Hoosier Outlaw
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Jun 2010
Location: Marion, Indiana
Posts: 4280 |
quote:
Originally posted by WattsFlatsRedbo
(Quote) I've had the pleasure of hunting with multiple world champion dogs over my 40 plus years of coon hunting. Out of all of those world champion dogs I've hunted with, I've not seen a plug in the bunch, but I have also noticed one thing that seemed to be 'missing" in each of them.
I personally think that everyone wants to lead a world champion, but VERY FEW of us know what it takes to make a world champion. I think that world champions reproduce the type of dog that is capable of winning a world championship, but we just don't recognize it.
The big winning dogs that I have had the pleasure of hunting with were all nice dogs, but they were not the dogs that were going to score a thousand points every nights. They were the kind that had enough game drive to tree only when there is a coon in the tree, they didn't bark out of place or babble, they were not necessarily 140 bark a minute tree dogs. Nothing flashy, but they all had one thing in common....consistency. It did not matter when, or where you turned the dog loose, they hunted until they found a track they could run, they ran the track, located, treed and stayed put. Bottom line, they just did not make mistakes, and they treed coon.
In today's competition driven world, we want the fastest, loudest, flashiest dogs a the hunt....and those dogs win on a good nights...but the consistent dogs that will tree a coon or two in two hours without making mistakes are the ones that win big and consistently. (Quote)
__________________
Joe Newlin
Home of Oak Ridge Treeing Walkers
Whitey Dogs ROCK
Oak Ridge Coon Hounds
Seen this post on the main forum. Looks like Joe has noticed the same things I have over the years. This was in the "Why don't world champs reproduce well?" thread. Anyhow after noticing the same things myself that is why I was asking if a flashy high-powered dog and a everynight consistent dog even exists all wrapped up into one package. I thought maybe that's what you were looking for. I know I'd like to have one like that!
Anyways sorry for getting your post sidetracked, Shane.
It just so happens that I know Joe and his wife Tammy very well. They do alot for my club and the club at Peru. I won't disagree with Joe on anything that he stated. But I will say that top level dogs do exist that can score high if they are in alot of coon. Just look at the final cast when Mr. Clean dominated the ukc world hunt a few years back.
Of course we all want the total package in a dog....but the best and biggest winning dogs are seldom what most would consider the total package. I have seen some dogs who seldom if ever make a bark on the ground be some of the biggest winning dogs in the country. I also consider these dogs to be some of the toughest to beat in competition. When you look at their scorecards and see 100 strike and 100 or 125 tree you think they must have both ends. but upon closer inspection you see the other dogs in the cast with lines through their strike points....because this tight mouth dog is so fast and gets so deep...he shuts them out many times without ever making a track bark. I would rather have a good strike dog...but hate to draw these types in competition.
Each top level dog out there has specific talents and skills and the combination of a few of those in a very smart dog who has the drive and the will to get to that tree with a live raccoon in it before the other dogs is what it really boils down to.
I want a big loud mouth on a dog so I can hear it a long way. I want a dog to open the second it smells a coon....but this is not really all that high on my list. I want a dog that is a quicker locator than most other dogs...this is a priority.
I want a dog that is very accurate...another priority.
I want a dog that is independent....either totally or enough that it gets at least a couple of split trees in most casts....high priority.
I want a dog that has more drive than most dogs I will draw. A need for speed that will allow them to get on the coon track first and a desire to get to the tree first....also a pretty high priority.
I can tolerate an average tree dog if it has several of the above skills. I can also tolerate an average volume mouth if it carries well and is something I can pick out of a crowd. I can tolerate a dog that trashes some...(I know how to break them)
I can tolerate an ugly dog that couldn't win a bench show if it were the only dog there...lol
I can tolerate a wild and crazy jacked up hard to handle dog as long as it will let me get a hand full of collar when I get to the tree its on.
But I can't tolerate a mean dog, or a lazy dog, or a me too dog.
I hunt alone 90% of the time, late at night (work 2nd shift) and I hunt each dog alone unless I am starting a pup or something. If a dog can't tree coons consistently by itself after it has had what I feel is enough time to bring out a sufficient level of its natural ability....it gets culled or moves to someone who wants to give it a little more time to devolop.
Consistency, as Joe talks about in my opinion is the most common factor in dogs that get on big win streaks. But it is also something that comes and goes several times in a dogs life and many things cause this. This is where a good trainer and dog handler really shines because they know what to do with a dog to maximize that dogs ability and keep it consistent so it can win.
