Who gets the credit for a great hound??????

[Ed Brown]

Speaking from my own experience, I owned and trained my beagle to a champion. I guess I didn't know so many owners had their dogs trained by someone else. I don't think I could afford that, even if I wanted to, which I wouldn't. I voted for the owner. Stupid me.

[Briarhoppers]

I voted for the Owner also. My guess is very few people in the over all beagle world actually hire someone train their dogs for them. Putting them in a starting pen is a common practice, but that is only a small part of the training. I picked the owner, b/c I'd guess the majority of us breed, select a pup to keep, start it and train it ourselves.

Even if a owner does hires all of that out - he is still selecting the breeder, the starting pen guy, the trainer and the handler, etc. So he is putting the team together and if the pup turns out to be a world beater than he deserves the credit for putting it all together and funding it, etc. I don't think he could possibly get the same satifaction w/ this approach, but to each his own.

-Pete

[warddog]

Alabama John,
All I did was tell her that I was fixin on retiring in the near future which is now the end of next year that would put us on a more of a fixed income. I explained that she has grown accustomed to being able to come and go as she pleased with vacations and cruises but those would have to take a back seat unless she were to be able to make more money to fill in for my fixed retirement income. I'll tell you one thing I never saw a person work at learning like she did. She worked a full time job took every computer course avalable and finished that degree with honors in what seemed like no time. Oh yeah, she has already gotten another GOOD job making much more money. Another thing she has had to relocate 4 hours from home to get this job so now she only returns home every other weekend. As she was working to finish her degree I cooked, cleaned so she could devote all her time to working and studying and that worked out goo too as now that she's not here I handle it quite well. I think now that she can keep US in the way we are accustomed too. I think I'll be able to devote more time into getting my 10 acre running pen completed and maybe I'll be able to train a few beagles. I'll have a captive audience in that pen with plenty of books for them to read while inside. I'll just turn them pups loose into that class room and watch them learn. Who knows I may even get a teaching degree or better yet become one of these Professor's of higher beagle achievements. ;~)

[Bobby Vest]

I have owned some good rabbit dogs, and over the years I have ran with many good rabbit dogs. My point to this is. I have always learned more from the good ones than I have taught them. I think if you ask anyone that owns a really good rabbit hound they will admit the dog taught them more than they taught it. You can give a dog many many hours on the ground and you might correct a few problems the dog has, but I personally have never seen a trainer make a dog great that didn' have the natural ability.

[NoBull]

I have owned some good rabbit dogs, and over the years I have ran with many good rabbit dogs. My point to this is. I have always learned more from the good ones than I have taught them. I think if you ask anyone that owns a really good rabbit hound they will admit the dog taught them more than they taught it. You can give a dog many many hours on the ground and you might correct a few problems the dog has, but I personally have never seen a trainer make a dog great that didn' have the natural ability.

Very well said. I enjoyed reading a lot of these posts I think they all have good points on a hounds breeding ,who took it to the feild etc. But this post I quoted over the rest because I agree with it. A dogs natural ability plays the key to this whole discussion now granted some hounds find this ability with the help of a good owner feeds them well keeps them healthy, some come out of the gate hit the ground and shine as expected from them in they're bloodline but some hounds never truly find they're true abilities without the right handler I say this because I have seen hounds that wouldn't run a rabbit to save they're own lives sold for $25 bucks because they were about to be put down. Take that same hound a few months later with a new owner/handler and it runs it's previous owners hounds into the ground.

I guess this discussion will go on for awhile but I think at the root of this we can all find that weather your the breeder the trainer or the owner a hounds true peak of abilities can be found when it's on the lead of a real houndsmen. That older gentlemen we occasionally run into while running on public land who has a hound that never misses a corner with a back pouch full of rabbits and a hunting companion that he can call off the hottest tracks when it's time to go home for diner. These are the kind of people I learned about hounds from and I encourage others when your out running and pushing your young hounds to edge take a minute and speak to these houndsmen they can teach us all a lot about what the real relationship of a hunter and hound really is.

[hurryup]

Just wanted to throw out this question and see what yall think. Its true but name has been changed to protect the innocent..LOL..
Joe the builder has been running dogs most of his life, I have been keeping track the last several years. I know the last 5 pups he has raised and trained (some he bought,some he owned female) have turned out to completly dominate their littermates.. winning more in hunts and just plain hunting. They hunt harder better check, no loose mouth and handle. He doesnt always get first pick, sometimes takes whats left. This is what leads me to believe a trainer is a large part of a good dog.
I have seen to many outstanding pups get sold into the wrong hands and end up ruined. I think a good houndsman can do a lot to help his dog reach its full potential. I realize the breeder makes the cross but if they are not hunted or ruined how would anyone ever know what he produced.

