dogs for bears??

mjcurry

mjcurry

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hey their

does anyone use hounds for bear hunting im just looking at hound types on the internet and i see some people in the states use coon hound type dogs for hunting black bear.

anyone try this in ontario? or is it illegal?

thanx
matt
 
Majestic tree hound , would work I figure:D
majestic_tree_hound.jpg
 
Plott--pretty much sums it up---Buddy has majestics and treed almost 50 bear last year. Nother buddy runs Walkers does well. But I think Plott are king in regards to bear.
 
i was thinking of a pound hound casue i dont wanna fork over toomuch cash.
i see some chatahoula leoperd dogs and alot of coon hounds,beagle and mixed hounds.

most dogs in the pound are about 1-2 years old. now would they be hard to train for hunting? would they be gun shy and couldnt correct it?

im i better to just get a puppy?

thanx
matt
 
your best to get a breed for purpose dog as a hunter especialy for bears. not knocking on pound hounds but you dont know how they where raised etc. if they where abused trying to train them to hunt and getting them used to the bang may do more harm then good. as well starting from scratch with a pup will ensure that he is loyal to you and yours and not likely to run.
just my 2 cents
 
good point signguy on the loyalty hard to trian. ive heard some never warm up to people no matter who or what it is.

who knows tho, the hunt camp i went to this fall had two pound hounds that ran deer awsome since they first got their. one has died and the other is 14 but their were good hounds.

would it be harder to train dogs for bear then deer?

plus id like to give a pound hound a good home i hate seeing them wasted.

even if the dog was crappy he would match my hunting skills :runaway:

matt
 
mjcurry said:
would it be harder to train dogs for bear then deer?
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theroticly no, BUT bear sometimes fight back whereas deer just run. so you will want a dog that will be aggressive when it has to and when you tell it to stop it does
 
"...a pound hound..." You'll likely find that most of 'em have never been out of the city never mind trained for hunting.
 
Hounds are "Hard Wired" to chase not really much training involved---Just discipline for off game----Nothing wrong with pound dog especially a hound cause they are more prone to chase than bout anything else.It's not to hard to get a hound to chase a bear---Being good at it--thats a bit different story and you will never know less you try.
Another thing to remember---lot's of dogs would be better bear dogs if they were in shape but the nature of a hound makes this more difficult(no handle)
keep hunting them and they will start to catch more.
I'm not much of a bear hunter---Cats is our game. I find bears can be more difficult than a cougar but good fast dogs(hotter nose is okay) will put up bear.
FWIW I've never payed anything for my dogs except some vet bills. LOL.


PS--Spelled Catahoula leopard Cur;) I've some experience with Leopard Curs

Andy.
 
SignGuy said:
theroticly no, BUT bear sometimes fight back whereas deer just run. so you will want a dog that will be aggressive when it has to and when you tell it to stop it does
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Running one dog on a bear is a big no no.A big bear wont run far from a single dog before turning on it.

A minimum of four to five dogs to run bear IMO.
 
sunray said:
"...a pound hound..." You'll likely find that most of 'em have never been out of the city never mind trained for hunting.
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That's a Big myth about pound dogs.

I have worked with Shelter dogs for 10 years now, and in most of the cases the only limitations is the person training the dog, and their expectations.

City dogs adapt quite well to Rural settings thank you very much, and dogs already know how to hunt, ie...stalk, sniff, chaise etc.

Also many of the shelter dogs are often from such rural settings anyway, as cast offs from "unplanned litters", and dogs that won't hunt regardless of their parents papered pedigree.

But it is a complex topic that I doubt can be covered in this thread.
 
If you find a medium sized or bigger mut that looks confident and agile the hardest part will be getting the dog to not chase bears. Seriously, the last 4 out 5 dogs that we have had all came from the pound and the other showed up as a stray. Every one of them tore after the first black bear they saw with zeal!

So we're talking a blue healer cross, lab cross, lab-pit, and currently two muts of unkown origin, kind of shephard crosses. On the puppy thing, yes its easier to train a dog from this stage. But our healer came to my wife at 6 months old from the pound and Rosco, one of our current dogs was just over a year. Its a little more work but the healer turned out unbelieveable as a bush dog and Rosco the knot has issues but he's an awsome bear/cat dog and super fast in the bush! :cool: But he f**ks off on me once in a while still and I've had hime a year and a half :runaway: Things are steadily getting better in this regard and he's only about 2 1/2 still...

I would definitely look at getting a pound dog or two mjcurry. I've had and been around pure bread dogs too but sometimes the muts make the best dogs IMHO. Usually less health issues too. And, its the right thing to do. Just make sure you can give them lots of excersise and bush time and training and they and you will do well and scare up all the bears in the county:rockOn:
 
great advice guys!

what kinda of excercises could i give the dogs in the off season. id like to think i could take em up to the hunt camp all the time and run em but what would happen if they treed a bear and its not bear season?

would they eventually lose interest or would i have to drag them off or would i have to wait for the bear to die of natural casues?

also would they be able to run deer? or do dogs pretty much go for one only.

our camp dogs chase moose and deer.

im kinda a dog newbie :)
 
Well in my case I have never trained our dogs to hunt bears per se, but let them do what comes naturually which is to chase the SOB as fast and as far as they can. You see my wife loves to walk in the bush and does so by herself, or with girlfriends - some times with kids. So our dogs have always just been used more for protection. But they definitely don't 'loose interest' in this chore and are after every bear they see just like it was the first.

Out here we can't legally run deer with hounds in fact its frowned on so I've always had to try to stop this instinct. I'm having a bit of trouble in this regard with current knothead buddy but all our other dogs eventually didn't care about chasing deer too much.

For me excersise is the same all year round. I'm lucky enough to usually be able to take the dogs with me at work and at least once a day I take them for a good run in the bush. I pretty much let them go wild and do what they want and a half hour of this gives them good excersise. The more the better.. A couple times a week they'll get longer runs up to a few hours. Its good for them and gets my ass out of the chair too. :)
 
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jack russels ha ha ha ha. I agree they might work more as bait than to tree the bear. :D But I was reading the current Rifle shooter mag and there' a story of a PH in Africa that uses Jack Russels specially trained for following blood trails :eek: WTF :eek: They must loose the odd one!
 
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