Tree Dog Training Blog

Summer Training

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:46:00 -0400

Haven't been hunting much due to the heat and humidity. It has cooled off some, with the temps still in the low 90's, so I let the old dogs run. Day before yesterday was Sherlocks turn. He hit the woods like a streak and it didn't take long for him to strike up a track. Unfortunately, it did take him awhile to work it out, and he ended up over a half mile from where I was watching on the garmin. It was showing him treed across the paved road so I walked back to the truck and drove around. Got as close as I could but still had to wade through 400 yds of briar patch to get to him. He wasn't barking so I am not sure what he was after, and when I got close, he started moving. I called him in and we went to the house to cool off.

Turned Cheyenne loose yesterday morning and she hit a hot track in the field below the house. I had seen the squirrel but waited until it hit the tree line before I cut her. Once she was on the track she started working it, opening up some as she circled and drifted. I could tell she is out of shape because she started to overheat before she could settle on the right tree. Once I saw her getting to hot, I called her off and went to cool down.

Now it was Nosey's turn. Cut her loose in the field and she briefly checked the track Cheyenne had been working but decided it was to old. Then she hit the woods and started hunting. Didn't take long before she started working a small area on the garmin, so I watched and waited. After a few minutes she barked treed and I started to her. She was treed on a tall tree that had a huge nest in the top. I petted her up for doing a good job and we went to cool off!! Here is a pic of her on the tree:

Thanks for reading!

Hot and Humid

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 10:50:00 -0400

Storm is coming along really well. She has gotten the condfidence to jump up on the tailgate recently. She has also started hunting harder and using her nose more. We have plenty of squirrels here, so she is getting lots of experience working their scent.

The leaves are thick here now, and since summer has arrived, the hot, humid weather is making it hard to hunt. I will continue to take Storm on short hunts in the mornings when it is cool.

Swamp Coon Hunt 5/21/10

Tue, 25 May 2010 10:50:00 -0400

Took Nosey down to Lawley, Al to hunt with Clif Robinson (marsupialmarshal). He hunted his dogs Pontiac and Seeker. We had not been turned loose long when Seeker opened with Nosey soon to follow, then the race was on. Dogs in full cry and steadily moving deeper into the swamp. Clif thought briefly it was trash but I doubted it because Nosey doesn't normally run deer. Even when she has it was dead silent. But Clif sure was doubting it, the way they were going. They go 600 yards and lock down treed hard. They tree hard for awhile, and then we start to them. For some reason, part of the way to them, they quit. Seeker was still opening some but no other dogs. When we get to them they are on a log jam in the creek running through the swamp. Seeker keeps working the logs back and forth, opening on occasion. The other dogs are acting as if they have lost it completely. Clif and I start shining under the log jam, and this gets Nosey and Seeker real interested. Nosey starts acting gamey and working harder and drifts the track off into the woods with Seeker. We are sitting there still shining the creek when Seeker opens behind us and we see him and Nosey checking a tree. Then BAM, they lock down treed. Slobbermouth treeing. It takes awhile, and I have to get way back where I can shine over the under canopy, but we see the coon! He must have pulled some kind of trick, to get from the creek up into that tree. I was real proud of the dogs for turning an apparent loss into tree with a coon in it!!

Next tree is Pontiacs. We hadn't left the first tree 10 minutes when he goes out about 250 yds and locks up hard. Seeker and Nosey go in and back him. Couldn't find this one, but the tree was big enough that it almost had to be a coon. Pontiac is camera shy, so I didn't get him in the pic.:lol:

Thanks for reading!:)

Update on Storm

Sun, 23 May 2010 12:30:00 -0400

I have been hunting her some, and letting her run loose some. Letting her run loose is helping to increase her range. Today she hunted out of sight most of the time. She is developing more and more confidence each time in the woods. Just going to be patient with her and let her keep going her own pace. :)

Feeders and yard squirrels

Sun, 16 May 2010 19:26:00 -0400

I have heard lots of people recommend putting a feeder for squirrels near your pup’s kennel. The reason they do this is to make it easy for the pup to see squirrels. Before long the squirrels are coming and going and the pup is barking his head off every time he sees them. Now this is where the problems start. All the pup is learning from this is what squirrels look like and that it is fun to bark at them (think caged game). They don't learn how to hunt them or how to use their nose.