[eddywilliams]

I agree hurry up a good handler needs to know when to move a young dog to a different area with less rabbits or more cover ......... When to solo and how long .I use this and a lot of other factors into training a hound .

[hurryup]

Eddy you hit the nail right on the head,thats what I am talking about.
On the reverse I have seen stupid handlers shock dogs for coming out of brush when hunting. Shock dogs when they go into check and shock pups when they can't get through fence and a whole bunch of other things. Again will mention no names.
These are the ones that can ruin the best bred hound until it is worthless. No, I have never hunted with them again, could barely get away fast enough before I said something I shouldn't.

[ANTHONY KERR]

Training is important to me. Call it running dogs or what ever you want. Lining up places to go, yard work, lead work, off game breaking, going every day in the sun or rain with the ticks, mosquitos, chiggers, and snakes, being patient with young ones on days that a rabbit is hard to find, matching young dogs up with experienced clean dogs, and feeding dogs the right food in the correct amount are all part of "training" in my opinion. I may be leaving a few things out. I am running 2 young males this year and a lot of time and shoe leather has gone into the 100 or so rabbits that I have logged on them. I love hearing them pound one, but I think it is a whole lot more involved than just dropping the tail gate. I agree that the student most of the time is me, but you have to recognize good and bad when they are young and be open minded and not kennel blind or you will waste alot of time on a mediocore hound.

[Laneline]

I just wanted to see how everyone looks at a great hound and to see who should get the credit for that hound.

Who gets the credit for a great hound?

Pedigree - 75%
Breeder -5%
Trainer – 0%
Owner -20%

Most open a beagle magazine to a stud ad or new Field Champion and the first thing they go for is… What is this dog’s pedigree? Then… Who owns this dog? Than some… Who was its breeder? I don’t believe “who is the trainer of this dog?” is ever in anybody’s minds. I believe this is the way it has been for years, simply because “credit” is usually recognized between the pages of our beagle magazines because so many dogs are “long distance” and that’s all you have to go by.

Who should get the credit? That is a different story.

I think the correct answer is different for different dogs, simply because they are in many different circumstances. This is almost equivalent to asking which is more important, the chicken or the egg. Or asking who in NASCAR deserves the most credit, the driver or the ones that produced the car for him to drive. Put any “Top 5” driver behind the wheel of an inadequate car and put him on the track and see how that works. Or just the same, put the absolute most complete top performing car out there and put an inadequate driver behind the wheel and see how that works out.

We have all kinds of different circumstances, people that buy dogs already good to go and all they have to do is turn them loose, not much training involved at all. Others breed, raise and start their own, which includes breaking them off game “if necessary”, handling, time with a pack, time soloing and the biggest thing “culling”. If you bought a dog ready to go you bypassed a lot of this “training” and hopefully you didn’t buy a cull so there is nothing for you to cull.

I believe there are some really good houndsman out there that are excellent “trainers”. I also believe that there are some bloodlines that are instinctively, naturally and genetically superior and simply better than others.

I think that many great trainers are working with some “mediocre quality” and they turn them into good dogs, and an occasional great one. {Credit goes to the trainer for training the dog, but one of his friends should slap him in the head for wasting so much time on that line} The “great trainer” compensates and literally boosts the quality of the dog.

I also believe that some high powered well bred dogs have gotten into the wrong hands and many of them will become good dogs and you even see an occasional great one, despite the owner/trainer being absolutely clueless. {Credit goes to the good dog and hopfully over time the good dog will train the trainer how to train. I know my dogs have taught me about rabbit hunting more than any person.} This is why you see inconsistencies in dogs of the same line or litter that are scattered between different trainers, so trainers have their role, but so does having dogs that have “it”.

But then you have the few and very few circumstances where the rubber meets the road and the “great trainer” meets up with the “great hounds” and they consistently put out great dog after great dog, and can do this year after year.

But everybody has what they have for a reason. Money or lack of money. Infatuated with a certain bloodline of the history of a bloodline because you feel it is a “proven” line, or not giving a hoot about bloodlines or pedigrees at all as long as it can burn a rabbit, and some because you happen to fall into your particular line first and now their like family members to you and so you stick with them. The one thing I do know is this, there are two kinds of breeders; the ones that breed to please themselves, and the ones that breed to please others. It is the same with trainers, some train to the point where the dog pleases them and they are satisfied and done. Others train with the intensity to go out and crush, kill and destroy everybody they run against. The key word being “against”. Many can’t run dogs “with” people, they can only run dogs “against” people. Not everybody has that killer instinct, of course unless you are running with or against your brother.

