Originally Posted by
decio
1)Is it possible to hunt (boar, deer, bear, mouse) with a single scent hound, for example, with only one american foxhound or a bloodhound alone? Or every hunt with a scent hound involve a pack with dozens of dogs? I only see videos of people hunting with a lot of them.
2) What is the best scent hound for hunting big game?
3) Are there good books or dvds about training scent hounds for hunting?
4) Are they really necessary? For example, I know you can't train a non-pointing breed to point, but can you train a lab or a gsd to trail the game the same way you can train a scent hound?
5) I don't know about scent hound field trials. How do I know that the parents were bred to work?
Thanks.
I don't know exactly what your expectations are. Even in the same breed, there are lines of that breed that have slightly different tendencies or talents.
The last true scent hound I had was a gun dog, pointer retriever stock. I watched the puppies and picked the one that was most interested in the scents around him and seemed a bit more independent of the pack. His nose went right to the ground and he followed his nose and not the other puppies.
Prey drive is another tendency, it is stronger in some dogs than others. If it gets too strong it can get hard to control your pooch.
Most dogs have good noses and most can be trained to scent track. to some it comes more naturally than others.
You have to understand a dogs nose, one guy put it the best, a good nose dog can smell a single turd in a cesspool. The trick is a dog has to learn what scents to follow and some are born with it.
I knew a guy who often went Hare Hunting, Hare tend to bunker down and hide, You can hunt them with dogs that flush them or dogs that scent them and point. This guy had a Dachshund, that he often had to carry around. That dog would smell a Hare, pin it with his eyes while riding around in a shoulder sack.
My scent hound could follow a blood trail near 40 MPH. I mean tiny drops that you could barely see.
If you are going to hunt a single dog it behooves you to train it to stay close. And one that is prone to baying rather than closing and fighting. A thousand dollar dog, with hundreds of hours of training invested, can be torn up pretty badly by a Hog, Bobcat, Puma or pack of Yotes. Vet bills aren't cheap.
One year a Weimaraner won the German tracking trials, uncle of my Dog.
I have a Terrier now that is scent dominant. I use him for tracking wounded game. I have to keep him on a long leash, he has poor judgment and has no idea about self-preservation. I've baited Hogs with roadkill Deer. Tossed the carcass out in a likely spot and came back the next morning and only found some bone splinters and fur. My first thought was that could have been my dog.