lost cause, worth chasing????

[staffs riffraff 1,068]

Good thread guys

[WILF 46,901]

Now, theres a conundrum........personally, I want to find the best I can to show a young lurcher the way and its almost inevitable that this older, wiser dog will be of a higher pack status.

 

I have always seen young dogs learn from other dogs.........do you think this is the wrong way Sky?

 

Not to poke my nose in lads but i agree with Sky to an extent......in my opinion it depends on the the nature of a dog as an individual Wilf.......some young dogs are happy to take a back seat and never quite push their chest right out with an older more experienced dog by their side.....others will go at it with even more conviction simpy because theres another dog with them.....its a fine line with no set rules you just have to treat every dog as an individual in my opinion

 

Fair point Gnasher, but I only mean the initial introduction to certain quarry.....after that, then of course a dog HAS to work alone.

[skycat 6,173]

There's so many things that can put a young dog off::: being entered along side a dog which is of higher status than it

 

Now, theres a conundrum........personally, I want to find the best I can to show a young lurcher the way and its almost inevitable that this older, wiser dog will be of a higher pack status.

 

I have always seen young dogs learn from other dogs.........do you think this is the wrong way Sky?

 

I've always allowed a young dog to watch, on the lead, while the older dog is doing its stuff: and of course they learn by watching. One example of a dog which would probably never even considered foxes to be quarry was a bitch which belonged to my OH. She spent several sessions out digging watching on the lead. When she met her first fox alone on the lamp she was lucky, it was a young fox, big cub, September time; she circled it once then went straight in on the throat: and she then went on to do more difficult foxes. She might not have been the very best, grab-them-anywhere dog, the sort to take the punishment as they tried to get through a hedge sort of dog, but she was pretty good, and very accurate.

 

All my best fox dogs, except one, came from bitches which were doing the job, and their mothers before them, so the pups did learn from their dams to a certain extent, but I've also known dogs which would never try and do one on their own, no matter how you entered them. One good bitch I still have had no one to teach her, but knew from the start that a fox was different to a hare, which was all she'd known until 3 years old.

 

I honestly think that the more experience a dog has on different sorts of quarry really helps it to understand how to tackle other things. The strike is all important, and if a young dog can practice the strike and kill on rabbits, hares and other things that don't bite back, but may give them a good kicking, then that experience stands them in good stead when it comes to taking biting game. Too many people just want a dog to do fox, and take the dog out for that purpose without giving the young dog experience on other things where it can practice the catch and kill without getting hammered.

 

To anyone who thinks that a hare doesn't fight back: with the wrong grip on a big hare, it will kick with its hind legs like a mule. There's very few coursing dogs which don't kill their hares: once a young dog has had its neck and chest scratched to buggery by a strong hare they learn to kill very quickly.

 

To me small game is all part of the learning process, and whilst its good that a young dog gets in on a fox with other dogs, so they learn fast that this is something to kill quickly rather than just pick up, they have to gain the confidence to do it alone.

[gnasher16 30,121]

As regards schooling/introducing young dogs its not popular thought in todays times as we tend to look at dogs like they are robots.....but im of the opinion you can put a dog back by even allowing him to watch an experienced dog......i believe a good dogman will have studied and know the workings of his dogs mind better than the dog knows himself even as a youngster.....all dogs are different some need gentle coaxing along others can be thrown in at the deep end,the psycological part to working dogs is something i find fascinating and i dont believe you can school no 2 dogs the same.......some youngsters will be put back merely by the sounds and smells of watching an older dog do his thing....he will still act excited but acting excited dont mean he,s ready........it was the same with the gamedogs years ago as natural as mixing it with another dog came you would still get so much more out of a dog by holding them back....in my opinion that applies to all working dogs....it dont do no harm to build up a bit of frustration and by doing so you give the dog every chance of reaching his potential......I dont agree with this " you must let the young dog watch older experienced dogs "......dogs have different characters just like we do some will be intimidated by watching another dog others will puff their chest out and want to show them how its done.......for me its the best and most enjoyable time of a dogs life watching and helping a dog develop its own character,and certainly a great learning curve for beginner or experienced hands alike.

