Day by Day Raising and Training

[TomMN]

John Wick used to have a column in the coonhound magazines each month with this title. It was about a couple of coonhound pus that he raised and trained, he would describe their progress and his tactics each month. Kind of boring on here lately so I thought I would try something like John's column on here. I will try to post the progress of a litter of beagle pups I am raising from the time they were born until I am shooting rabbits in front of them (or until y'all beg me to stop!)

I bred my Rose female to Terry Daniel's GR HB CH Daniels Shy last spring. I picked Shy because he is the closest I could find in speed and running style to Rose. I want dogs that are as fast as possible without giving up good line control. Good conformation and a good voice are also very important to me. I hunt all winter in Minnesota and more often than not we are running on old hard crusty snow that tears up beagle feet pretty fast.
I hunted with Terry one day last winter on about 6 inches of old hard snow. Terry had Shy and one of his females and I brought Rose. Shy hit the multiflora as soon as Terry turned him loose and had a rabbit going before Rose knew what was going on. They ran this cottontail hard up the creek bottom, made the turn and started coming back our way. We saw the rabbit coming down the other side of the creek, then he went down into the bottom with the dogs right behind him. Suddenly it got quiet. We started to wonder when Shy came up out of the bottom and stopped to water a bush. About that time Rose came up with the rabbit in her mouth and carried it right to me! She usualy doesn't retrieve, I think she was just showing off! After a couple hours of running we caught the dogs. Rose's feet were in tough shape but Shy's feet were the same as when we started. I knew then Shy was the dog I wanted to breed Rose to.

To be continued.....

This is Rose and Slimmer, my wife Lisa's dog in action last winter running Hare.

[crewchf]

Man, I'm praying for about 6" of that white stuff this year!!! That'll put us out of work at least three days,, look out rabbits..

Crew Chief

[overcomer]

Looking forward to seeing your posts.

Greg

[hawkeyee]

I will be looking forward to each post I like the way you have started .

[TomMN]

Rose only comes in heat once a year. I tried to raise a litter of pups from her last year. Shy, the stud I bred her to is located in Iowa, about 350 miles from where I live. My plan was to drive down, breed her once and come back home. Once is all it takes but timing is everything.

My wife, Lisa checked with our local vet about doing a progesterone test to determine the best time to breed Rose. He suggested an easier way. I don't remember all the medical terms but this is how it worked. The vet would take a sample of the discharge from the female and put on a slide. He then checked it under a microscope. I think he was looking at the blood cells but I may be wrong about that. These cells are normally round. When the female drops her eggs these cells get kind of flat looking. That is the time when you want to get the female bred.

We decided to try this method. We ended up getting Rose bred about 2 or 3 days later than I would have if I had just been counting days from when she started coming in heat. We drove down to Iowa, got her bred and came home without a hitch. 63 days later and Rose's figure was the same as always. No pups.

I think this vet knows what he is talking about but we didn't have any luck using this method for picking the right day to breed on Rose or on one other female we tried it on. Next time I have a female to breed and only have one chance to hit the right day I will use a progesterone test.

That was in 2004. We had to wait a whole year to try and get a litter of pups from Rose! To be continued.........

[TomMN]

Finaly, Rose came in heat again this spring. I wasn't going to take any chances on missing her again. Lisa and I drove back down to Iowa about a week and a half after Rose started coming in heat. We asked Terry and Barb, Terry's wife if they would keep Rose for a week and they agreed. Rose was bred they day we brought her down and every other day, three times. From what I have learned, each breeding produces thousands of sperm cells which stay alive for up to 48 hours in the female. Breeding every other day is enough to make sure your female has puppies.

After a week, Lisa drove back down and brought Rose back home. These trips seem like a lot of trouble but I realy enjoy visiting with Terry and Barb Daniels. Terry has had coonhounds for many years and has made several of them Grand Night Champions. All of these dogs were bred, raised and trained by Terry and he has line bred the same strain all these years. One of his dogs won the UKC world hunt a few years ago. This is quite an accomplishment in itself but when you think that Terry also owned this dogs parents and grandparents, even some of the great grandparents, his accomplishment is almost unheard of. For the last 10 or 15 years, Terry has been raising beagles. You can bet that when he starts talking about breeding dogs I sit up and pay attention.

About 63 days later and 2 years in the making, Rose had a nice healthy litter of 9 puppies, 4 females and 5 males. She lost one female in the first day (dang!) but saved the rest of the puppies. I lost a lot of sleep staying up with them and making sure everything went alright but I realy didn't need to. The most important thing to keep in mind with new pups is to keep them warm. It seems like if they get chilled in those first few days you will start losing pups. We use a heat lamp if the weather is cold or if the female doesn't get them dried off right away but Rose didn't need one.

