Coon Hunting

Im thinking about getting a walker pup from my friend for coonhunting and was looking for opinions about the pups parents. The sire is the son of a grand night champ and i dont know who the mom was, he isnt shy but hasnt been hunted by himself alot so he isnt very independent, although he does tree coons byhimself, it usually just takes him awhile to branch out from us. He also false trees some but doesnt run any non targets. The female is a shy dog but very smart, she usually leads the male in the hunt, she is the offspring of a very good male walker/jack russel mix, but he had more walker than jack (like 70% walker i think), and the mom was just a pure bred walker they didnt hunt but had for breeding. Overall does the background sound decent? This pup will be free to me since im his friend and i dont really wanna travel or pay big bucks for a dog.

So whats to lose

Only time will tell, if the pup trees on his own by nine months old and handles well enough to suit you, well, you have a tree dog.
Other wise you will own a worthless mongrel.

Lol me and my dad have bird dogs and they are easy to make into a good hunting dog and ive never seen one fail at it. But i hear coonhounds can be great or worthless at hunting and alot end up worthless

Sounds to me you will be getting a started treeing coon hound. Work with him and take him hunting every chance you get. May turn into the best dog you ever own.

Take it to the woods every chance you get. The walker breed are natural tree dogs. Anymore they have too much tree bred into them.. Work with it on Drags and Tracking without showing it anything. It has the Tree bred into it. If it slick trees tell them no and walk them around the tree and send them on.. Alot of walkers anymore are bred to tree quick for competition , this can be a fault cause they get to checking trees and not running track. The most important thing is time in the woods with the young dog.

sounds good

consider joining the rest of us at www.coondawgs.com too

I had a Walker Hound, he was Awesome. They are what you make them into!

I believe a lot of those worthless coonhounds can be attributed to worthless coon hunters. When I hunted I seen a lot of good dogs ruined by lazies and drunks. Some people just dump the dogs out of the truck and stand around drinking all night. Some leave the dog on a chain 364 days out of the year and cant understand why it wont hunt. Then some people actually hunt their dogs. The ones that hunt their dogs usually have good hounds. The drunks and lazy folks don't. I have seen a few, very few dogs that just wouldn't make a good hound with time and hard work.
I have joined the lazy crowd. that is why I use terriers now, much less walking. LOL

The problem this day and age, walkers are bred with too much sackett breed in them. IMO Dad used to own walkers back in the day, had some good hounds. Then the sackett breed came in line and they are slick treeing machines (false trees). I would never own a walker this day and age. Switched to English hounds, I have a little mnt fiest/ cur dog for squirrels but wouldn't mind having a full blooded cur for coon. That is my opinion But hey its free cant beat that.

Pictured are three generations of John Chagnon's that used Treeing Walkers for hunting no show. John M Chagnon my Grandfather and John D. Chagnon my father, my Great Grandfather is from Quebec and I guess he did not Raccoon Hunt Much. Great dogs.

Probably some truth to that sackett comment lol.. I have a Bonecollector dog that goes back to Him top and bottom .. Hard hunting hound not very cold nosed, but I've went through the Slicking problems training him also.

Thanks for the great info, id hunt it quite a bit as i get board in the fall when it gets dark before 5:30. Ive always kind of thought it would be more important to hunt the dog then get great genetics, although that helps. One intresting thing ive noticed with our 2 bird dogs that i think is interesting is one came from a puppymill, mosy likely terrible genetics, the other came from a great breeder. They are both great dogs and i like them the same but the great genetic dog outhunts the puppymill dog by a stretch. The puppymill dog loves to go hunting as much as the good one but her physical traits limit her i believe. If you put the two side bu side u can see the puppy mill dog isnt as squarred in the legs(they kind of cant out) and she just isnt as toned, also, the fastest ive seen the bad "g" one run is 18mph, the good "g" one 30 mph. I think this is interesting because i think its more of a physical thing caused by bad genetics then the bad "g" one is just not a good hunting dog.

The walker pictured by me was a great hunting dog and a great family pet. I trained it as a young teenager, took it to college with me and it passed while I was living in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I never got another coon hound as life in the UP had to many porcupines to deal with.

Looks like it brought death to the coons!