Thinkin of gettin a hound(s)

Been raised with spaniels my whole life. Dad loved chasing pheasants. My current dog is a springer spaniel I trained up for upland and waterfowl. But I’ve always loved the thought chasing critters with hounds. I’m contemplating a coon hound of sorts but I have no idea where to start. Does a guy need multiple hounds or can you get by with one? I have a family with young kids, and I have no time for dogs with an attitude. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks

The most important thing is TRY BEFORE YOU BUY!!!!!!!!!

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I like quiet and can run around the country without worrying about a dog.

LOL I guarantee you will think all hounds have an "attitude" if you are used to spaniels. They don't hunt for YOU, they hunt game for THEMSELVES and if you want to help them out all the better LOL. They will be considerably hard headed, slow learning, and independent compared to Spaniels. Make sure you have a lot of ground to hunt and are able to walk many miles, in my type of open country a coon can cover 3-4 miles before treeing. They also are very vocal and loud, not great for someone in town but it can be managed if you take a lot of time and energy. I have generally hunted coon and bobcat with one dog but a pair is ideal. When a coon is trying to drown a dog in the water its harder if they have 2 dogs to deal with at once. I have always loved hounds though and hearing your dogs baying in the distance is a wonderful sound. You will also want to invest in a shock collar and tracking collar so you don't lose them in the woods.

This is about the most spot on advice I have read on the subject and should probably be printed in the "coon hounds for dummies" book. That being said, there is nothing like a coondog, I am partial to blue ticks, but to each their own. They operate on THEIR timeline and desires, not yours, no matter the level of training. As a dog owner, handler, there are times they will make you pull your hair out when they won't come, or stay, or go, or whatever but when YOU learn that they are doing their thing it becomes easier. I promise they heard your command, they are just going to finish sniffing the last 15 trees before heading to the truck even though you are ready now. I always prefer a pair. One is great, but I like the security of a second dog. Watching the battle in the water isn't an experience I would wish on any pet owner, thankfully I haven't lost a dog but I've gotten wet many a time pulling the coon off the dog myself when only running one hound. The bark/bay is something that once it's in your soul, it never goes away. And the last bit of advice is fantastic as well. Shock collars are one thing, they never seem to phase mine, but the gps ability is something I won't hunt without. Like bird dogs, some hunt close and some range, well especially in the dark, that range can get long in a hurry if they're running a track or god forbid a deer. Being able to head the right way and have some idea where they are going is invaluable. I personally run the garmin alpha but I am sure there are other options to check out.

X2 MSP and BB
Before I got a track and train system I had my hound 2 miles down the mountain chasing a bear. No fun trying to find a hound without one.

I do miss hearing a hound but once you hunt with a cur, it's awesome'er lol. They listen a lot better and are easier to handle imo.

love my walker dog with that said bigboy and pickins are spot on. mine if i dont hunt him regularly first night out is a crap show. gets gone opens on track ends up treed i get 30 ft from the tree he sees me and is gone i shine tree coon in tree. goes finds another track runs it trees i get 30 ft from him and he bails goes hunting again. shine tree guess what theres a coon. i think i hinestly ruined him this way. used to go out make a drop tree a coon and go home i think dog just wants to hunt till hes done not just one tree and we are done. unfortunatly i dont have a shock collar i need to get one otherwise this would have been resolved already.

i took a long 13year break from running dogs and when i brought this little pup home and trained him with my kids that first tree that he got it right on i can still replay in my head like it was yesterday and that was 6 years ago. next i think i am going to get a pair of plott hounds and run them together

That's one opinion. We have a cur and a redbone, and I do like hunting with the cur, but it can't come close to competing with the sounds of the hounds running a track. As others have warned, once you hunt with one you'll likely never get it out of your blood.

I can't give any advice because the advice given above says it all.

I can tell you about my hunt last night for a indication of how it goes sometimes. I dropped her in a spot we hunt at least a few times a month. Almost right away she ran over the dry lake bed 0.7 miles to the east. Since the lake bed was not dry enough for me to walk across, I drove over there, but having to go around it was more like 3 miles driving. By the time I got there, she was 3/4 way back to where we started, lol. So back I go, and when I get back, she is now 0.6 miles to the west of where we started, treed, also across the dry lake bed I can't walk across. Another 3 miles driving got me to within 1 mile of her.... then a mile walk in, and another mile walk out. On the walk back, she almost got nailed by a cottonmouth I luckily saw just in time. Coon hunting with hounds is a blast... but it's not for the faint hearted, lol.