[TomMN]

One thing I should mention before I go too far is that my wife, Lisa is both my partner and my competition when it comes to raising beagles. We met at the local coonhound club and most of our first dates were out coonhunting. Lisa's dad was a coonhunter and she has been around hounds most of her life. I think she just married me to get some good dogs! I have always had a beagle around, running loose and causing trouble. Lisa used to hate beagles after they stole the clean clothes off the line and carried off her baby kittens.
Then one day a good friend of ours named Pete LaDue talked Lisa into starting to raise a few beagle puppies and things haven't been the same around here since. Pete gave Lisa a dog named Shorty that was the first realy good rabbit dog we ever had. We hunted Shorty up until she passed away at 14 and Lisa still misses old Shorty.
A few years ago Pete bred his female LaDues Sandy who was one of the best dogs I have ever seen run a rabbit to his dog LaDues Cider who had the conformation of a show dog, more common sense than any beagle I have ever seen, and could also run a good rabbit. Lisa raised the litter here and I talked her out of a little female named River Bottom Wild Rose. We raised 3 pups from Sandy and Cider and Rose turned out to be the closest thing I have seen to her mother Sandy.

My better half, Lisa

[TomMN]

We have about 2 acres fenced in around our kennel. I planted about 300 pine and spruce trees in it and let the rest grow up wild. I built a couple brush piles and there are a few wild cottontails in there. I use this pen every day for training the dogs and keeping them in shape. I can turn a couple dogs loose and watch them run from my living room.

View from inside the pen.


I started letting the pups run loose out in the pen as soon as they were weaned.

[TomMN]

Right now the pups are spending most of their time running loose in the pen.



At this time I try to just let them be puppies and grow up at their own pace.



One thing I do make time for is to spend a little time with them every day. I try to pick up each one and talk to them, pet them and just give them some attention. When I am out in the pen and they see me they come running. When this happens I call them in the same voice I will use to call them in later, when they are grown. I do the same thing when I feed them. Pups learn by repetition and association. In this case they associate me calling them with something good. Also, at this stage they will follow the leader. If one pup comes to you the rest will follow. If one pup is off by himself and doesn't notice me he will soon notice he is all alone and come looking.
I call them the same way, in the same voice, over and over, every day. I NEVER call them when I know they are not going to come to me. The time will come when they will be busy and do not want to listen to me. I will deal with that when they are older. I DON'T want it to happen now. At this stage it is important to keep everything positive. One bad experience when they are young will stay with them for a long time.

Another thing I do at this age is to get them used to loud noise. Usualy I just clap my hands near them at feeding time. Like calling them, I do this every day, over and over. Right now, I can clap my hands as loud as I can, right near these pups and they don't show any fear. If I get a pup that is a little timid or acts afraid of the noise I will pick him up and give him some lovin' at the same time or right after I make noise. He will soon associate the noise with something good.

[TomMN]

The pups are about 3 months old now. I still have all 8 of them. I plan on keeping the three females and one of the males, I just can't decide on which one to keep. The pups spend most of their time running loose in the pen. I believe in letting pups be pups. I don't think there is anything good to be gained by pushing them at a young age and I have seen more then one dog ruined by a trainer that thinks they should be doing it all by 5 months old. If a pup starts on his own at a young age that is fine with me, I have had several that were running rabbits before 5 months. I just don't think it is a good idea to try and make them do it before they are ready.
At three months old it seems like pups like to spend most of their time doing this:

I do have older dogs out running rabbits at the time when these pups are in the pen. The pups like to follow the old dogs around and pester them while they are trying to work. In this picture a rabbit just flew past, followed by my dog Traveler. I was only fast enough to get a picture of this pup running behind and wondering what the heck THAT was all about.

[TomMN]

There hasn't been much to report with the pups lately. They still spend most of their time running loose in the pen. I still have 7 of them. One of the males went to one of my hunting buddies, two more will be going to guys that I hunt with. I will keep all 3 females, at least for now. One of the other two males will stay here and hopfully be used as a stud dog. I plan to keep both for a while until I can decide which one I like best. The two males I am keeping, Rocky and Hornet, both have very good conformation although they don't have that big blocky show dog head. They look more like dogs that are built for speed, like a scaled down Running Walker. Both have good loud voices, they will have both a bawl and chop on the track. Their mother bawls a few times when she picks up a check and chops steady when she is driving a track, I think these two pus will be the same. Both are very friendly and inteligent, not shy at all. Looks like this is going to be a hard decision, I may just have to keep both!

Yesterday morning I turned loose a couple older dogs while I was cleaning kennels. All of the sudden I heard a loud screaming roar. Sounded like a huge dog fight. I ran around the kennel in time to see a rabbit come running by, followed by two older beagles and seven 5 month old pups, all doing their best to try and catch that rabbit. It didn't last long, the rabbit went straight for a brush pile. But it sure sounded nice while it lasted!