Some interesting reading on this thread

[WILF 46,901]

Cracking post and food for thought indeed Gnasher........some young dogs just dont know that they are allowed to run certain things and if you live in a place that dont hold lots of different game (historically speaking of course) then taking the dog to places that do hold large amounts of different quarry and seeing another dog that is working this game day after day can fast track the dog on its learning curve.

 

A dog will never learn if it never comes across the game you want to run it at imho........the instinct is in there, but you need to make that little brain in your hound go "click"

 

That said, I totally agree that you should know if the dog is ready and sometimes, its not......certainly where quarry that bites back was concerned years ago, it paid to have patience.

With quarry that didnt bite back, the dog could appear ready but the only way to know was to have a run..........you have to take chances sometimes

[skycat 6,173]

I remember one bitch I had: she found a fox by herself at 10 months, killed it alone and dragged it back to me. She went on to become very good indeed: 3/4 Grey 1/4 Beardie. Her daughter was there when her uncle took a fox, she watched for a second, then put her mouth next to his on the chest and crunched just like he did. She would have been about a year old at the time. Half an hour later a fox was pushed out of cover, the old dog went to take it and the young bitch barged him out of the way, growling at him, and took over. She was solid on fox from the very first time out and never quit.

 

I've had others, not of the same breeding, who just stood and watched whilst other dogs did foxes: never tried to get involved, either solo or as part of a pack on an accidental hunt. She just never saw foxes as game. Another one I had would never touch fox: once she ran to something she saw moving in a field of set aside: when she got to about yards from it she realised it was a fox: she turned her head, and put her nose down to the ground as if to say: "I've not seen it, and there must be something else round here!". Another time she mistakenly went in on something moving fast along the edge of a lake through the reeds: not minutes before they'd flushed a muntie and she must have thought that this fox was a muntie too: until she was practically on it: I've never seen a dog back pedal in mid air so fast :laugh:

 

Yet when she was 8 years old she started to bowl foxes, never really took hold much, but held them up long enough for a dog to come and finish the job. By then a fox was the only thing she was fast enough to catch up with! So I guess that might have been born of frustration at her failing body.

 

All the rough coated family of lurchers I've had did foxes naturally, so genes are the most important piece of that jigsaw IMO. And the weird thing was that if a particular bitch had a certain knack or way of doing things, her pups seemed to follow suit, almost as if they'd inherited that behaviour genetically. It would be interesting to follow a long line of dogs which do quarry in a certain way, and compare them with the different methods used by different lines of lurchers. Is it just in the breeding, the type of lurcher, what breeds there are in the mix, or can it be something which a particular dog has learned which is then passed on to following generations. And is it learned, even though we might not notice it happening, or can it be there from the start?

[THE DEALER! 77]

While the vast majority of us strive to have the ultimate fox dog in our yard, including myself, some have been more blessed than other in this field. But what happens when the dog that you have invested so much of ur time in is not all that and you are faced with a decision that could leave you wit egg on ur face, meaning you have built up this dog so much to ur mates that it could be see as a bad reflection on your judgment regarding the dogs abilities.

 

I got talking to a lad who has such a dog and he is in two minds what to do, I told him to cut his loss and move on, I had to do it many a time and its not a good feeling, but I feel he is reluctant to admit that the dog has failed him and that he is chasing a lost cause. Are we as dog men reluctant to admit defeat???????

 

irish lurcher, its called kennel blindness

[Irish Lurcher 1,013]

While the vast majority of us strive to have the ultimate fox dog in our yard, including myself, some have been more blessed than other in this field. But what happens when the dog that you have invested so much of ur time in is not all that and you are faced with a decision that could leave you wit egg on ur face, meaning you have built up this dog so much to ur mates that it could be see as a bad reflection on your judgment regarding the dogs abilities.

 

I got talking to a lad who has such a dog and he is in two minds what to do, I told him to cut his loss and move on, I had to do it many a time and its not a good feeling, but I feel he is reluctant to admit that the dog has failed him and that he is chasing a lost cause. Are we as dog men reluctant to admit defeat???????

 

irish lurcher, its called kennel blindness

 

I surpose we all get attached to a certain dog at some stage and able to let go is gona be hard, kennel blindness I like it,lol