One of the things that myself and many other top handlers do to keep a dog at its optimum performance in competition on the weekends is to hunt that dog 3-4 nights during the week completely alone. We do this because most dogs will pick up bad habits from other dogs in nite hunts...hunting them alone and often helps keep that dog on track and builds its confidence. That dog needs to know that it does not need another dogs help to tree a coon. Now most serious competition hunters already know this...they figured it out along the way.
But there are still people in this breed and others who start pups in packs and even claim to train dogs in packs. They post lots of pics of dogs treeing in packs with a cage coon above them ....many times in the daylight. I can't stress enough to people out there who want to train or own a top level competition dog someday....DO NOT FALL INTO THIS TRAP!
Sure working pups on a cage coon is exciting and often very helpful to a point. doing it more than a half dozen times...especially in daylight....will more than likely reinforce bad habits in that pup that will be hard to, or impossible to break later.
Most top level competition dogs are bred with the instinct to tree. a few cage coons and maybe a drag or two and they should be treeing....and as soon as they are....you should stop with anything that reinforces treeing by sight...or treeing because other dogs are treeing (as in pack training).
If you let this go on for very long you will get dogs that are loose on the tree when they can't see the coon above and who will me too and cover any other dog that trees because when they were pups they just were basically trained to follow the leader of the pack till it treed and it gets the same reward as the leader.
I can't believe there are people out there that are still willing to send their well bred pup to guys who are training them to tree by sight and me too anything else that trees ahead of them...bad, bad, bad, practice!
Very few of these dogs who spend a month or more at these type of places will ever be a top level dog in competition. If a few do make it, it will be in spite of their early months at such a place...not because of it.
Just think about it, if we know that everything a dog will ever be is in its dna when its born....why not let it come out and develope naturally the way it is suppose to? The best dogs are bred and born to tree...they don't need to be subjected to endless cyles of day after day exposure to a drag or cage coon in order to start them.
If people remember one thing in all of this....remember that dogs learn from repetition. They learn good things that way...and they learn bad things that way. If you can set up the situation so that your dog is doing exactly what you want...over and over again....that is the best way for your dog to form a habit of doing that.
But when I see these so called "trainers" posting hundreds of pics of packs of young dogs on trees in daylight with a coon a few feet above...I just cringe. Because I know that those dogs are learning all the bad things from that ill concieved but well meaning method of training.
Like, sight treeing
pack hunting
learning to just follow the leader instead of bieng a leader
it causes dogs to hunt close looking for that coon they know is in a cage not far away.
causes them to be loose on trees they can't see the coon in above them.
causes them to tree squirrel nests on moonlight nights because it looks like a coon to them and the list goes on an on.
Most of these dogs after spending a month or two or three in the hands of such a so called "trainer" will go on to be dogs that will run and tree with other dogs and some might even me too their way to a few low titles....but the odds are overwhelming that they will never be top contenders in competition because even though they may have been born with the right traits to be that, at a very young age they were molded into something else entirely by a "trainer" who taught them to be pack animals who follow the good coondog and pile on when it trees a coon. Treeing is just one small part of a dogs training and should be one of the strongest instincts that are bred into a dog...so when it is ready...it doesn't take much to get a dog treeing. Why pay someone hundreds of dollars a month to train your pup to pack hunt and sight tree before it is really ready? Doing so also trains your dog to engage in bad habits that you never want a competition dog to have....and you just trained your pup to do those very things by paying someone to repeat them over and over again with your pup until it has become a bad habit....Rookie mistake!!!
I think as a breed we all know how hard we struggle to find dogs who are naturally independent and have extra drive and the ability to tree coon alone.
But these "puppy training mills" are not the way to get the traits that our dogs are born with....to come to the surface.
Yes, seeing a puppy tree at an early age is exciting....but it only means something if it used its nose to find a track and follow it to a tree that has a coon in it. Someday, if you ever hope to have a top level competition dog who can win anywhere....it will have to be able to do that alone, and do it better than the other dogs in the cast.
i know alot of people are trying to better the breed and most think that better breeding is the way, but I think getting the pups from those better bred litters into the hands of the best pup starters and trainers in just as important to get the end result you seek. Good luck to everyone this year and remember....proper training and correction is a high priority in producing dogs that can compete at the highest levels....shane
__________________
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 03-21-2014 at 10:03 PM
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03-18-2014 01:06 AM
