Dustin Myers
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Oct 2006
Location: Bonners Ferry, ID
Posts: 776 |
Before I begin I want to say that in this post I will be describing my opinions of the Lightfoot hounds I have owned, bred, or hunted with. Other people may have different opinions of the hounds they have hunted with. My goal is simply to describe our hounds as accurately as I can, and in no way do I intend to offend anyone.
The Lightfoot hounds we have bred and hunted out west, in my opinion would fall into the category of cold nosed, trailing type hounds. They have good track speed compared to most other hounds I’ve hunted with. Although I have hunted with a couple of other hounds over the years that were faster. The typical Idaho Lightfoot hound that we have produced over the last several years was physically and mentally tough, with good athletic ability and endurance to make long hard races. They are the type of hound that handles extreme conditions and rough terrain well. Most of them have the ability to cold trail and can do a way better than average job of it, compared to most of the hounds I have hunted with.
They naturally tend to be hounds that have the meat when they tree and won’t lead you to a bunch of empty trees. That doesn’t mean they never tree wrong, because it does happen on occasion. Some of the more tree minded individuals will make a few slick trees when they are young, but they all seem to get it figured out relatively easy with a little correction and experience. When you have to walk up and down these mountains to get to their trees, they had better not be wrong very often. Years ago I had gotten rid of a couple hounds from some of the different bloodlines I had tried, because they treed wrong a little more than I wanted to put up with. I have not had this problem since I started hunting Lightfoot hounds.
Another characteristic that these hounds have been known for, is being hard headed hounds with lots of drive, but not always the best handling. They seemed to be the worst when it’s time to go hunting and turn them loose. Getting them out of the dog box and putting collars on them often consisted of a few right hooks to the head, several cuss words, and the occasional roll in the snow. LOL. Some hunters don’t mind this, and admire the drive and determination of a hard headed hound. Others would prefer a hound with a little better handling.
Over the last couple generations there have been a couple of characteristics that we have been working toward improving to produce the type of hounds that we wanted to hunt. Our goal has always been to breed for the type of hound that we wanted to hunt, and have not worried about breeding for what might sell better to the public. We have never chased titles or the flavor of the month. That being said, we went against the conventional wisdom of breeding for big game dogs, when we made our last outcross. The dog that we felt had the most characteristics to help us improve on the things we wanted to improve on, was Gr Nt Ch Gibson’s Sunset Luke. The fact that he was a Gr Nt had nothing to do with our decision. Breeding to a titled coon dog would probably turn off more big game hunters that it would impress. But regardless of that we felt Luke was the right dog, from an outstanding litter of top hounds. On top of that was the fact that he was owned by a top notch guy in Randy Gibson. A couple of the things we hoped to get from breeding to Luke was to improve the handling of our dogs and settle them down at the tree a little.
My partner Brian and I are now in our second generation after making this outcross and we have been very pleased with the results. We have gotten hounds with more than enough drive and determination. While we have definitely noticed an improvement in their overall handling. We have also picked up a little extra track speed and quickness. The Luke dogs are stay put pressure tree dogs, that are a little more settled down and less rambunctious at the tree, as far as bouncing around and chewing goes, than our hounds were before we bred to him. We are in the process of selecting the individuals from these litters that have improved in the traits we wanted them to, while still carrying the good characteristics that have made the Lightfoot hounds work so well for us. So far it’s working great and we like the young hounds we have coming up as well or better than anything we have had. We will now go about crossing those hounds back and forth on each other to lock up the advancements in the bloodline that we have worked so hard to achieve.
Randy and his gang back east seem to be having good success with similar type Luke/Lightfoot crosses, and they have several nice young hounds themselves. We have developed a good relationship/friendship through working together for the advancement of both bloodlines, and we will continue to do so in the future. When good people with good hounds work together, everyone benefits, has more fun, and jealousy and egos tend to not be a problem.
We don’t have much for coon, and I’ve never seen a lion or bear just laying up in a tree. But if they did, I’m quite confident these hounds would be supreme “Layup Artists” LOL. Just kidding. I have no idea what type of layup dogs they would be, as my coon hunting experience is fairly limited.
We have been fortunate enough to get pretty good percentages out of most of the crosses we make. This doesn’t mean they all walk on water. But if the majority of them can consistently get the job done we want them to do, we feel it was a success. Of course even with the best laid plans there are still the occasional culls. When we get a cull we don’t sell them or give them away, we cull them like I believe responsible breeders should do. As it says in my signature “Our goal isn’t to produce the highest number of hounds we can. It is to produce the highest percentage, of the highest quality of hounds we can.”
Thank you for reading. I hope this answered most of your questions. If you have anymore I will try to answer them the best I can.
Dustin
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