X 2

I have a mountain cur and the wife has a redbone. No comparison on listening. The cur I have is a close hunter and no way I would go back to a hound.

Before you decide on the breed you want do some serious research. There are a ton of breeds and bloodlines out there. A tracking collar is the ONLY way to go like was stated earlier.

When I think hounds I think rabbit dogs. I love running rabbit dogs but have not had any for years. I dont have the time or enough places to run them like they need. I do like how my german sheperd and border collie listen vs hounds.

If you have never hunted with hounds I would strongly recommend you go with someone that has them several times so you at least have some idea what your getting into. A lot of ideas sound good in the living room. If you get one and end not hunting very much for whatever reason you will probably wish you hadn't went down that road. They can trail for miles as already stated and you have no control over it when they hit a track. I use to hunt with some friends 30 years ago. We got in some tight spots with land owners once in awhile back then and I promise you land owners were a lot more understanding back then than now.

Gundogcentral.com is a place to look. Bought a bird dog off there myself and couldn’t be happier. Always do yer research though. Modern training collars and gps collars have changed the days of “where in the world did my dog go”. I absolutely love mine, tracks the dog and yourself, show dog up to 7 miles away. Marks the truck and anywhere else you drop a pin, like hotspots! Tells when on point or on tree. Good luck and go get em. Never mind any naysayers. You only got one life, live it like ya want it and still young enough to get after it.

I also can't say I agree with that. Even if I never hunted mine, I would still want my redbone. She's my best friend and follows me around like a lab. (Until she finds a trail to run, that is.) I actually use her to hunt squirrels in the day more than I do coon at night. She one's heck of a squirrel dog, as is Drifter's cur.

The two local guys I know that used to run hounds quit because there was no money in coons anymore. I might have to put out a wanted ad to find someone to take me out. I’ve been told houndsmen are a pretty tight knit group and shy to letting other hunters ride along, I get that, I’m pretty picky who I hunt with too. Know some guys who run coyote hounds, which I think would be fun as heck but I don’t have time during the day to run em.

Not sure if it’s classified as a hound, but we have a Blue Lacey coming from Texas in the next couple of months. One of the well known deer trackers in our area has been talking with my son, so I guess we’re getting in the deer tracking business. This guys dogs are 100% on gut shot deer. They’ve been doing it long enough he can look at an arrow or impact spot and tell you whether your deer is dead or gonna live to be seen again. They work on tips alone and travel some serious miles.

I’ll warn you now…. They are ADDICTING!!!




My redbone female and Bluetick male treeing a bear last August.

One thing that nobody has mentioned, hounds are good pets too. Good watch dogs too.

My first puppy was a Redbone, kind of partial to them. I had a Black & Tan, she was a good dog. Had a Walker, and an English, both of them were good dogs. An Elkhound and an Elkhound/Redbone mix, both good dogs. Had a beagle too, and she was a good dog. Most of them are hardheaded, once you cut them in the wind, you're playing on their time. And most of my dogs were housebroke and very good around kids and friends. They are smart.

But I kind of look at it like this, once you set a trapline, you've committed, you've gotta be there tomorrow. And the next day. For a guy with limited time, it's fun to just take the dog out, shoot out a coon or 2 and go home. I lost my dog in the road this past summer, boys I miss her. First time in my life that I've never had a dog.

I've been looking around, I'll wait till after trapping season, but I'll have a dog before the end of March.

My "hounds" are still learning. Haven't had the cur on coon yet but he's hammering squirrels. The Garmin Alpha Pro was an absolute god send! Pricey but well worth it.

X2. I have a mountain cur. Very good listener.

5 coyote running dogs
6 beagles
1 coonhound
1 cur

1 Garmin Allpha 200 with 5 track/shock collars
1 Garmin Astro with 2 collars

I enjoy my coyote dogs the most - we never shoot a coyote and just dump fresh dogs on after a mile or two and our hounds finish the coyote
Beagles the second and coonhound third - cur is a good varmint dog but not a hound....
hunted squirrels with some good feists and curs but prefer still hunting them with a .22
around $1400 in dogfood a year - do my own vet stuff

Awesome!

I’ve had hounds for 20 years. There is nothing more fun imho than hunting behind GOOD hounds, but nothing more miserable than running around the woods trying to catch hounds chasing off game. To have good hounds you have to hunt them ALOT.

