Hoosier Outlaw
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Jun 2010
Location: Marion, Indiana
Posts: 4280 |
For those who have asked me....
For those who have emailed, texted and pm'd me about training and keeping dogs tuned and ready for copetitions hunts...
I will try to answer some of the most asked questions about what I do with the dogs I hunt to get them ready and keep them ready for competition.
Now before the negative people jump on here and start in...I'm just going to tell you right now...if you dont want to read what I write...keep.scrolling because this isnt for you...its for the people who have asked me for information and I'm not going to argue over who knows what or who does best...those results post somewhere every Friday and Saturday night.
Now, what most people want to know is what is the most important thing they can do to have a dog ready and to win in competition.
1. Start with a well bred dog from a line of proven competition dogs who are reproducers of the same. Dogs from these lines have been bred for many generations for competition and your odds of raising a winner goes way up when you start with a dog who has proven winners for ancestors.
2. Start your pup right....dont start too soon or expect too much too soon out of even the best bred pup. I usually dont do anything but let them be a puppy till they are 6-8 months old...sometimes older. Do what you can to show them what a Coon is...but dont over do it on the cage coons...usually if they are bred right and are mature enough...3-5 times is plenty. More than that can cause bad habits later.
3. As soon as your pup knows what a Coon is and is interested enough to bark at it...start taking it at night with an older dog who is straight and solid if possible. If you dont have access to one...take the pup alone and walk it up creeks and places where you are likely to cross a hot Coon track. You can even live trap.a few coons and turn them loose up a creek or into a patch of woods and then go get your pup out of the box and walk it over the track.
.....now you just need to repeat the above 2-3 times a week after the pup is 10 months or older. If it does good...call it a night and put the pup up for a couple days to let the lesson sink in. Never ever hunt a 8-14 mo old pup hard like you would an old dog...they can easily loose interest just like a young child.
4. Once your young dog has treed a few easy Coon by itself...start hunting it by itself if it has the drive to go far enough to strike a track. Try to put it near where it will be able to strike a good track every time until it has treed a dozen or so by itself. Stay close to it so you can get to the tree quick when it trees and encourage it some. No need to go overboard...just kneel down and pat its side and talk to it. And in this phase...do not make the mistake most make...do not kill every Coon to your dog! I repeat...do not kill every Coon...in fact, I usually dont kill any. I may give a dog one or two of the first Coon they tree alone on...then not another till they have treed 15-25. After that...the dog has formed a habit and if it is bred right will probably not need more than one out of every 25-30 Coon to stay focused and sharp.
I know lots of people will tell you different...but most coons that get killed to dogs are just wasted coons. I train a lot of young dogs and win a lot in competition and I rarely kill more than a dozen coons a year (unless I make a trip during kill season to hunt with people and they want to shoot some for fur)
Dogs these days just dont need them...its bred into them to tree....or it should be anyway!
5. How do I keep the dogs I am hunting sharp and tuned up for competition? I hunt them alone. It may not sound like much...but most big winning dogs all get hunted mostly by themselves between competition hunts. This will be key to your dogs success when in competition. It builds your dogs confidence and your dog learns valuable lessons at its own pace without pressure or influence from other dogs. You simply cannot properly prepare or maintain a young competition dog by pleasure hunting with buddies and several other dogs all the time. Older dogs...sometimes can be maintained and still be pretty sharp by hunting mainly with a few other dogs...but its rare to see any of these winning big. I cannot overstate the importance of what I just said....if you want your dog to be at its very best in competition on the weekend...it needs to be hunted 2-4 nights alone for every night its in competition each week. This develops a dogs skills and ability much faster and brings out a dogs independence...and trust me...independence wins a lot of casts.
A young dog will be able to reach its full potential sooner and with fewer setbacks by getting hunted alone 75-80% of the time than it ever will being pleasure hunted with other dogs and your buddies.
...I know, I know...its not as much fun to hunt by yourself and when your dog starts really doing good you naturally want to show other people...maybe even test it against other dogs. Well, thats ok...once in a while but keep it to a minimum. Usually when I get people who come for a hunt...we split drop the dogs. We will drop theirs once ...then mine once and continue that through the night. Many times people get disappointed because they bring a dog and want to see if it can beat mine...and I tell them to pay their entry on the weekend and see if they can beat mine in a regulated competition hunt. Some understand, some dont. But know this... a single bad experience can change a young dog for the rest of their lives. One encounter with a truly mean dog, one encounter with a dog who chews or runs the tree bad, even a digger can trigger your dog to adopt that bad habit. Keep the risks to a minimum (for me that usually means only hunting young dogs with others in competition hunts)
Another tip I will give you is this....I never like to put a young dog up for the night after a competition hunt cast is over. Regardless of how the dog performed...it was influenced by the other dogs and I want my dog to forget most of what it experienced....so I always make a drop or two on my way home from the hunt if at all possible. I let my dog tree a Coon and stay treed for 10-20 mins minimum because thats the one thing I want it to remember from that night....not what happened on that cast.
Of course there are lots more things that could be talked about but these are pretty much universal for most young competition dogs I hunt. Repetition is the key to a dogs learning quickly....and remember...when a dog is repeating bad behavior and you allow it to continue...you are actually "training" that dog and it is forming that habit, so do not let bad behavior repeat itself ....it only takes 5-6 times for a dog to develop a habit...good or bad.
I hope this has offered some answers to the many folks who have been writing to me. I dont have a lot of spare time during the competition season to write everyone back so its easier just to answer most of them in one post.
Good luck everyone...looks like it may be a great year for the redbones!
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 06-06-2015 at 01:15 AM
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06-06-2015 01:06 AM
GOOD POST
