
I would love to be able to say that all my dogs are and were born deer proof. But that’s simply not the truth. I believe some of you do, and I have had a few.
I have had dogs never run a deer until they got old. I have had dogs that only ran a deer once or twice when they were first started before I broke them and they were easily broke off “for life”. And I have a couple that has never to this day yet, {knock on wood} have run a deer.
My brother Joe has the most deer proof dogs that I have ever seen, naturals from the womb. And in his backyard are deer walking right up next to his pens and where he runs, there is no hunting and there are as many deer as there are rabbits. His dogs have never offered to touch one of them, ever. So I thought getting the dogs around them and the dogs knowing what they are must be some kind of “key” to the puzzle. But I have at my house an absolute deer machine, he will absolutely tear into a deer trail and go out of this country. But he comes home to this deer in this picture and plays, wrestles, they clean each others ears and sometimes he sleeps with this deer. But when he hits the woods, he will still run any deer that he comes across, bar none.
I think it all has a lot to do with the genetic makeup of each individual dog, training and it's surroundings. I have seen dogs from many different bloodlines go both ways. I really believe that it has something to do with “the chase” and dogs knowing the difference between the challenge of “the chase”, and some dogs choose to run the deer, fox etc… rather than the rabbit or the dogs choose to only run the rabbit opposed to the others. Is it natural instinct, brains, fear or lack of fear to a shock collar that makes them run or not run off game? I really don’t know. But I couldn’t sell a pup or pups and state that every pup from every litter will choose not to run deer.
But I believe some of you can, I suppose that if it is genetic and you only breed dogs that choose not to run off game to other dogs that choose the same, and you do this for generations, that trait will get locked in just like any other trait. But a hound was “manufactured” to pursue scent. What makes them choose one scent over another, or be satisfied with the challenge of one chase over another? I think only the good Lord knows, because I have tried for years to find out and I still have no answer.
How many have had a dog that is “collar wise”, a dog that is strait when the shock collar is on him but is back to being deer crazy the moment you take the collar off. That’s what the “dummy collars” are for. I have seen dogs that run “silent” when and only they pursue off game.
But I do know that a smart, easy to train dog that catches on to things quick, knows what pleases his master. And I have doubts that any hound is “born deer proof” with the inability to run a deer because looking at it from the opposite side of things, I believe I could take a pup from any bloodline and provoke it to choose deer and turn it into a deer dog, but I don’t really “know” that, it’s not the kind of goal that I have ever set out to do.