I used to run bear and cat hounds, blue ticks,walkers and plotts. You have to be committed and have lots of time and money(food,vets and gas). Our bear were runners and didn't tree well so we could be picking up dogs several days after dumping on a track. Cats were different they usually treed as soon as the dogs caught them. Dogs needed to be roaded in the off season so they were in reasonable shape at the start of the season. You need understanding neighbors when your dog trees his house cat in his yard. We had some dogs shot when they came off the mountain and stopped at the first house they came to and it belonged to an anti hound hunter. Saying that I still miss it and have talked to my buddy about getting a couple cat dogs and starting again.

I have a black mouth cur she’s from the Ladner’s down in Mississippi this fall was her first fall she’s a heck of a hunter she trees every chipmunk and squirrel that tries to run across the yard all summer long and the father in law and I got her started on coon this fall she is doing alright she definitely needs more time but around here it’s nice to have a close hunting cur dog because the chunks of land we hunt are small and everyone around here is trying to grow a monster buck on their 10 acres and boy if you go chasing after a hound across 10 different chunks of land you will be on 40 different trail cameras and they will hunt you down. Something to keep in mind[img]http://[/img]

I’m going to be frank with you…not all hounds make the cut. And family get attached to even the pot lickers. Either have so many that they can’t keep track or only have one good one. If you decide to only have one, buy one that is already doing what you want and be ready to pay for it.

Great picture, how did you train them dogs to get that young fella up in that truck? More important, what if he jumps into another truck then another? Are they gonna rat him out? Or just sit and say "well dad this is where he was last time we saw him"

Again great pic.

Now you have me watching cur videos. Grr if i ever get a job close to home and can be home to take care of them i think i will have a kennel full of dogs again.

My current hound situation is that I have a 2.5 year old spayed blue tick. Lives in the house and is house trained Great family dog and house dog. Very loud though if cats running in yard or someone rings doorbell but we are working on that. Great hunting dog also. With prices low only hunt occasionally just to keep in shape and used to just running coon. If you start with a pup you can train it to be your ideal dog but will take some work

One thing my cur does that I don't like is if a tree is on an angle she will not hesitate to go up after a squirrel or coon. Have had her 12 to 15 foot up the tree.

I don't think I'd be that concerned about them being hard headed out hard to train. I think hounds sometimes get a bad rep because they live on a chain or in a kennel till it's time to go hunting. I mostly have curs but they've all got quite a bit of hound in them and I've had hounds in the past. If you treat them like a normal dog and do a little yard training they don't have to be hard to handle. They aren't all going to come running from a quarter mile when you call them but I've never been around one with a little training that wouldn't come that far with a tone on the e collar. They'll make about as good of a house pet as anything else too if that's what you want to do. The one thing that I've found that takes a little extra work is if you want them to run loose some. I usually like to have dogs out if we're outside working or whatever. Some of them took a little persistence to get them to stay around. It would have been hard without a gps collar.

I've had hounds my whole life, currently have nine. I bear, bobcat and lion hunt them, haven't coon hunted much since I was just out of high school. But to answer your question, yes one dog is fine for coons, I always like to run at least a couple dogs together but I've caught a lot of game with just one dog. Most hounds have a very good temperament with people and kids, and other dogs. Yes they hunt for themselves, but in my opinion no dog that doesn't has enough heart to keep going when the going gets really rough. And this doesn't mean you can train them to quit and come to you when want to catch them. It just means it will take more work to do so. Hunting with a good hound is a lot of fun, in my opinion nothing else compares to it. But a warning, to be good a hound needs hunted a lot, and it is a lot more fun to hunt with a good dog than one which is chain stale and no good.

Listen to Dillon, everything he says is true. Almost every houndman (mostly bear hunters) I've been around from back east had dogs that didn't handle at all, many of them didn't even know their names, much less that they needed to listen to them. Yet I've hunted around a few other guys whose dogs listened without them raising their voice, and they could call them off a hot race or bayed bear without a problem. It is all a matter of training, mine fall somewhere in between, I have to raise my voice to get mine to pay attention when they are smelling something interesting; and catching them off a bayed bear, or getting them to come on away from a tree when they see the bear or lion bail out can be a bit dicey. But they handle well enough for me, and I don't use leashes except leading them the first 50 yards away from a bear tree, bear are particularly prone to come out as soon as you pull dogs away from the tree and while you are still in sight, most other animals will stay in the tree until you are out of sight.

Actually, a cur dog is a hound dog.

Well, I’m certainly gunna dig into this more. Just googling the different coon hounds it looks like blueticks or treeing walkers could be a good fit for me. I really like the look of a bluetick. I’m gunna keep trying to locate someone I could ride along with, and at the very least get some books/videos on what training dogs looks like and talk to some breeders.