ahallada
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Dec 2006
Location: California
Posts: 1867 |
Re: naturals
quote:
Originally posted by Sawblade
There seem to be a lot of talk about how a person should train a natural. I'm of the opinion that naturals really don't need much training mostly they need a chance. It may be hard for some to accept but some dogs have such natural ability I'm not sure it's possible to ruin one with any form of training that has proved to work at least some times.
A long time ago I had a young dog that seemed to be a natural. One of the very first coon that dog treed we decided we should shake out and let that pup get it. That's the way we did it back then. My buddy climbed up and I waited with a club and the young dog. When the coon hit the ground it was bigger than we expected and more than the young dog could handle. The pup was giving it all it had but needed some help. I got ready with the club and when the pup backed up I swung as hard as I could. At the same time the pup lunged back in and I hit her square across the skull, she hit the ground screaming and ran off. I figured she was about to die and started looking for her. It took about 20 seconds and the coon figured it was time to run and next thing I knew the pup was on it again ,treeing on a small sapling that the coon had climbed. I wouldn't recommend this training method but that pup made GrNiteCh. I couldn't beat the natural ability out of her with a club. Just something to think on. By the way it's a true story and I got witnesses to the entire ordeal. Sawblade dogs got hard heads !!
Great story Kelly and so true. Unless you've actually had a natural, none of this makes much sense. When I first started in coonhunting it was a common training method to stick a pup in a barrel with a coon and roll the barrel down the hill. If the pup had what it took, it would go on to hate coon and be a coon dog. There was no way I was going to subject my first female pup to that barbaric method of training. I kept searching for different methods and read Millers Training Manuals 1 & 2 and tried a few of those. They actually worked and got me a good start. Not long after that I met a couple of the smartest houndsmen I've ever known, John Adametz and his dad Jim Adametz.
These guys had years of knowledge and Jim was one of the pioneers of the Bluetick breed. Nothing gets you to where you want to go faster than having good mentors. They hunted every breed of hound on about every species of animal so they understood the differences between a good bear dog vs a good coon dog and a cold nose tracker vs a medium nose or hot nose dog. When a dog opened they knew what the dog was doing, what it was running, and what kind of track it was. It was like a young stock investor hanging out with Warren Buffet. I wasn't the only student of theirs, and a few of my friends went on to win some of the biggest hunts in the country with their Blueticks.
I got to see a bunch of pups started and trained and helped train a few pups that went on to make a good name when I was 14-20 years of age. These guys never messed with cage coon at all and laughed at the method. In fact the only coon these pups ever saw were the ones that were treed naturally and hit the ground. They believed that a natural coondog shouldn't need unnatural training methods to develop. If they didn't tree coon by the time they were a year old they were either culled or used on pigs or bear. They had a dog by the name of Dual Gr.Ch. Adametz Little Bruiser that became my yardstick for coondogs and of over 50 years of breeding dogs he was their absolute best. He was a double Hammer 2 bred dog and is still one of the best I've ever walked behind.
Through them I became friends with Dave Dean and learned another level of techniques on breeding and training of coondogs. Interesting that Jim Adametz and Dave Dean both started with Blaksley bred Redbones. Dave later named his kennel after Blaksley's Northern Red Kennel, Northern Blue Kennels. He said Roy's breeding programs were a major influence on his future breeding program and he thought that Roy was years ahead of most in breeding techniques. In the 1970s and 1980s the hunts in the Midwest were dominated by Dave's Hammer bred dogs from Hammer 2-6., including Northern Blue Jet, Northern Blue Rebel, and Northern Blue Trapper lines. Some of the most natural pups I ever saw were from this breeding program. It wasn't uncommon to hear of a 3 month old pup treeing coon with other dogs from this line of dogs.
By the time I was 21 , I knew what I wanted in a Redbone after hunting with some of the best blue dogs of that era. They were smart, fast, independent, big mouthed , pressure tree dogs. I wanted all of that along with accuracy. The first Redbone I hunted with that had those traits was Gr.Nt.Ch. Smokey Mountain Brandy.
I was hunting a Gr.Nt.Ch. blue dog named Jessie at Autumn Oaks for a buddy of mine. She was a daughter of the Bruiser dog above and she was a decent enough dog to win it that year. We drew Alger and Brandy and we were in for a battle. We were leading the cast with a good score with 20 minutes left in the hunt. Jessie hit a track and drove it into a bean field and couldn't get her head off the ground. No other dog was open and with 10 minutes left I thought the hunt was mine, when Brandy opens up behind us about 200 yards on the edge of the woods and trees. Yep he had the meat and won National Gr.Nt.Ch.Redbone that year.
That was one smart dog and the closest thing I'd seen to the Bruiser dog. I didn't think he was super fast, but he had the big mouth and was a smart pressure tree dog. I'd say his daddy Gr.Nt.Ch. Smokey Mountain Dooley was the most underutilized stud dog of that era and a huge loss to this breed. Bill Wallock came real close to breeding TJ's mom Nt.Ch. Cane Spring Dawn to Dooley but decided to make an outcross on Lookout Luke instead. I can only think about what that would have done for our breeding program.
Bill was making his big move in the Redbone breed in about 1980 when he purchased Dawn from Max Hunter. She was heavily line bred Timber Chopper 3x and won US Redbone Days at 2 years of age. She had an unbelievable cold nose and one of the best strike dogs of that era, and was a good solid hard tree dog. After breeding her to Luke, he went back for a recommendation from Max Hunter. With the recommendation of Max, he bred her to a son of Gr.Nt.Ch. Timber Chopper Jr. named Gr.Nt.Ch. Toussaint Red Talker and that is what created Gr.Nt.Ch. Timber Jack.
