Will a lab/beagle cross be a great all around dog at home in the duck blind and deer woods, or will it most likely take to one or the other? A friend just bought a lab/beagle (possibly some walker/redbone too) pup for companionship and hunting, its only pocket sized now but we're looking for videos to help tain it to retrieve waterfowl, and plan to get him out with some good deer dogs next fall.

"guns aren't for killing people, guns are for killing dangerous and delicious animals"
- Homer Simpson

Edited by - tschaef on 11/28/2002 14:51:18

from my experiences, If I were you and i wanted the dog to run deer I would get it started as soon as it can walk. Take it to the woods with you and shoot around it alot while it is young. Find a slow deer dog to start it with while it is still a puppy. I would keep them in the same pen for a while then start taking them out together, always reward the puppy and use the same commands when putting them on a track. Tell all your hunting buddy's if they kill a deer to leave it in the woods if possible and bring your dog out to track it down even after they have found it. After a while take your dog by itself without the other dog and put it on tracks, before long your dog will understand that you are hunting together and hopefully be your best friend as well as hunting companion. I have A beagle walker cross that I have trained in this way, she will take a track and run a deer all day long and bay a dead one, but best of all I could be looking at the deer she is running and call her by name and she will stop and come to me. As far as training your dog for ducks I don't have any experience with that but I would start out early, and you should get good results. Hope this helps
Gabe

A dog will hunt whatever it is trained to hunt. I had a full blooded lab that would run the mess out of a deer, but wouldn't bark at one to save his life-that's where a cowbell came in handy. He'd also retrieve very well in the dove field, I don't duck hunt so I never tried that. Now I've gone to full blooded walkers for the deer & fox, sometimes they're a little stubborn when running hard, but easy to catch most of the time.

It must be nice to be able to use dogs to hunt deer. It is illegal in Ohio to hunt deer with dogs.