COTTONTAIL BRED DOGS

[adirondackjoe]

i have 3 born and bred hare hounds from the adirondacks. they run a real good hare, quite fast in fact but when i run them here on cottontails they slow down a bit and seem to do just fine. quite the size difference to. my 1.5 year old female is just 12 inches my 7 year female is 14 inches and my 4 year old male is almost 17 inches, yet they still run in a nice tight pack.(my big male looks like a small fox hound. hes pretty cool.) i guess i'm just not that fussy. if they hunt hard and don't run deer, there ok by me. mine are called harebeaglecottontaildon'trundeerhounds. it's my own bloodline.

[deerhost]

Joe, I live in Orange County NY Just above Ramsey NJ. Drop me an inbox some time this spring and you can come up to were I live. I have some decent running spots and we can do a little running.....dh.

[adirondackjoe]

deerhost
would like to come up and run. i'll drop you a pm as soon as my son shows me how.

[Mitchell Bearfield]

What does the initalsD.F.J. breed stand for?

[Swamper AR]

What are more examples of what you consider cottontail and hare bred lines. Is gay cottontail? Patch?

[deerhost]

Ive never seen a Patch hound run. Gay Ive seen plenty. I don't know traditionaly what the gay stuff was bred too do but I now after watching some run today they would be able to run Ct and Hare well enough foot, control and nose. Some example of well known CT liness are FlatCreek/Tank, Misty mountain, Kalagha, FlatLands, Buckshot. Some examples of Hare Lines are Branko, otterbrook, striker, Rangerdan, There are many, many more of each. Then there are variations on those lines depending how they have been breed. Some have taken Hare blood and bred it down to more conservative, closer running dog by breeding to a more conservative running Hare dog or by breeding to a CT dog and vice versa, some have breed to speed up dogs they have. But if you have anyone of the above lines that has been line breed then you got that type dog. Can either type run hare or cottontail? yes, most may be able to some may not or may not be the best choice if you live way up north where there is only hare or deep south where there are only CT's. If I lived in Canada and only hunted hare I would want A branko dog, If i lived in the deep south I would want e a CT dog unless you are running swampers I guess. If your like me and can run both but mostly cottontail then I want kind of a mixture that can do both pretty well. That is just my opinion.....dh

[Newt]

What does the initalsD.F.J. breed stand for?

Dave, Frank, and John(maybe Joseph?)
Those were the sons names of Ray Slawiak who developed the DFJ line of hounds. I'm not sure the spelling is correct, but is story that I read about twenty-five years ago. He did a great job before health problems forced out of beagles.

[gfedor]

Ive never seen a Patch hound run. Gay Ive seen plenty. I don't know traditionaly what the gay stuff was bred too do but I now after watching some run today they would be able to run Ct and Hare well enough foot, control and nose. Some example of well known CT liness are FlatCreek/Tank, Misty mountain, Kalagha, FlatLands, Buckshot. Some examples of Hare Lines are Branko, otterbrook, striker, Rangerdan, There are many, many more of each. Then there are variations on those lines depending how they have been breed. Some have taken Hare blood and bred it down to more conservative, closer running dog by breeding to a more conservative running Hare dog or by breeding to a CT dog and vice versa, some have breed to speed up dogs they have. But if you have anyone of the above lines that has been line breed then you got that type dog. Can either type run hare or cottontail? yes, most may be able to some may not or may not be the best choice if you live way up north where there is only hare or deep south where there are only CT's. If I lived in Canada and only hunted hare I would want A branko dog, If i lived in the deep south I would want e a CT dog unless you are running swampers I guess. If your like me and can run both but mostly cottontail then I want kind of a mixture that can do both pretty well. That is just my opinion.....dh

Thats the "hybred" dog I love and alway look for. A dog with nose ,brains, hunt and gears too walk the line if need be or take it time in the thick briars, or can run as fast as its nose can handle when the rabbit leaves the thick stuff to run in the open woods,than take it back down a notch when the rabbit starts to throw in some tricks.