But I will add this, if there was a “Hall of Shame” to go aside the Hall of Fame, I would have a few from over the years to go in there. And if other “breeders & trainers” were honest, they would too. The truth is, not every breeding works out and who should take credit for producing and selling culls?

[warddog]

I'd like to know how many dogs these Professor's of beagling go through before they have one that is exceptional. Oh please don't give me the "I've made several FCs" or whatever as I've seen more than my share of them Degree holden dogs that I wouldn't feed. I've seen a lot of counterfit hounds both beagle and coon toten one of them store bought degrees. A hound with a degree don't impress me BUt when their offspring show to be of the same quality or better then I'm impressed with that piece of paper. Otherwise it's nothing more than what I use when I go to the throne.

[tinymwoods]

This is a great post.

I will have to say I would give the breeder/bloodlines 50% for making the cross. The breeder knew enough about the hounds to make a great decision. I don't care if the pedigree is 10 foot long full of IFC, FC, whatever. It don't matter if it is a grade dog or from two world beaters, sometimes it clicks sometimes it doesn't. There is a man not far from here that has beagles that people come from far away to buy. They do not have any papers, but are consistently good to great gun dogs. He has bred these hounds for 35 years. So I would say no piece of paper made them, but careful consideration and breeding made these dogs have a chance. That is why some breeders have a higher rate of success than others. Someone that has been breeding for 20 years knows what crosses are favorable and which ones are not. They know to breed for this trait or that, and to avoid breeding this and that. Anyone that has been breeding dogs for many years and is still producing good dogs in that bloodline is a true breeder. Without those few people keeping the lines alive (registered or grade) we would not have the quality of hounds we have today.

The other 50% would have to go to the trainer. I often have wondered if a I have a decent hound, if he could have been a great one. I just don't have the time working six days a week to spend with a young hound like I should. In the summer it is possible for me to run in the evenings, but winter is hard on me and my dogs. If I can make a young dog be alright averaging 10 days in the field each month, imagine the possibilities of the hound if he was there 20 days chewing on rabbit tracks. Does time in the field determine how the hound turns out, or is it the quality of the time? Is it the amount of rabbits ran or the teachings of another hound and the hunter? Is the person that starts the pup in a pen or the person that teaches the pup to hunt in real life (deer, fox, holes, weather, handling, hunting, long days with no rabbits)?

[hurryup]

This is a little off thread, but we were talking the other day about all the technology we use today to train dogs. A shocking collar is standard equipment now. Gonna give my age away but I remember running dogs without one and trying to break dogs off deer. It was a nightmare. I swear I have owned some world champion deer dogs. Lots of dogs were culled or lost because of being trashy. Now we just shock and go on.
Same with handling or catching dogs, we had a few that hunted so hard you could barely catch them or they would get to far, sometimes couldn't tell where they went if they didn't jump one right away. Never heard of a garmin then. Its rough running threw the briars yelling trying to catch a beagle that doesn't want caught. Every day out was x-treme hunting..LOL.
I guess we are hunting a different dog now.
I have to admit I have a few dogs that without a shocker or tracker I would have culled or lost a long time ago.

[Laneline]

This is a little off thread, but we were talking the other day about all the technology we use today to train dogs. A shocking collar is standard equipment now. Gonna give my age away but I remember running dogs without one and trying to break dogs off deer. It was a nightmare. I swear I have owned some world champion deer dogs. Lots of dogs were culled or lost because of being trashy. Now we just shock and go on. I have to admit I have a few dogs that without a shocker or tracker I would have culled or lost a long time ago.

I agree. Years ago I wanted to keep some dogs but those that owned them either culled them or put them down for running off game or had minor bad habits, where now a zap or two would cure it and we could see the dogs full potential. And some of these, I am sure would have made good/great dogs if given the chance. In the late 80's early 90's Larry Perry in WV used this “secret potion” that he put on the dogs. He had a "deer dog" named Mike that would go out and find a deer and run it about 100 yards and than he would come back and stand by Larry. By then that “secret potion” was working its magic on those dogs’ behinds that were running that deer, it lit them on fire, and for the most part always worked. I asked Larry what he made that out of and he graciously let me smell it one day, I believe it singed every hair in my nose and the noses of my children that were not even born yet. I can close my eyes right now and just think about it and my eyes water. But yes I agree with what you are saying.

[Pike Ridge Beagles]

I cleaned this thread up and I would appreciate if everyone would use the PM function to work out any differences.
Thanks fellows.