it’s a couple hours old

Basically one with BRAINS that you don’t need a $1,000 collar to hunt😉

I think the column written by Sam Buff page 26 this month in Coonhound Bloodlines OR American Cooner, John Wick page 8 covers it pretty good too. JMI

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Location: Minnesota
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And she must be lighting fast. To have a cold nose and be able to strike a "cold" track and have it treed in 1500 to 1800 feet. If your happy with her, THAT is all that counts.

Mine will hit a feeding track and work it through the woods over down trees, maybe over to a creek and maybe a swamp looking for frogs and then into a field of corn where we might jump but usually it leads back to the creek for a drink. This normally is a little farther then 500-600 yards from start to finish.

Heck last fall, we hit a track close to the truck in the N/W corner of one of the biggest fields I hunt, opened right away, took that sucker straight south down the corn rows, in a creek then over some trees that were laying across the creek, back to the corn and ended up in the S/E corn of the same field but that bugger was close to over a mile long. I always wonder what those powerful dogs would have done with a track like that?? Although I have a pretty good idea after having done this for 66 years and have hunted with some of those powerhouses. They probably would have treed the same coon but for "me" how it would have happened just wouldn't have been as much fun. Most would have shot down the corn row from the truck not knowing there was even a coon track there, would have missed the music while he worked that creek and down trees, but would have hit the track right before the tree in the S/E corner and would have "had the meat." AND to me that is the difference between pleasure and comp hunters--I hunt for the "pleasure" of the hound work and the music of the chase, not a clock and a piece of paper. I take 10 to 20 coon a season, have sense 1955. I have gotten .50 to $66 a piece over the years and I have never hunted for the Dollar or the Title, just for the pleasure.
Just hunt what you like but just stop telling me that there's no difference between a pleasure hound and a comp dog.

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Well said Old Timer!! That’s my kind of coon dog! I got no use for a silent dog! To me, hearing a hound run a good track and bring it to a successful concluding end with the game in a tree is what the sport is all about.

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Loved your post and definitely agree with you. I love a dog just as you described.I coon hunt for pleasure and the dog you described suits me to a tee. The thrill of the hunt is listening to your dog/s trail and tree, knowing they can trail a cold track and Tre with the meat. Listening to dogs like that just makes a hunt more pleasurable. Dave

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Handling and not training is definitely the best way…especially if the pup has the natural instincts to do what we think it should be doing for its age etc…

Feeding lots of tracks and using lots of electronics, especially feeding lots of tracks to make a dog…this pup should never be used for breeding at a later time…one that starts right only needs a little guidance and taught the acceptable boundaries…it’s a pleasure to own a pup like this…

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I am enjoying this post. So few and far between. I am a pleasure hunter. I have won with pleasure style dogs. 1 dog I had success was born on the farm He died at 16. Never left him out a single night lost. I doubt I took the tracker out for him 5 times in his years.


I think there are more pleasure hunters than we realize. They are just behind the scenes more.

Having said that to each his own!

Thanks
Perry

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40 years ago…….for the most part folks competition hunted their pleasure hunting dogs.

Then the money hunts came about. That seems to have played a significant role in the loss of a true open mouth pleasure dog that takes its tracks as they come and actually seems to understand that their owner is a part of the TEAM.

Take away the GPS tracking system for 10 years, go back to equal strike/tree points and eliminate money hunts and watch the style of dog change!

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I know everyone has a different idea of what a pleasure dog is but what a lot of people call an open trailing dog gives way too much mouth for me. I will hunt about any kind of dog that can tree a coon and is not mean but I don't really like a dog that gives a lot of mouth on the track. The ideal pleasure dog for me puts distance between barks and never barks twice in the same place even on a cold feeding track. Probably what some people call semi-silent but really just a dog that is always moving forward on a track.

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[QUOTE]Originally posted by N Williams
I have a Walker female like this. Only difference is she ain’t checking back until I call her. She will go till she finds a track but if I want her back I have to get close to her and call her and she comes to me. If your dog want go hunting at least a half of a mile to a mile they will not be able to get struck in most places I have. She is cold nosed and deadly accurate. She is a trailing type dog that will tree and don’t gamble. Some nights don’t even make a tree. But the last 3 cast I’ve had her in she won all 3 and over $1500 in pkc $$$. I will say She will never win a major hunt because she just gets things done a little to slow. But I’ve managed to win over $5000 with her just going to a few hunts a year but I have to pick my time of year and location. She’s skuna River breed and a lot of ole stylish blood. She has treed more coons in dens that I’ve found in 3 years than all my other dogs combined and I’ve been hunting over 30 years. Ive only had her tree maybe 5 coons up small trees. I’d say her average track length from time struck till treed is around 500-600 yards.


Well reading this post is pretty interesting, you see I’m a rookie at training mine and just last night she was doing the same thing that is listed above. For the last week and a half been doing that. Now she first treed two back to back two weeks ago and then she started doing the list of things. She trails tracks and then checks trees, locates once twice and then moves on to another tree not far and then repeats. She does this back and forth back and forth and can’t settle on the tree. I get frustrated after about an hour without a solid tree, then I put her on the lead and go back to the kennel without saying nothing to her. Any ideas please feel free to tell me. I have a lot of patience and love to hear her trail, just need to have her lock down a tree like she did before. She treed four by herself before and she is 12 months old.

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If this was happening in hardwood terrain where I live I’d suspect flying squirrels.

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quote:

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Originally posted by DL NH
If this was happening in hardwood terrain where I live I’d suspect flying squirrels.

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