Alrighty...... Lets Hash This One Out......

[coyote hunter]

TC I some what disagree with you on the up bringing thing,I once had a hound here that was a puppy when I got him and he was cottontail breed and the guy that send him to me figured he would be a nice cross of a hound for me to run on hare this guy is a friend of mine.I raised this hound and I can say he could run a hare and was a very nice running hound but put him with my hare type hounds he couldn't keep up ,not saying he was juck just a different knid of hound thats all ,I will say to anyone that is a cottontail person that would like to run hare to see how the running compares to give me a call it won't cost ya anything to hunt here and ya can run and shoot all ya like not kidding.The up bringing thing to me is like saying if ya want a dog to get your ducks that ya shot on the water and to have them retreived you should train your beagle to do that right .Am I wrong.Take care Dan.

[TC]

TC, do some of your hounds have Shaw's Spirit Of The Chase in them?

Yes Bev ours Do have Shaws Spirit of the Chase in thier Lines, 3rd and 4th generation back.

If you Would like to see thier Peds here is a link to our Website Where they are listed
http://home.earthlink.net/~tjcrewse/

[kjohns]

Your a lucky man to have all those different species to run TC.

[Big Dog]

Let's be careful it what we call cottontail blood. Most of my dogs do not have any hare hound crosses in them and I assure you they have enough foot to run with just about anything out there. I have some hare blood and I like it just as well as my cottontail blood. There are speedy hounds that come from cottontail lines and there are more conservative hounds that come from cottontail lines. There are also some medium speed hare hounds. I run my hare bred dogs and cottontail dogs together and they are all pretty close speed wise. I run arha little pack as well as UKC and will run some Midwest SPO in the future and unless something changes drastically they seem to be able to compete in all formats. I would never run them in a large pack format, because that doesn't interest me. To lump all hare hounds and cottontail hounds into just one category makes no sense, and anyone that thinks they can lump them all into one category has not seen enough of what there is to offer to make and educated decision.


Big Dog

[Adam M. O'Donnell]

Very well said Big Dog! Just goes to show it pays to do your homework before making a choice! How about them Black -n- Tans!!!

[TC]

To lump all hare hounds and cottontail hounds into just one category makes no sense, and anyone that thinks they can lump them all into one category has not seen enough of what there is to offer to make and educated decision.

Well Said Big Dog

In A way thats what I was trying to get accross Buy showing that Dogs can Run All types of rabbits maybe some better than Others But as far as I am Concerned they should be able to run RABBITTS!!


Now as far as trainin Em to retrieve Ducks I dont Hunt Duck So Why Would I want to do that??? But I do hunt Phesant And have one that will retrieve a downed Bird for me

[DC]

This goes back a ways but in 1980 after being burned several times by the local Brace Trialers I had an opportunity to get a hare bred pup out of upper mich. by a fairly famous dog named Thiesens' Den-Rod-Smokey. I named this little female Gyp-See. I named her that because of the negative attitude I had aquired after having allready been (Gyped) by the locals. But to my sheer delight she turned out to be a great little dog. she could really do it all, she could run cottontail,squirell,quail,and pheasant. equally well and used a different mouth on each species. I took her to the brace grounds one day to show her off. You should have seen it as she jumped a rabbit in front of those old know it alls thier eyes rolled back in their heads as they walked away grumbling who knows what. I let her smoke that rabbit around a couple of times before I picked her up. just to make sure they all got a good taste of what" I" thought was a good rabbit dog. I've never felt more proud as I slowly drove down the lane and was grinning from ear to ear. That was the last day I ever had any contact with those fellows and I've never looked back since. So if your asking if you can make a cottontail dog out of hare breeding I say hell yes, and maybe just maybe you can make it even a little bit more.

[warddog]

I bought a 3 yr old bitch from upper Michigan that was ran on LPH. She's a grand daughter of IFC Ranger Dan/FC Back River Hanover Kate on the top and IFC Haunted Hill Shaker/ Branko's Christie on the bottom. She's an excellent jump dog, good foot and can flat run a cottontail. She's getting beter and better each time out on cottontail and has one up and going while the rest of the pack is still emptying out.

