cold trailing

[jon cornett]

WOULD LIKE TO HAVE SOME HONEST ANSWERS FROM HONEST RABBIT HUNTERS AND HOUNDSMAN. I KNOW THIS SUBJECT HAS BEEN DISCUSSED AND DEBATED FOR YEARS AS HAS SPEED. I HAVE THREE GROWN BEAGLES I HAVE HUNTED OVER FOR FOUR YEARS NOW. THE OLD MALE IS A KNOWN COLDTRAILER, HAS BEEN SINCE HE WAS BORN. NOW, HE DOESNT DO IT ALL THE TIME BUT WHEN HE DOES DO IT ON A PARTICULAR DAY THEN ITS ANNOYING. I HAVE TWO FEMALES OUT OF HIM THAT DO IT ALSO. ONE NOT AS BAD AS THE OTHER TWO. I HAVE KILLED SEVERAL HUNDRED RABBITS OVER THESE DOGS SO THEY ARE WORTH KEEPING FOR SURE, AS THEY DONT RUN TRASH AND DONT WEAR SHOCK COLLARS. NOW I HAVE SOME FRIENDS THAT HAVE DOGS FROM SAME BLOODLINE OR CLOSE, THEY COLDTRAIL ALSO. I KNOW THAT VARIOUS FACTORS GO INTO A DOG COLDTRAILING, TEMPS, RABBIT POPULATION/MOVEMENT, PRESSURE. MY QUESTION IS THIS, IS THERE A BLOODLINE OUT THERE THAT HUNTS TO JUMP WITHOUT THE COLDBARKING. HUNTS FOR A RABBIT AND NOT A TRACK WITHOUT GETTING ON A OLD TRACK AND DRIVING YOU NUTS. I LIKE A DOG WITH EXTREME HUNT AND GOOD LINE CONTROL, MEDIUM TO MEDIUM FAST, SMART AND GOOD MOUTH. THANKS FOR ANY ANSWERS!! JWC

[Redtick]

Cold Trailers can make fine rabbit dogs but all of the dogs I hunt have the rabbit up and running before they open much.

[New York Hilbilly]

Here where I live and hunt we say we have 10 months of winter and two months of bad sledding. You have to shovel into the snow banks a set of stairs to get on top of it to hunt. For those who have never seen it up here you might think I'm kidding. But I am not! You can count on covered tracks every morning. This is where a hound with a big nose comes in handy. Not being a coon hunter I'm not sure but I think they kind of work like a strike dog. You know the one that rides in the box of the pickup as you drive slowly along the farm roads. When he opens you stop, drop and every body rolls. Yeah, strike dog I think they are called? No matter, some hounds have better sniffers and they reach their excitement and bark "button" quicker than others. I do not mean those occassional nutty hounds that run around barking just to make noise. But the ones who under most circumstances pick it up first and start sounding off only to have the others hark in follow and as the scent becomes stronger they to open. Then off goes the hare and the fun begins. I have a female like this and she is worth her weight in gold in these parts but can drive a person nuts in a trial. Especially if you don't know her. You would think she had a screw loose. She always comes up with the rabbit or hare once she opens, but as I said if you didn't know her you would be thinking NUT CASE. Frank Blockston who is ARHA LP rep up here is one of my best friends and running partner. He one time swore she was laying track as she was opened and running on glare ice and the other hounds were looking baffled. Son of a gun if after a few minutes the others opened and the rabbit was sent flying through the swamp. Another time I was at a Big Progressive Pack hunt at Three Rivers in Indianna. What a nice club and nice people. But when we were getting ready to start I was holding her in my arms trying to keep her quiet cause she could smell rabbit and wanted to open and we had not even cut the dogs. As soon as she hit the ground at the direction of the judge she opened. Several folks groaned but she in a few bounds had that rabbit on its way and the pack off with her. As fate would have it the pack bumped another rabbit and the pack split. She and one hound stayed with the original rabbit but three hounds went the other way. The judge said to catch the two and get them with the three rather than staying with the original rabbit. After 20 minutes out of the hunt and the help of a young fella we caught her. She lost her cast to the first place hound by 20 points after getting back in to the hunt. The score was something like 220, 200 .....so on. Man they had a lot of rabbits and I would like to go back sometime. The young judge by the way came up to me after the hunt and said he gofed for not staying with the original rabbit Candy had jumped. Oh well he wasn't perfect but neither is my cold nosed hound!! If you look to get rid of those cold nose hounds look to us fellas in Snow Country we like em. Or at least me and my buddies do! They are the ones that get things moving and once on hare gets going the rest get bumped and lay fresh tracks. You may have 2 or 3 at one time going. And we owe it to those cold trailing hounds.

[Joe West]

Cold trialing and mouthyness doesn't mean the hound has more nose; it mearly means the hound is faulty. There are many hounds who have very powerful noses who don't cold trial and use their voice correctly.

