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World Hunt Interview #1 John Davis by Lovis Burns
World Hunt Interview #1 John Davis by Lovis Burns
John Davis with NtCh Blackwater Bat Crazy aka “Battie”
By Lovis Burns
Lovis: Who are the sire and dam, and what can you tell us about them? Why did you choose a hound from this line?
John: NtCh Blackwater Bat Crazy (aka "Battie") is out of GrNtCh Ky River Batman and GrNtCh Blackwater Daze HTX. Battie is the 5th generation of females I've owned. I got started with a female directly off Chenoweth's Smokey II, over 20 years ago and always tried to breed to the best male I could find, and to different ones, to find one that was better to go forward with. I bred Daze to Batman because both her mother, GrNtCh Duelin Dixie Gem, and her littermate sister, GrNtCh Moonshine Maggie had been bred to him with good results. GrNtCh Duelin Dixie Gem is owned by Scott Rodden and he also made the cross that produced Daze. Batman and Duelin Dan are the 2 best reproducers in the B&T breed in the last 20 years, so breeding to Batman was a no brainer. Daze is not an easy female to get bred and get good litters from and it took a couple tries to get pups from her and Batman. Tony Grubb was an extra good guy to work with to get this cross made and I will forever remember his help in getting this cross made.
Lovis: How did you get your hound started as a young dog, and what did you do to prepare her for the World Hunt?
John: I worked with Battie as a pup with the same steps and in the same way I work with all my pups but everything I presented to her she did like she had been doing it a long time. I first took her hunting with her mother when she was 6-7 mos. old. I took them together a couple times and seems like she treed with Daze. Nothing up to this point was that much different than most pups I start. But I did realize this pup wasn't going to need a pup trainer. So, I took her by herself and she treed a coon at 7 mos. of age like she had been doing it a long time. That was in November and I hunted her mostly by herself after that, through the winter and she took herself hunting and treed coons consistently. She was always a good, stay put treedog with a good mouth Her mother has some independence that comes out later in a hunt and Battie seems to have gotten that, plus a little from Batman I believe. She will tree with another dog, has never been corrected for that but will still be by herself a good amount of time. She has no problem getting along with other dogs and if anything she is so friendly to dogs and people before turning loose that it’s annoying.
As Battie became ready for nite hunts I decided I didn't want to knock around at little local hunts getting wins on 2-3 dog casts and such. So I held her back to put her in bigger hunts. She placed 2nd in the Bluetick Grand National, 2nd at a 9 dog hunt and 1st at the MO State Hunt in 2017 to make Ntch. I put her in a couple PKC hunts. Won 1 by having a coon to herself and should have won an Added Purse if I was on top of the PKC tiebreaker rules a little better. I work for myself and got extremely busy and lost interest in banging around in comp. hunts so I enlisted the help of Jim Freeman to handle her for me in some hunts in 2018 and get her to the Purina Nationals. Jim qualified her for the UKC world hunt, won the B&T part in the Purina Nationals, and won a couple casts at B&T Days. I got her back and put her in a MO Coonhunters Fed. double points hunt and a Bluetick sectional and won 4 casts, getting a couple more NtCh wins. She was also a double cast winner at the MO State Hunt and runner up to the overall champion which got her almost nothing. She's won several casts which didn't get her any wins but that’s what happens when you go to bigger hunts. She is leading the B&T portion of the Purina Northwest Region and has around 40 points they haven't shown yet. She may be leading the breed overall in Purina standings.
Lovis: How did your Zone casts play out?
John: Jim hunted her in the Zones and had double cast wins. She won her Fri. night cast with 50+ and her Sat. cast with 300+. I believe she had a few trees to herself in those casts and some plus. From what I gathered, she didn't do anything impressive, just stayed out of minus, got under coons and got to herself when she needed to.
Lovis: Anything else you’d like to add?
John: As far as anything else to add, she is just a real solid dog. She is not extra special in any one area but does most things well. She is a consistent cast winner, having won most of her casts this year and she has never really been out of a cast. Although at times, especially when she was younger, I would wonder. She is boringly consistent at home. I prefer to hunt pups and young dogs where there is a little more surprise. When she is on she will dominate some good dogs. When she is off she looks like a common dog but she won't get far enough behind to be out of it. I won't say any more until after the World hunt is over. Lol. With the win at the Zones I believe she has 4 NtCh wins. I want to finish her to GrNtCh under the current UKC rules. She should be hunted in the Purina Nationals next year and is a dog that needs to be pushed in bigger hunts. Yes, she may be bred at some point if demand is there and no I don't have any idea what to breed her to but I would prefer to linebreed her to something on her mother's side since she is somewhat of an outcross. I've rattled on long enough, hope this is what you're looking for. Thanks for taking this on and your efforts to promote the breed.
Lovis: Thank you very much. These are all great. I wish you the best next week!
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09-18-2018 04:27 PM
Mark Reavis 