[WSRandy]

Coyote Hunter...............Where do you live?

Thanks,
Randy

[GR]

This is almost amusing. There are some cottontail bloodlines that are stronger than some of the more conservative hare bloodlines. A good dog is a good dog, it doesn't matter what it was trained on. I have seen some hare bred dogs that were trained on hare that could not run a cottontail to save their life, I have also seen some that could run a cottontail as good as any cottontail bred and trained dog around. If the dog has nose, brains, and line control, it will be able to run either species regardless of breeding or the game it was trained on.

I recently saw two hare bred IFC's that finished in hare trials run in a fifty acre pen on hare. The cover was very thick and the hare ran in a twisty turny manner just like a cottontail and not at all like a big woods hare in the wild runs. These two dogs were as close and clean as my cottontail bred dogs and were not any faster under those conditions. There is no doubt in my mind that I could have brought these dogs home and successfully gunned them the next day on cottontail.

Take someone who starts out with some hare bred stock and runs them exclusively on cottontail. He then breeds his hare bred dogs and raises the whole litter and selects the ones that run the cottontail well and breeds them. After a few generations of this are his dogs still hare dogs? I would consider them cottontail dogs, that's what they are bred to run correct? It is all about selecting the ones that are capable under the conditions your area calls for and using them for further breeding. A person can change a bloodline in a few generations by selecting different individuals to breed than someone else would. It's all about selection. This is a silly.

[Guest]

Nice looking dogs there GR.Pretty interesting stuff on the your setters too.

[country yankee]

Not being dumb-- I'm just asking.. cause I really don't know. Would a hound really know or care about the difference?

[Guest]

nope

[Chuck Terry]

I think preferred speed and line control are bred in. I will agree that a dog with brains can adjust to some degree - especially with time and experience. I would like to see one of those TRUE hare hounds that can run OUR COTTONTAILS well in OUR TERRAIN. I am talking about HERE in Georgia (not Kentucky or Indiana) in heavy briars (not fields, open woods, or lespideza) that you can not see through. Here cottontails generally have evolved over generations to escape preditors by cutting rather than outrunning them (or better yet Bluetails that tip back within a few feet of them and head off in the opposite direction!) Once the rabbit settles in, he will rarely go more than 40 yards in a straight line (unless he "squats" and is rejumped. I am not saying no hare hounds can run that type of rabbit - just that I would like to see it. If the beagle is bred to reach quickly on checks or "hook" to regain the line further down or to "circle" back on a loss, the running is going to be broken at best. In fact, the rabbit will win almost everytime with that approach! As I said previously, the two beagle I gave away are AWESOME on fox. The new owner is still thanking me for them! They probably would have been good on hare or deer and possibly even straighter running cottontails in the open terrain. However, in the briars, they did not have the gears, close line control, and close check style needed to do a good job. I would welcome anyone with hare hounds willing to make the trip to give it a try! Just tell me when you can come from Mid-January tthrough the end of August. Good running to all!

[warddog]

Chuck Terry, Not all running in Indiana is as you described. There is a lot of clear cut mine property that is so grown up with briars a person can not even get through it. My cousin belongs to a hunting club that leases 1500 acres of clear cut mine property where we have to find us a stump from a timbered tree to get up on for even a slim chance to see a rabbit coming through. We have to find a deer run to walk through it. Last year we had on of his females get tangled up in the briars that she couldn't get loose and we had to go in there and cut her loose. She was cut and bleeding like a stuck hog. I've got a pair of carhart coveralls that the pant legs are totally shredded in two years of hunting in this stuff. The mine will not allow any brush hogging so it just continues to get thicker and thicker. There are plenty of rabbits in there and coyotes too but I think they have as hard a time getting the rabbits as we do. But who cares we don't go to kill many but just enjoy the race.