Hoosier Outlaw
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Jun 2010
Location: Marion, Indiana
Posts: 4280 |
quote:
Originally posted by jerhovt
So would you consider showing a dog a coon before you take to the timber started? Or letting them have fresh coon hides as a pup to fill there playful needs (chew toy)? Im not being sarcastic I really would like to here opinions and others thoughts on this.
I think a lot of people try to start their pups too early and when they do not see what the hope to...they resort to coaxing and teasing and using peer pressure to get some results.
I usually do not do anything with a pup before its 6-8 mo old...but let it be a pup. I may take it for lots of walks in the day time or at night just to let it wonder and watch how curious it is. Depending on the time of the year i may or may not expect to guide them over a hot track on one of our walks. In the spring I usually know right where to go and regularly take pups for walks along creeks where I know there are a lot of dens nearby. If I dont see a pup actively open on a track or check trees after a half dozen times of walking through an area like that between 6-8 months old...sometimes I will set a live trap in the area and check it every night. If I catch a coon I will not walk up to it...but will go back to the truck and release the pup and walk in that direction and wait till the pup finds it. If the pup barks at it or acts interested in it i will hook a lead on the pup and tie it out of reach of the trap and then release the coon and let the pup see it run off. About 80% of the time...that is the extent of my use of cage coons and I will never use another one. If the pup barks and acts like it wants to go after the coon...i wait a couple minutes while petting the pup...but not whooping it up too much....then I release it. If it runs after the coon and puts its nose to the ground when it cannot find it by eyesight...that is what I want to see. Whether it finds the coon or not is not a big deal at that point. i want to see it using its nose to try to find what it just saw run away into the darkness.
If it does that...then between 7-12 months I will take it 2-3 times a week if the weather is good with a good open trailing, honest, straight coon dog that doesnt try to lose the pup. I will try to cut them right on or near where they can always strike a hot track. Most of the time...after just a few tracks the pup is opening on track some and/or with a little encouragement I can get it barking at the tree. I may or may not put a coon out to this pup...it really depends on the pup and how it acts. If it will tree naturally without ever having a hold of a coon...then I usually do not give it anything but praise until well after I split it off and start hunting it by itself. If you start a pup without putting fur in its mouth...you will never need to put much in its mouth. Outlaw Billy the Kid had a total of 6 coons killed to him when he finished to Grand Nite Champion in 1993. I had a theory...even back then that a true natural treed coons based on instinct....and not just to get the coon killed to it and I proved a pretty important point to all of my hunting buddies who at that time killed their young dogs almost every coon.
Now I have had dogs who were not what I called natural easy starters....and they made good coon dogs and even some big winners...but it took a lot of work on my part and I learned some hard lessons about the side effects of too much exposure to cage coons, drags, peer pressure from pack hunting and killing too many coons to a dog. My training methods have changed and developed over the past 30 years since I started in this sport. I was trying new things back before it was cool...and when I found something that worked better than the old school way that most train...I stuck with it, tried it on every dog and if the results were consistently better...i adopted it into my program.
One of the worst things in this sport is all of the old school wives tales about training...especially about breaking dogs off of off game. Some are so outrageous its hard to believe anyone could ever believe them.
Same goes for many training techniques...especially those that promote killing every coon to young dogs. If its bred into a dog ....you just do not need to reinforce it with fur in their mouth every time they tree a coon!
Think about the worst trash runners you have ever seen...think about how hard it was to break them....
Now tell me, how many times did you ever shoot a deer or fox so they could chew on it? How many times have they ever caught one and chewed on it?
So why do they run them? Because before dogs were bred by man to tree...they were bred to trail and chase...and before that for millions of years they chased down animals for food. Its hard to overcome millions of years of instinct with just a hundred or so years of breeding for tree dogs.
But, if a dog has that treeing instinct bred in...it doesnt need fur in its mouth every time...all it needs is a little praise from its handler when it does right and correction when it does wrong.
If you have a well bred dog with natural instict bred in to tree coons...its life will be comprised of only about 10% training and 90% correction. The training is mostly encouraging it to do what comes naturally and the correction is to keep it from reverting back to doing many things that nature instilled into dogs over millions of years...which are still in every dogs genes to this day.
Breeding for naturals makes everyones job easier in this sport...the dog, the trainer, the handler. Not all winners are naturals from birth...but from a breeder standpoint...they should be! Now I am not saying we should cull all those who are not naturals...because thats probably about 85% of the breed. But we should put greater emphasis on breeding dogs who were naturals and who are from lines that produce a high % of naturals....because thats how we create more.
__________________
Shane Maxey
Proud lifetime member of the NRA
Banshee Wildlife Products
Hoosier Outlaw / Moonlight Redbones
1994 American Redbone Coonhound Association Hunter of the Year
My first 3 redbones raised from pup's were:
Dual Gr.Ch. Outlaw Billy the Kid
Dual Gr.Ch.- PKC Ch. Outlaw Timber Girl
Dual Gr.Ch. Outlaw Scarlett Fever
(((( Current Favorites ))))
2013 AKC Ladies World Champion
Gr.Nt.Ch.- PKC Ch- AKC Ladies World Ch Ky Moonlight Breanna
Gr.Nt.Ch. - PKC Ch. Ky Moonlight Woody
Dual Grand Moonlight Deana
Dual Grand Ch.- PKC Ch. Moonlight AfterShock
Dual Grand Nighty Night Amber
Gr.Nt.Ch. Moonlight Big Time Britt
Gr.Nt.Ch Outlaw Billy Jean
Gr.Nt.Ch-PKC Ch.-2015 PKC Red Days Champ Outlaw Cherry Bomb
Gr.Nt.Ch Outlaw Breeze
Gr.Nt.Ch.Gr.Ch. All Grand Outlaw G-Man (over $20.000 won in PKC & CHKC) 2019 Southern Redbone Days Overall Champion
Gr.Nt.Ch. Moonlight Outlaw Mac
Gr.Nt.Ch. Classy Cali (Heavy Outlaw bred)
Gr.Nt.Ch. Moonlight Cat Scratch Fever
Gr.Nt.Ch. Moonlight Addiction
Gr.Nt.Ch. Moonlight Overdose
Gr.Nt.Ch. Moonlight Jinx
Gr.Nt.Ch. Moonlight Banshee
"Always outnumbered...Never outgunned!"
To enjoy lots of pics and videos of out redbones, find me on Facebook
as Shenandoah Maxey
Last edited by Hoosier Outlaw on 02-16-2016 at 05:28 PM
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02-15-2016 02:48 PM
