Hot nosed / Cold nosed

[Joe West]

Chris: In that instance you are correct and that bitch had a strong enough nose to get the job done and the others didn't. And yes there is a major difference between a hound lacking intelligence and it not processing or transmitting information from the nose to the brain properly. A hound who lacks intelligence will do stupid things and a hound who can't process the information his nose collects properly for whatever reason such as it not being transmitted to the brain properly will have different information to work with even if he's highly intelligent.

[ACOMEAU]

Joe, I agree with your evaluation of the two dogs, and I want dog B. I don't think we disagree with what kind of dog we want to feed. Dogs with lost of nose to get the job done without excuses, and and can use its voice correctly. No one here wants a babbling idoit that is fact. I think most of us have a problem with dog C who comes along and can't even smell the old line. But I will keep dog A over dog C any day.

Tom, I learn something new every day. I just don't think things are as complicated as some think they are. I was taught the old fashion way by my dad and uncle. You know what you want so get rid of the ones that are not. I am not concerned with why or how a dog processes things. I know what a good dog is by watching it run over a period of time. You can't explain why some dogs have better noses and some don't. The best you can do is breed your best and cull out the ones that don't cut it. That is how the Patch line had a reputation for big noses in the 70s. Strict, and matter of fact culling process to weed out that particular problem. The tighter you get with it, the better the litters become over time.

[snowshoehareguide]

id like to hear more about this pup that runs on ice at 0 , what are his littermates doing and whats his breeding. id like to hear details. ran some hare today that ran bigger than most coyotes. no cold trailing today . one more dog that couldnt run at all today. picked her up feet bleeding was the reason i heard. other dogs ran all day. there was a very thin crust and hare not leaving a track most of the day.and not good enough scenting for this dog to run. other dogs ran great. just one more dog that cant run at all. where do they all come from. ? heard that she would have run great if it hadnt been for the crust. joe if i only see A and B one time and they do as you say then id take dog B also . and if A does this alot and doesnt start this track than i agree its a fault , if dog A normally jumps these tracks than id take A . cause maybe old B wont get lucky next time. took me a long time to start a hare this am. i doubt that dog B is going to bump into one everytime . i will take nose over search any day. thats why i use hounds to hunt with. prefer a dog use his nose instead of his feet. joe hunting hare is a little differnt than hunting cottontails . the rabbit that left that track may be in a hole already. if a dog can wag his tail or bark on a hare i bet it isnt far away and can be run. i dont want a dog that makes a habit of barking on tracks he cant run. i see lots of dogs that cant run a track a few minutes old and others just make same track look easy, pete

[Joe West]

Aaron: We are all in agreement on hound C.

Pete: I didn't say that A couldn't start the rabbit just that in this instance he didn't have time to because another hound found a rabbit first. As I said there are many such instances as this I've witnessed over the years. There have been times when a hound such as A have gotten their rabbit going before hound B found one. And what makes you think hound B got lucky? Good "jump dogs" know from experiance just where to find rabbits. They don't just walk or run around hopeing to find a rabbit. They know those places and types of cover where rabbits like to sit and go there on purpose. Their searching ability isn't restricted to their method of searching a cover but also includes their ability to recognize good cover. Such hounds don't gamble that maybe a rabbit is sitting in a certain area, they have a deffinant ability to recognize areas that hold rabbits. Just as you recognize that in the dead of winter you'll not go to a mature hard wood forest area to find hare but instead might go to a stand of hemlock, hounds recognize cover within that stand of hemlock and will go to where the rabbits will be founf. A real "jump dog" will seem to have a sixth sense and seem to know exactly where a rabbit or hare is sitting waiting to be run. Now, the particular hound I was thnking of, hound B, I would not classify as a true "jump dog" but he was quite skilled at finding his game and recognized rabbit cover; both rabbit and hare. Skilled enough that I would have been upset with him if he would have taken the cold line because I know from experiance with him and hound A and other hounds who took cold lines that for the most part, he could find rabbits and hares faster doing things his way. I once ran this hound with a hound who seemd just like the ones you describe. I ran him with her on many hunts. The first time they ran together that bitch cold trailed up a rabbit before he got one going. IN fact she found more rabbits then he did that first day and I was struck with her. But then over time and observation we learned some things about just what was going on. At first she influanced him and his work was interupted by him constantly harking to her. He wouldn't open on the cold line but would always keep leaving his work to check on her. After that first day when next we ran them together he was less influenced by her opening on a cold line and would not check on her as often and HE started to find more rabbits then her. By our third time out he would ignore her but could tell by her voice if she had a hot line because he would only hark to her when she had the rabbit up and moveing. The result was that he found and started the majority of the rabbits from then on. This bitch eventually got up the vast majority of rabbits she cold trailed, but he found his rabbit first the vast majority of the time when they ran together once he figured out how to handle her. These two ran together on both rabbit and hare and both in good scenting and bad scenting conditions includeing icy crust and she could run on that too. She looked real good at first with her ability but they had at least equal noses and over a short period of time he proved himself the superior hound. The point being, don't be fooled by a hounds seeming uncanny ability to start the vast majority of their cold trails, they could find more game in a shorter time frame IF they didn't run the cold trial and IF they have all the tools required of a hunting hound.There is one more thing I noted about her too that I don't beleive we touched on but under certain conditions she would babble. The vast majority of cold trialers wil babble under certain conditions and I'm not talking about when they are working up a cold trail.

[snowshoehareguide]

joe ill go along with this. . if a dog can cold trail one up quickly than im all for it. if your dog can find one quickly by searching than im for that too. most of my best dogs have lacked a little in the search department.if they got the faintest scent they would kill themselves to find it. ive been running alot on crust . dogs legs are cut up. their feet are sore last few days they havent hunted like they should. if they get the faintest scent they forget their sore feet and legs. hare may be in head high spruce. theres 4-5 feet of snow in there. i saw one dog sink and thought id have to help him get out. it was froze enough so i was able to walk on top with some BIG snowshoes. i was looking down where dog was at least 4-5 feet. it takes some guts for a dog to go in there. we dont have any hemlock swamps here its spruce fir thickets. snow sticks too them and can make snow twice as deep and some years can be bare ground under them, its hard to explain how snow could be 6 feet deep and still be bare ground but in those thickets it can be. . it takes nose and guts to run a hare thru there, .the hare may pop out on top or go underneath. if you can breed dogs that do not cold trail but still have plenty of nose to run on crust say at 0 or below i say more power to you. you know your story about the dog not paying attention to the cold trailer is exactly what ive said he shows some brains, he knows that the other dog is only cold trailing and doesnt hark to her. thats how it should be. i hear people call the cold trailer brainless cause theyre dog harks too them well like youve said here they quickly learn the difference if they have any brains. last day of season in VT today , got my limit. cant say dogs did any cold trailing today. pete