Now you take this pup out of the pen and turn him loose in the woods and expect him to tree a squirrel. How is he supposed to find the squirrel? He hasn't learned to use his nose too, and unless you just happen to walk up on one, he isn’t going to see one to tree either. Let's just say for arguments sake though, that the pup does see a squirrel and takes off after it like a demon possessed. When the squirrel runs up a tree the pup will most likely see it and get up on the tree barking like crazy at it. Now you’re probably thinking "Great my pup just treed a squirrel!! But what really happened was your pup just learned to tree a squirrel by sight. There is a 99% chance that when that squirrel gets out of sight the pup will either stop treeing, or at the minimum start second guessing itself and milling around trying to use it's nose. Unfortunately it doesn't know how to use its nose to find a squirrel because it didn't learn to. It doesn't take a whole lot of this to imprint a pup and make them sight oriented. Once this happens the pup is always going to hunt by sight instead of scent.

If you hear someone say that a squirrel dog is "real hot nosed" that usually means the dog hunts by sight instead of scent. That is why you see most of the squirrels the dog trees, because he can't tree the ones he (or you) don't see. A dog like this has little value to the squirrel dog hunter as they can only be hunted when the game is really moving.

I like to use feeders for squirrels but I have a 1 acre patch of woods by the house but away from the dogs yard. I have the feeder set down low right in the middle of this section. Squirrels come and go all them time but the dogs can't see them. When I want to work a pup I turn them loose in these woods and let them work the scent. Once they learn to use their nose to find squirrels they will naturally start to see them more. That is when they start learning to hunt using their eyes.

Hunting Hard

Mon, 10 May 2010 12:02:00 -0400

Well today was the 5th day in a row that I have hunted Storm. She has had her ups and downs, like all young dogs do, but her overall progress has been steady. When we hit the woods this morning she was hunting the hardest I have seen yet. Her confidence has built to the point were she is letting her instincts take over and it is showing in her hunting style.

Storm hunts on the run, and she bounces through the thick stuff like a deer. I hunted with a half sister out of the same sire and she hunted like this too. In fact, that is the reason I chose to breed Nosey to Snider's Buck. He throws tree dogs that hunt really hard! I wanted to add some "Hunt" to Nosey's natural ability. If this morning is any indication, then it has worked!! :D

Patience pays off

Sat, 08 May 2010 13:03:00 -0400

Yesterday I wrote about being patient with a pup because my young dog Storm is testing mine. She is just over 8 months old and doing great, but has yet to start hunting like I want. Since turkey season went out I have been hunting her hard. This morning is the first sign that the effort is starting to pay off.

When I cut Storm loose for this mornings hunt she started hunting harder than she ever has before. I don't know what happened last night but this morning she looked like a different dog. She was hunting much harder and using her nose more. Normally she doesn't like to get out of sight but today I hardly saw her at all! The wind was blowing pretty well and we were hunting into it so I am sure that helped.

The only time I did see her was when we got down to the creek. It has been real high the last few days due to heavy rains, but this morning I knew it would be back down to a safe level. I went back to the log Storm learned to cross the creek on the other day. I wanted to gauge her confidence level and was delighted to see her take off across the creek on the log as soon as we got there. I waited and got this picture as she was coming back across it to me.

After that I crossed with her behind me and then we started down stream. I was looking for a good place to wade back across. I wanted to see if Storm would swim the creek after me. I found a good spot about 50 yds downstream and quickly crossed. When she came back looking for me I was already on the other bank, so she hesitated while trying to figure out what to do. I started walking away from the creek to get her to make a decision and sure enough she went for it! I looked back just in time to see her jump in and start swimming for my side of the creek!:)