[hlane]

I beleive fc weir creek buzz was the foundation of the d.f.j. line

[Norshore]

DFJ Suzie White and her littermate FC DFJ Murphy White were directly out of Weir Creek Buzz.

[Buckeye Bob]

Great information gentlemen, I am curious who is still focused on line breeding the DFJ blood and has the qualities described here still present?

[Shady Grove Beagles]

I don't know how the original D.F.J. dogs from Frank Slowiak ran back in the day but have heard many good things about them. Such as real good nose,line running ,good check work.
The male I bred to 18 years ago possessed those traits,ran upper medium,hunted good,was built right and could run. On certain days he enjoyed some success in A.R.H.A. Little Pack although usually not as footy as his competition.I think he was more of a Progressive Pack type dog.Faster and more aggressive than a U.B.G.F type hound but not nearly as much as say the Little Pack or Mid-West S.P.O. hounds.
The last D.F.J. hounds I had occasion to watch over in middle Tn.were small,blocky built and what I would call quite conservative as they ran.Maybe a really good nose but opened a little too freely for me.

[Bear Creek Kennel]

This has been a great post so far and I have enjoyed reading it. True opinions without all the bashing and blowing that happens on alot of posts.

It seems most of the people that frequent this board are from the north and the midwest but I am in Alabama and we hunt cottontails and swamp rabbits. I have been running basically the same stock of dog for the last 25 years and they are great here, however if I were in another region of the country I would want what was most effective there. I have found that as a somewhat general rule, southern dogs are usually slower with more control, and northern dogs are faster and a little rougher. There are definitely exceptions both ways good and bad.

The swamp rabbits (swampers, cane cutters, or buck rabbits depending on where you live) are what always separate a good southern style dog for me. Lots of southern bred dogs down here can run a cottontail all day long, sound good doing it, and rarely make a lose. But when you get in these big river bottoms, flooded swamps, and cutovers we have down here and get after these big running swampers, dogs have a lot of trouble. It takes a special dog with drive and experience to run in big water for long periods of time. I am sure the same is true for snow.

I am honestly amazed to see hounds run a hare for hours on snow. I am also amazed everytime we run a swamp rabbit for hours in a 1000 acre cutover of briars and pines with knee deep water everywhere. These dogs can be pretty amazing sometime....

[Buckeye Bob]

The last D.F.J. hounds I had occasion to watch over in middle Tn.were small,blocky built and what I would call quite conservative as they ran.Maybe a really good nose but opened a little too freely for me.

That is a great answer, I hear people refer to this or that old (older than 25 years) bloodline as if it was still in existence today exactly as it was when the original breeder bred to his intent and purpose. it appears that the DFJ line was what I would be interested in but now with serious branching along the way. I would be very interested in how many serious beagle breeders there are today that are committed to one particular bloodline. Hare and cottontail.

[Buckeye Bob]

This has been a great post so far and I have enjoyed reading it. True opinions without all the bashing and blowing that happens on alot of posts.

It seems most of the people that frequent this board are from the north and the midwest but I am in Alabama and we hunt cottontails and swamp rabbits. I have been running basically the same stock of dog for the last 25 years and they are great here, however if I were in another region of the country I would want what was most effective there. I have found that as a somewhat general rule, southern dogs are usually slower with more control, and northern dogs are faster and a little rougher. There are definitely exceptions both ways good and bad.

The swamp rabbits (swampers, cane cutters, or buck rabbits depending on where you live) are what always separate a good southern style dog for me. Lots of southern bred dogs down here can run a cottontail all day long, sound good doing it, and rarely make a lose. But when you get in these big river bottoms, flooded swamps, and cutovers we have down here and get after these big running swampers, dogs have a lot of trouble. It takes a special dog with drive and experience to run in big water for long periods of time. I am sure the same is true for snow.

I am honestly amazed to see hounds run a hare for hours on snow. I am also amazed everytime we run a swamp rabbit for hours in a 1000 acre cutover of briars and pines with knee deep water everywhere. These dogs can be pretty amazing sometime....

Bear Creek its on my bucket list to run swampers as you describe some day. Some day before I kick the bucket....