[New York Hillbilly]

Why do beagles voice when they smell a rabbit? I always figured it was because they were excited by the smell and the knowledge of the impending chase. Perhaps they do it as a method to say to it's pack mates "hey I found one" or "over here". It is well known and excepted that most if not all animals communicate with each other through a variety of vocalizations. Deer grunt and bleet, turkeys cluck, putt and gobble. Now I know my hounds to some degree open at different times. Some are quicker claimers than others. I said before I don't mean hounds that run around willy nilly barking cause their glad to be alive. But a hound that opens and lines out with the others in tow, and then watch them one by one also open. Leaves me to believe that is because they pick up enouh scent to excite them at different rates. Does that hound who first opened have a better nose, or a lower threshhold for excitement? I don't know cause they never tell me! But is it wrong for a hound to give mouth when they can smell and track when others can't? Is that really a fault? If so who wrote the book on beagle etiquette?

[TomPA]

To answer your original question Jon, I think the type of hound you are looking for exists in all bloodlines. Maybe some more than others.I think it has a lot to do with the intelligence level of the dog also. Be careful judging bloodlines because once they leave the the breeders kennel and someone else does a cross, then another cross is made and so on it is no longer the original bloodline. But if you ask many will tell you what the most recognizable names are in the ped. as the bloodline. My advise to you would be to go to some trials that run the speed of dog you like and look at dogs until you find some you think will fit your needs. You can also post on the internet boards and go run with some of the folks in your area and look at their dogs. I have done this and met some nice folks and had a lot of fun. Good luck.

[tnbeagleman]

A bloodline with all those qualitys does not exist. There is an occassional dog with those traits from most bloodlines but because a male and a female has those traits does not mean the pups will . You will increase your odds of getting one out of a litter by breeding similar traits but almost nothing is sure with genetics. I have three littermate brothers at the present time and It would be as easy to convince you they were from three different bloodlines as it would they are brothers they look different act different and have different levels of intelligent. As someone already posted go hunt and run with different people to see what they have. Decide for yourself what YOU want and ignore what most people will tell you if you ask six beaglers five will have different opionions and one will just be wrong. LOL I have saw dogs that were from only god know as the bloodline that I really liked and have had dogs from Very well known and respected bloodlines that were not what I liked . Faulty is a word that don't mean much. What one person thinks is faulty is not to another me personally A cat runner is just as faulty as a deer runner. I hate a dog that runs cats. For me personally I hate one that will not leave a hole . I better not have to go to the hole to get one if I do he will get corrected quickly and if it stands around and digs and blows holes in the ground it will be placed else where. What I'm trying to say in ramblin is fine a dog or bloodline you like and forget all the HYPE because name recognition will not run rabbits.

[Chris]

I like your last post NY Hillbilly. I agree. Tough snow running isn't possible with a lot of dogs. I have some that smell it good when conditions stink and some that don't. I think you're right that dogs with more powerful noses reach that barking 'threshhold' quicker -- they're also the ones that can run a rabbit to your 12 ga. when the other 'rulebook' dogs can't smell enough to let out a bark.

[Redtick]

I would say it has alot to do where you hunt. Here in Illinois, it doesn't really pay to hunt a cold trailer but a fellow in Michigan in the snow and ice would have to have the cold nose. If is too cold for my medium nosed dogs to do well, I will hunt my squirrel dogs. They tree by sight.

[Joe West]

Fault: Failure to have or do what is required. IN the case of cold trialing the orginal poster already knows how bothersome it can be when the game is not produced and/or time is wasted on an old line and distracting packmates from their search when they hear another hound open. In the case of a mouthy hound the main problem is the disruption or distraction of his packmates and of course the annoyance of his handler when he doesn't know when the hound truely does have the rabbit up and moveing. Naturally faults come in degrees. That is, some hounds are worse at something then another who has the same fault but faults do exist in every hound. A fault then is anything that interfears with the perfect run. All anyone has to do is apply common sense when evaulating hounds and look for those things that interfear with the hunt. There are families of hounds who have good search, medium to fast with line control who use their mouth correctly. (opening only when they have the rabbit up and moveing proclaiming every bit of progress but silent when progress is not being made) A hound with a strong nose is only as likely to be mouthy as his gifts allow. That is the hound with the strong nose will only be mouthy if he has inherited that fault. A strong nose requires the hound to also have the intelligence to handle it.

[Chris]

There are families of hounds who have good search, medium to fast with line control who use their mouth correctly. (opening only when they have the rabbit up and moveing proclaiming every bit of progress but silent when progress is not being made)

Joe, what you describe isn't that astonishing. What would be astonishing is if these same hounds that you're describing could also consistently keep a rabbit going all throughout the winter up here. The vast majority (virtually all) of medium/hot nosed trial type dogs can't do it. A few individuals, yes, but I've never seen a 'family' that consistently could. The closest to that I've seen is with the Patch hounds that were bred for it. Even with them it's got to be less than half.