[JMurphy]

nice set of posts Tom.This was a good idea.I am enjoying it very much.Thanks

J.Murphy/Murphy's Kennel

[TomMN]

I have to tell you what happened to Rose.

Rose is the mother of these pups I have been writing about. I hate to brag about my dogs so I haven't said much about her. The truth is, to me Rose is a once in a lifetime dog. She has that rare combination of speed, nose, brains and pure talent that makes her something special. I doubt if I will ever be lucky enough to own another dog like Rose.


Saturday I took Rose, Slimmer and Tammy hunting. The pups have been trailing and acting like they are ready to start so I brought two of them, Rocky and Bossy along. I was by myself so I started out doing some scouting in the area I have been hunting. In the last couple weeks I have been seeing wolf tracks in this area. They usually just pass through the areas I hunt so I don't pay them much attention but I found fresh tracks again. They seem to be staying in this area for some reason. Now I'm not talking about a little, rabbit eating coyote. These are Timber Wolves that make their living running down and killing deer. They leave a track about the size of the palm of your hand and take steps about 2 to 3 feet apart. There is no mistaking their tracks when you see them.


I decided to hunt an area of young, thick pine trees that holds a lot of snowshoe hare. This turned out to be one of those days when nothing goes like it should. There is a big red willow swamp on the east side of these pines that the rabbits like to run in. I try to keep them out of there. I drove back in on trail and sent the dogs in to the west, away from the swamp. Rose jumped a rabbit and the dogs ran hard going south. They soon turned east and came back by me on the edge of the swamp going north. I turned Bossy and Rocky loose and headed north east down the trail.

The dogs got in the north end of the swamp so when they got close I tried to call them in. Rose came to me but Slimmer and Tammy wouldn't come off the track. They were both wearing shock collars but I had left the transmitter back in the truck. I took Rose and the pups and walked back west into the pines. Rose jumped another rabbit but when she swung back close to the other dogs and heard them running hard in the swamp she went back to them.

I headed back to the truck to get the shocker. When I got there I decided to drive up the trail closer to the dogs. Trouble is the pups were still back in the pines, I could hear Bossy barking a little on a track. I drove up to the north end of the swamp and finally caught Slimmer and Tammy but now Rose was in there running hard. The snow had some crust on it and I noticed Rose was leaving blood in her tracks. I was worried about the pups so I took the tracker and walked back in and found them. Now Rose is the only dog out and she is way on the back side of that dang swamp. I drove up aways, slipped the tracker in it's case and slung it over my back and started in on a 4 wheeler trail through the brush.

Lots of rabbit tracks in here. A deer came by right in front of me. I had gone about a hundred yards when Rose suddenly got quiet. About that time something started howling about another 50 yards ahead of me, right where Rose had been. I have heard hundreds of coyotes howling, this was no coyote. The closest house that might have a large dog tied in the yard was a couple miles away. Only thing it could be was a timber wolf. I got out the tracker and picked up Rose's collar, It pointed right where the howling was coming from. A cold chill went down my spine and my imagination starting working overtime. I thought of my shotgun back at the truck. No time for that. I started yelling loudly, calling Rose and swearing at that wolf. It finally stopped howling. I started down the trail as fast as I could go through the snow wearing heavy coveralls and boots, calling Rose all along. After I had gone quite aways I sensed something behind me. I turned around...

And there was Rose coming up behind me. I snapped a lead on her and it didn't take us long to get back to the truck. Being kind of stubborn, I left there, went down the road about a half mile and ran the dogs in a different spot. The dogs ran several rabbits and the two pups even followed along some, but I didn't let Rose out again there.

[TomMN]

It's been a while since I put a post on here. I'd like to say it's because I've been working 50 hours a week and hunting and running dogs every chance I get and that is partly true, but mostly it's just a lack of ambition.

Here's a picture of Rose along with six of her pups taken today.


There isn't much cover right now for the cottontails here by the house so they won't stay out and run. For that reason I have been mostly just waiting for spring to get here to start serious training. I have started running Bossy and Hornet some. I brought Hornet along running hare last weekend and he did well. He is determined to run the track himself without paying much attention to the other dogs.

All of the pups have been hauled up north in the dog box several times. Another hard lesson they learned was leash breaking. I tied each one up on a chain with nothing in the way for them to get tangled up in. The first time they always fight it but after an hour or two they start to get used to the idea. After they have spent a few hours being tied up I start leading them.

All the pups will come when called from their earlier training, as long as there are no distractions. Now I am teaching them to come every time whether they feel like it or not. I use avoidance training and it works very well. I will explain the whole process later.

[E.C.I. Rookie]

Tom,
Those are some nice looking hounds you have there.