Would you lease/rent a hunting dog for a day?
- Thread starter perception007
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This makes me flashback to my 7 year old self:
My buddies standing on my doorstep - "Hey. We came to say sorry you've got chores and can't come fishing with us... but, uh since you can't come, we thought maybe we could use your new fishing pole you just got for your birthday? You know, since you're not using it? I mean, SOMEONE should get to use it, right?"
How to make a sihtty day sihttier.
People that train their dogs to utilize their genetic instincts in a fashion that is "helpful" to the handler, as opposed to hurtful to a successful outcome, want their animals to get as much experience as possible under the right guidance... "right guidance" being the operative phrase... giving a well trained hunting dog to a novice is akin to spending countless hours building a fine China cabinet and when done picking up a sledgehammer and smashing it to pieces.
We are not talking about renting out some persons family pet hunting dog. Thy are guys that have dozens of dogs that live outside year Round.dogs that are trained to hunt.snd yes thy will rent them out to hunt camps and such.would I let out my family beagle no sir not a chance.but kennel dogs do get rented out.
I have done both and can tell you nobody is borrowing my friend's beagles to hunt when he isn't around..... they get treated as good as we do at hunt camp...
I personally think it's a bad idea. What if the dog takes off on you, gets injured, or killed. I'm sure the damage deposit would be 5 figures!!
If you have the time buy yourself an appropriate breed for hunting and train it yourself. I thinking that's the best and most rewarding way to go.
Careful......There are some pretty experienced opinions on this thread......If you think hounds do not need training, it is you who is lacking the experience.
Just how many bird dogs and hunting hounds have you raised and how long did you have them ?
Only on the internet......No bird dog man or houndsman would" rent out" one of his dogs, even if his dogs lived outside in a kennel, without him being part of the package. One might book or "rent" a guided hunt but it would be a package deal with him managing his dog or dogs at all times during the hunt.
You train a dog to channel its natural instinct or like you call it what it knows. A Lab knows how to fetch, but needs to get trained to fetch on command.
All dogs need to be trained. Unfortunately most are not trained properly. I grew up with border collies. Instincts are very strong in those dogs, but they still needed training.
I now have been fortunate enough to hunt with a friend and his retriever, the dog is wonderful and still young. With proper training it will be an amazing hunting dog. It's my experience that all working breeds need training.
I now have been fortunate enough to hunt with a friend and his retriever, the dog is wonderful and still young. With proper training it will be an amazing hunting dog. It's my experience that all working breeds need training.
Well said Pete...... what I will add is that there is a gang that runs hounds on a neighbouring property that treats them like "tools"..... keeps them kennelled outside, offers them food and water and no affection....... every year, I end up wrangling up at least two of his hounds and keeping and feeding them until they show up for them....... there is no drive for them to return to their owners as there is no affection or reward at the end of the run...... they just get lifted and crammed into the dog box on the back of the truck and on to the next run...... they are also very hard for me to wrangle up because they aren't used to coming to a human to get let and to be given a little treat..... our hounds have a place in camp, a bed near the woodstove and we cook for them each night..... when we get a deer, they get the bottom portion of the legs to play with and we cook up the livers of the younger deer to feed them...... and they get some heart when we cook that up as well......
As far as dogs go, I have some experience with some good ones.....
Roxie and Remmy...... our camp hounds.....
My personal companion..... Molly, my golden retriever beginning at a young age....
CGN member "thebaron" brought his Springer out to hunt grouse on my property and it was an awesome experience..... in fact, between what I experienced here and feedback from Hoyt and his Springer "Lexie", I think a Springer will be my next breed.... very energetic and not water shy at all...... I wager I can teach a pointing dog like this to retrieve a lot easier than I can teach a retriever such as mine to point....
Either way, I can absolutely guarantee that nobody will be borrowing any of my dogs ever.... they hunt when I hunt......
In fact, in another thread I spoke to being "elected" houndsman at camp this year and what an honour it was....... this is because the hounds owner is now 72 and finds it hard to dog anymore...... he is still a sitter and I swear the dogs know what watch we have him on....... he gets many opportunities.... lol.... he loves his dogs and I was honoured that he entrusted me to take care of them and get them started on a run, and ensure they return to camp each day for their spoiling safe and sound....
As far as dogs go, I have some experience with some good ones.....
Roxie and Remmy...... our camp hounds.....
My personal companion..... Molly, my golden retriever beginning at a young age....
CGN member "thebaron" brought his Springer out to hunt grouse on my property and it was an awesome experience..... in fact, between what I experienced here and feedback from Hoyt and his Springer "Lexie", I think a Springer will be my next breed.... very energetic and not water shy at all...... I wager I can teach a pointing dog like this to retrieve a lot easier than I can teach a retriever such as mine to point....
Either way, I can absolutely guarantee that nobody will be borrowing any of my dogs ever.... they hunt when I hunt......
In fact, in another thread I spoke to being "elected" houndsman at camp this year and what an honour it was....... this is because the hounds owner is now 72 and finds it hard to dog anymore...... he is still a sitter and I swear the dogs know what watch we have him on....... he gets many opportunities.... lol.... he loves his dogs and I was honoured that he entrusted me to take care of them and get them started on a run, and ensure they return to camp each day for their spoiling safe and sound....
I have no experience with running hounds on deer... but I grew up with beagles and training them to run rabbits and hares... and with black and tan coon hounds... and YES, you do train them... they need to learn which scents to pick up and which to drop, and as the handler you get to know by the individual dogs reaction what scent it is on and how fresh it is... you call the dog off a bad scent and let him have his head with the right/fresh scent... you also have to train the dog to actually break-off when ordered to do so... and that is not an easy trick with hounds... a bad handler can at best waste a lot of time, at worst loose a dog, or allow it to get into a dangerous situation.
^^^ the training is exactly the same for hounds on deer....... just have to introduce a new scent as enthusiastically as you introduced the rabbit scent...... our hounds still get scents crossed when they pick up a rabbit while chasing deer..... not a bad thing as a few rabbits at camp end up being a nice snack at lunch..... once shot, we give the dogs a couple of minutes with them.... bag them and the dogs are back on the trail even more enthusiastically as they know there will be a treat forthcoming....
You talk about letting the pooches play with the rabbits and the deer after being shot. I've heard doing that "ruins" them for the rest of the hunt because their sniffers get over saturated. Is that just an old wives tail?