Timber Jack was a natural early starter and placed at National Redbone Days at 9 months old. By the time he was 1 1/2 years old he had won 13 straight hunts. He was a really good dog at 2 and 3 but I wouldn't say he was a world beater. He actually never peaked until he was 5-6 years old when he was dominant on the big stage. That seemed to be a common peak age for the Timber Chopper bred dogs including Smokey Mountain Brandy, Toussaint Red Talker, Famous Amos, Burning Ben, and others. So I don't think it's true that dogs that start early peak early, or that dogs that start later peak later. These dogs were all early natural starters.
Now the Little Man dog was an early starter and peaked early and that is the way my Too the Max dog was too. He was as good as he was going to get at 2-3 years of age. Bill Wallock said he did become a better track dog later on however. So maybe for some of these dogs the dominant tracking abilities come out later in life. I know that TJ was a decent track dog at 2-3, and a great track dog at 5-6. At 7-8 years he drove tracks that most of my dogs and others couldn't smell. He also became rangier as he got older and it was not uncommon for him to go 2 miles when he was 9-10 years old. I've never hunted a dog with so much drive and heart right up until he died at 12 years old.
Contrary to what I heard by a prominent but misinformed Redbone Breeder at Autumn Oaks, TJ threw pups that were generally early starters, depending on the female he was bred to. Every big name dog he produced started early between 3 and 6 months of age including Max, Moon, Girl, Jack, Page, Rock, and Shock. These dogs were in competition hunts by the time they were 15 months old and they dominated at 2 years of age winning every major Redbone Hunt in 1992, including Opposite Sex and Overall Show Winners. No other stud has ever done that that I know of.
__________________
Dr. Allen Hallada (Doc Halladay)
Current:
PKC Ch. Gr.Nt.Ch. Cat Scratch Fever
(Gr.Nt.Ch. PKC Ch. Moonlight Aftershock x Gr.Nt.Ch. PKC Ch. Moonlight Outlaw Breanna)
2016 Finished to PKC Ch. in one week!
Dual Grand Champion CHKC Ch., PKC Gold Ch. All Grand Outlaw G-Man
(Gr.Nt.Ch.Glissens JJ Jr. x Gr.Nt.Ch. Outlaw Billy Jean)
4 Generations of All Grand Nite Champions!
Timber Jack 3X and Timber Chopper over 30X
2019 Southern National Redbone Days Champion
2016 National Grand Nite Champion Redbone
2016 CHKC Redbone Days Champion
2016 PKC Super Stakes Reserve Champion
2016 CHKC Elite Shootout Winner - Texas
CHKC All Time Money Winning Redbone
Bodacious
(Gr.Nt.Ch. Gr.Ch.PKC. Gold Ch.CHKC CH. Outlaw G-Man x Gr.Nt.Ch.Gr.Ch. CHKC Ch., PKC Gold Ch. Classy Cali)
Past:
Gr.Nt.Ch.Ch. Dawns Timber Jack
1988 American Redbone Days All Red Hunt Winner
1989 UKC World Champion Redbone
1989 Purina Outstanding Redbone Coonhound
#2 Historic Redbone Sire/ Top 20 All Breeds
American Redbone Coonhound Assoc. Hall of Fame
Gr.Nt.Ch. Bussrow Bottom Brandy II
1991 American Redbone Days Champion
1992 AKC World Champion Redbone
1992 ACHA World Champion Redbone
1992 Wisconsin State Champion
1994 US Redbone Days Opposite Sex
Produced 2 Nt. Ch. , 1 Gr.Nt.Ch. out of 2 litters and two Redbone Days Winners
Gr.Nt.Ch.Gr.Ch. PKC Gold Ch. Layton's Classy Cali
2012 UKC World Champion Redbone and 7th Place Overall
2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 UKC World Champion Redbone Female
2015 PKC Blue Ribbon Pro Hunt Winner - Goodsprings, AL
2015 PKC Blue Ribbon Pro Series Race - 3rd Place Overall
2016 PKC Blue Ribbon Pro Hunt Winner - New Albany, MS
2016 PKC Texas State Race Winner
2016 PKC Redbone Breed Race Winner
PKC All Time Money Winning Redbone
PKC Ch. Gr.Nt.Ch. Coffman's Smokin Red Buck
2016 UKC World Hunt 5th Place and World Champion Redbone
2016 National Redbone Days Overall Winner
Gr.Nt.Ch. Reinhart's Central Page
(Gr.Nt.Ch. Timber Jack x Gr.Nt.Ch. Brandy II)
Gr.Nt.Ch. Too the Maxx
(Gr.Nt.Ch. Timber Jack x Gr.Nt.Ch. Jenkins Crying Katie)
1992 National Redbone Days Champion
Gr.Ch.Nt.Ch. Ambraw River Rock
(Gr.Nt.Ch. Timber Jack x Gr.Ch.Nt.Ch. Hersh's Huntin Red Kate)
1992 US Redbone Days Opposite Sex
Nt.Ch. Tree Bustin Annabelle
1986 American Redbone Days All Red Hunt Winner
Nt.Ch. Timber Mace
(Gr.Nt.Ch. Timber Jack X Nt.Ch. Tree Bustin Annabelle)
Mother of Gr.Nt.Ch. Babb's Hazel
Nt. Ch. Timber Shock
(Gr.Nt.Ch.Timber Jack x Gr.Nt.Ch. Outlaw Jessie)
Gr. Ch. Nt. Ch. Squaw Mountain Goldie
(Direct Daughter of Gr.Nt.Ch.Smokey Mountain Brandy)
1990 Autumn Oaks Best of Show Winner
1988 Indiana State Champion
Last edited by ahallada on 03-11-2016 at 07:55 AM
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