Cold Trailing

Oconee...you misunderstood what I was saying...I will use the mt curs I bred years ago for what I was saying in the other thread as well as in this thread...in my opinion they were the perfect dog for how I liked hunting...hard hunting dogs that covered plenty of ground and had the ability to find game rather quickly...a dog that can do that must have a good all around nose...I am not talking about bush beaters that look good but do not always find game even with decent sign...they were colder nosed than the average cur and not as cold nosed as a cold nosed hound...I never have liked a cold nosed dog that will take a track and run it for 2-4 hours to jump or bay the hog...I do believe my dogs could trail with the hounds but that is not how they were wired...I have seen walkers run over some tracks that my cur dogs would work out but that probably had more to do with the competition bred hounds that are looking for hot tracks...

what I was talking about in the other thread was my style of getting the best out of the dogs by how I trained them...most every track my dogs started the hog would be jumped, bayed are caught within a mile because the hogs usually will only travel to their bedding areas and that usually is not that far...usually get to the hog in 5 minutes or even 30 minutes, I am not talking about hogs that are already running due to wheelers are dogs running them but older tracks where the hogs are bedded up...any more time than that then the dog is trailing all tracks that hog made including feeding tracks...not saying all hounds do that but I definitely do not care for that...what I consider to be the best dogs for me are those that are smart enough to make a loop looking for the exit tracks...a cut and slash dog that is trailing, winding and running with his head up looking for the hog or the hotter end of the tracks...there is nothing wrong with those cold nosed dogs but the last one I had I did not keep very long...one thing I could say about that old redbone was that he was gritty and he would get his hog sooner or later...lots of times later...

I like the idea where someone can hunt through the middle of the woods with a pack of dogs and and not strike a hog then I come along behind them and all of a sudden we have hogs caught or running...I will not talk down the cold nosed dogs just don't care for that style at all...if I hunted for trophy boar as a living and had access to big properties then I would keep a few of those hounds because I would be scouting for big tracks that travel alone...

just like BigO said in his other post...cast the dogs out and if they come back you can bet there are no hogs in that neck of the woods...That is the kind of dog I like feeding...

getting back to what I said in the other threads...by me knowing my dogs and their noses I knew what it took to have my dogs hunting a certain style...I was very careful to follow that system...I wanted my dogs to use their nose to their fullest potential for trailing so I hunted a certain way...I wanted them to use their nose to their maximum potential for winding so I paid close attention to that as well and I encouraged or led them in that direction...yes they can do this naturally but if you notice I said use their noses to their maximum potential and in my opinion I took every opportunity to take them to a higher level...remember...I am not working with super cold nosed dogs because I do not like that and you can say it is a personal preference...I will say that my colder nosed curs could run tracks that some of my other curs would not trigger a response when they came across that track...

right now I have four 1/2 plott pups that I like and hopefully those that make it will hunt as I like...if too cold a nose on some they will be up for sale...but my thought was and is that I would rather start out with more nose than I like and tone it down than start with not enough...and like ole Forrest Gump said...that is all I have to say about that...

I do try to explain myself for those new guys who want to learn how to breed better dogs and/or in getting the most out of their dogs...I would like to see the bar raised when it comes to hog dogs as a whole...