Bluetick coonhound help

Vanebecker · Post by **Vanebecker** » Mon Dec 09, 2013 9:15 pm

So i have a 2 month old bluetick coonhound and i want to train her to hunt squirrel,coon,rabbit and trailing wounded game. I am trying to teach her basic commands now and she catches on pretty quick compared to other dog i have had, but then again this is my FIRST champion bred hunting dog haha, so i would love any info,tips that anyone has for care,training and all around info on a bluetick coonhound please!

duckn66 · Post by **duckn66** » Mon Dec 09, 2013 11:40 pm

Don't think I would train her to run rabbits. If your coon hunting at night and all she is doing is running rabbits then your going to get frustrated. Squirrels aren't nocturnal so no problem there.

I'd find someone with an older dog or two to run her with when she gets a bit older. All my coonhounds ran with older dogs at first. Shoot them out to her and let her have at it when she's old enough to handle a coon. Or squall them out.

jimbo&rooster · Post by **jimbo&rooster** » Tue Dec 10, 2013 7:36 am

I spent many years chasing hounds, we started alot of our dogs on squirrels, to get them the idea of treeing, and then moved them on to night hunting. squirrels are pretty simple, take the dog out, knock a squirrel out of the tree and then hang it in the fork of a smaller tree and encourage your pup to tree up. once your pup has figured that out then run your young dog in the woods, find a woods that is full of squirrels or a city park, and let your pup chase and tree. soon enough, your pup will figure it out. Now..... at 2mo old I wouldn't get too wound up about much untill your pup is 6-7mo.

For coons, I would get your pup, going pretty good treeing squirrels if that is your intent, and then, once you have him going pretty good at that and doing a good job of getting out and hunting i would find a friend or 2 that had good, slow, honest hounds and start taking your pup along. the first few times you take your pup, he may break away real nice and then come back to the truck and hang out, dont worry, just ignore him, when you walki into the tree hwe will likely go to the baying hounds. He may also run with the other dogs and not make a sound till they tree then you might hear him in there. One thing I would not do, is put a young pup on a lightly hit old coon, to let him fight it, lots of young dogs have been ruined or set back by getting their "bleep" whooped by a mean ol coon.

Once you have your pup doing a pretty good job running track with the pack and treeing, it is time to start hunting your dog solo, and for this i urge you to ignore the temptation to just dump the pup and sit on the tail gate. you need to just shut off your light and start going for walks in the woods at night and see what happens.

i would also discourage chasing bunnies, nothing like putting a dog down at night and listening to him run and knowing he is on off game.

Hope this is helpful, you can PM me if you would like.

JIm

Post by **Sharon** » Tue Dec 10, 2013 3:27 pm

Welcome to the forum.

Pup's biggest need now is socialization... 8 weeks old. This takes a lot of time.

http://www.deesdogs.com/documents/dogsocialization.pdf

http://www.gundogbreeders.com/dog-train ... pment.html

( Bred and trained beagles for 20 years.)

Vanebecker · Post by **Vanebecker** » Tue Dec 10, 2013 11:11 pm

Ok cool rabbits are out of the question then couse i want to hunt coon and squirrel anyways...maby bobcat but idk

jimbo&rooster · Post by **jimbo&rooster** » Wed Dec 11, 2013 7:28 am

Part of the problem with hounds, is that for a very long time they have been bred to be indipendent. Many hounds man have the same relationship with their hounds that they have with their boots, put em on go to work and put them away when they are done. This is not to sat=y they can not be managed, but you and your wife will definately have to be on the same page and you will have to be 1 step ahead of your dog and make corrections count when it happens.

I am not really the person to help with the issues of discipline, as most of my dogs aren't exactly sure they have a name before they are 1yo, but if you r pup is trying to "bully" your wife into not disciplining her then it is because at some point your wife has let it happen. Now you are fighting an uphill battle, Like I mentioned before, yall will need to be 1 step ahead of the pup until he/she finds her place in the world, corrections need to be swift and fair yet effective, how you do that is up to you.

Keep the child and the pup seperate, unless both you and the wife are there to supervise, even then I would consider a length of cord to controll the pup.

Jim

Vanebecker · Post by **Vanebecker** » Wed Dec 11, 2013 8:30 am

Thanks bud that helps

huntinfool530 · Post by **huntinfool530** » Wed Dec 25, 2013 3:56 pm

I have a Walker hound myself and hounds are pretty well easy to train to catch/tree animals, you should decide what you want to hunt whether coon or rabbit, those 2 both are at night and rabbits dont tree, the usually burrow. My best luck has always been to start with a hide or a piece of one the fresher the better, and playing tug of war getting the dog very excited and running from the dog making it chase the hide you have on a rope. then start out small, drag it 20yrds and put it in a bush or tree so the dog can stand on the bush or tree and reach it. Then progress further and higher but always try to make it visible so the dog is always looking for the hide or animal. once you dog has that at about 4-5 month a real animal should be introduced but don't force it on the dog encourage it. And always encourage the barking. hope this helps.

Back · Post by **Back** » Fri Dec 27, 2013 7:55 pm

I hunted Walkers for many years. My advice would be to switch breeds... Just joking!

For a lot of advice on Blueticks, I'd visit the UKC forum. A lot o info on coon hunting on that site.

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