Fact: a really powerfull nose brings a lot of problems with it that the vast majority of trialers/houndsmen just aren't willing to put up with. These same problems are what get a hound picked up at a trial in July, and why very few of these type 'snowdogs' ever finish for any sort of formal championship.

[wvcopernose]

i have 6 grade beagles that are fine gun dogs 5 of these will not open till the rabbitt is up n running when they bark ya can flip the saftey on urrr shotgun fast hard driving with good line control i call them grade cause their not registered i only have one papered dog and those papers dont make a rabitt dog in my humble opinion jb

[jon cornett]

JOE YOU PRETTY MUCH HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD. WHEN ONE STARTS THIS IT PULLS THE OTHERS IN WITH HIM/HER. SOMTIMES THEY CAN COME UP WITH THE RABBIT IN SHORT ORDER, SOMETIMES ITS AGGRAVATING AS THEY WORK AND WORK, BARKING AND BARKING NOT REALLY ACCOMPLISHING ANYTHING. AGAIN THIS ISNT ALL THE TIME THOUGH. I GUESS I SHOULD HAVE SAID THIS, I HUNT ALOT AT PUBLIC AREAS. ONE SUCH PLACE HAS BEEN TOPS IN THE STATE AS FAR AS NUMBERS OF BUNNYS KILLED THERE THE LAST FOUR YEARS. I LIVE IN INDIANA. NOW IM TELLING YOU THIS MUCH, AFTER HUNTING THERE FOR THE LAST FIVE YEARS, THEM BUNNYS, AFTER A MONTH OR TWO OF PRESSURE DO SOME WEIRD THINGS. I THINK ALOT OF THEM GO NOCTURNAL AFTER A WHILE, SOME MAY MOVE WHEN YOU PULL INTO THE PARKING SPOT, IVE SEEN ALOT OF WIERD THINGS HAPPEN. SEEMS LIKE ALOT OF MY COLDTRAILING IS DONE HERE, AGAIN NOT ALL THE TIME AND TEMPS MAKE A DIFFERENCE. ANYONE HAVE ANYTHING LIKE THIS HAPPEN TO THEM ON PUBLIC GROUND? I ALSO MANAGE TO KILL A COUPLE EACH TRIP (MY AVERAGE) DOGS JUMP AND CIRCLE ONCE OR MORE, I DONT JUMP SHOOT. ANY ADVICE IS APPRECIATED!! THANKS JWC

[Joe West]

Chris: My statement wasn't meant to be astonishing it was mearly a statement of fact. I also live in snow country so I have plenty of experiance in the snow, fact we have snow here now but not much. The only snow condition that I know of that consistantly causes the hounds fits is when the snow crusts up and has a thin layer of ice on top of it. But when fresh snow comes good scenting comes with it.

I'll disagree with you on the powerful nose. The excellent scenting ability alone does not cause the problems; the hound must be lacking in something else for there to be a problem. I never use trials or their results to judge a hound because I am not a trialer and because what wins at one type or location of field trial will be picked up at another. Then again an awful lot depends on the judges and their experiance and weather or not they INTERPRET the proceedure for judgeing.

We never thought of a hound who was able to account for his game in winter as a "snowdog" we mearly thought of them as good hounds. I haven't had the same experiance as you with so many hounds only able to run well in certain conditions. I've found that good hounds are good hounds who can run well at any time of year except when on ice, add a little wind to the ice and it's near impossible to get much scent.

Jon: Experianced rabbits learn things too. Beleive it or not some rabbits in a pen who are just ran and not shot also learn to like the running and will come out when they hear the hounds coming so they can run.

[Chris]

Joe,
We'll have to agree to disagree. My experience and yours is apparently different when it comes to the average beagle.

On a real serious note... I've got a really nice female that I think is as solid a rabbit dog as I've seen in a long time. She's going to be bred as soon as she comes into heat -- approximately Feb or March.

Joe, or anybody else, please point me to this family of hounds that can consistently handle a 5-day old, crystalized powder, under 15 degrees -- and do it with no extra mouth or any other serious faults. I'd like to make arrangements with the owner of a good, solid male from this family of hounds to watch him go, for two solid days, in late December or January on some tough going. If I like what I see, then I'll commit to up to a $400 stud fee with an extra $100 going to the fellow that introduces me to this dog. The only requirements are these... this dog must be AKC registered; within a 10 hour drive of NH; over 13"; satisfactory conformation; at least medium speed; stays close on checks and gunned over regularly. Please don't waste my time or yours recommending something that's not truly special, that I'll drive a long way to see and be disappointed with. I'd like to run my female with that male and see how he compares. If he cuts the mustard then it's a done deal and I'll pay half the stud fee before I leave and the other half when I bring her for breeding. I'd like a return to the stud in case of a miss. You can see info. about the female here.

Anyone wanting to contact me can reach me at #603-335-5279 or mail@milleroutdoors.com