I was thinking about hounds today, and how they learn from more experienced hounds. (kind of like sourdough starter <G>)
But what if you were out in the middle of nowhere, with a bunch of green hounds to train, and no experienced hounds available to show them the ropes?
How do you get them to understand what it is they’re supposed to be looking for ?
Just wondering…
Good question! I never had an occasion to start hounds from scratch, but I suppose one could lay down a drag scent from a bottle, or from a hide, and encourage the hounds to key in on that. The problem is when another scent shows up…like a rabbit, a cat, a poodle…deer…whatever, and we humans don’t know what they are sniffing at…that’s where it takes a “broke” hound to confirm the scent.
If one were only drag hunting, it could be done without the “sourdough starter” (great comparison!) I suppose.
What usually happens is that established hunts will “draft” hounds to a start up hunt. This provides the “sour dough starter” and enables the new hunt to establish a breeding programme and have a head start on the new pack training.
Failing that (in the USA) you can take them to a fox pen http://www.speeddogs.net/ It is a large enclosed area where there are a lot of foxes and places for foxes to hide. (I’ve never heard of using a fox pen in England)
The dragging scent tends to be substantially stronger than that of a live wild fox and can desensitize the hounds to the scent of a real fox. A hound pack accustomed to drag-hunting takes some time to readjust to the subtler “nose” needed to hunt live foxes. Although this switch can be made, hunt clubs must make a conscious choice between either drag-hunting or the real thing, preferably for the season.
Yes, I have used a fox pen in the south east (Tennessee) for pups, and of course, we also had some established hounds, but the OP was wondering about what one would do if one did NOT have access to drafting hounds…knowing the OP’s quest for knowledge, and fine questioning mind (from a saddle search post, complete with great photos) I was thinking out loud about what one would do in absence of a draft hound…and I agree, a drag is not excellent, but it would guarantee the scent…since the OP is in arid AZ…not much chance of a fox pen, or scent holding ground or grass where she might be hunting.
Risk-Averse…does your hunt key in on coyote, or do you have a fox population ?(I am guessing greys, if you do, knowing where you are)
I hunted on the coast of CA in Santa Ynez, we had a few greys, some coyotes, and wild pigs (yep, we ran em!)
It’s been a while since I walked puppies, but I recall that they were following their noses and pulling me through bushes when they were very young, like weeks old.
I suspect that starting them from scratch would be easier if they were from very good lines. Getting them to be together as a good pack and achieving that balance of control and alacrity would take years (if not decades) of tweeking.
So I think getting them to hunt a fox would not be a problem at all. Keeping them from running deer and rabbits and hogs or whatever, now, that would be more a matter of the handler’s experience than the hounds, don’t you think?
Yes, naturally they will put their noses down and get excited about a scent…no problem there, the problem is the handler does not know if it is a fox scent, a rabbit, a deer, a cat…so they can be booing away, and you could be praiding them for finding a cat scent. That is where the broke hound comes into play, as a “checker”.
I have not yet seen a huntsman who’s nose was THAT good 
Boy, I’d think that would be tough (and I wouldn’t want to try, I’d like at least a couple of entered hounds in the mix!). But, basically, if they put their noses down and find the right thing, you cheer them on, if the wrong them, you stop them and rate them.
I agree, Beverly! Entered hounds you can trust are a sure thing!
[QUOTE=Mach Two;4131464]
Risk-Averse…does your hunt key in on coyote, or do you have a fox population ?(I am guessing greys, if you do, knowing where you are) I hunted on the coast of CA in Santa Ynez, we had a few greys, some coyotes, and wild pigs (yep, we ran em!)[/QUOTE]We hunt jackrabbits with beagles. In Flagstaff, there are 2 hunts that hunt coyote with fox hounds.
This was just an idle curiosity type question - one of those “I’m mucking stalls and have nothing else of import to ponder” things 
I understand the benefit of using experienced hounds to train the youngsters, but… at some point, way back when, there had to have been a “Hunt 0” that started hounds from scratch.
Yes?
Maybe huntsman’s noses were better back then. 
Actually the hounds were probably hunting anyway and invited the men to join in !
I have no experience with hound; but reading this I wonder if you could teach them to track like you do with dogs who need to search for humans or drugs?
In those cases I’ve seen first teach the dog to recognise a scent by introducing the smell then rewarding the dog. Then they move on to a point where the dog is given multiple choices of scents and rewards for identifying the correct one.
Wouldn’t that work?
Well by golly, that is an idea! Yes, it could work, and would work well for a drag hunt. Of course that’s how they train drug sniffing and bomb sniffing dogs! Never thought of it!
Live hunting is more subtle, so it would take a very keen huntsman and first whip to enforce the scents and reactions.
As long as the trainer…the huntsman… (and this is a hypothetical thing, here, just for fun of discussion, so nobody get in a wad) were willing to introduce enough “wrong” scents and make the hounds believe they would be struck dead for following those wrong scents…after all, once they are outside, there are lots of scents to deal with, and they are not always in our view to correct or praise them.
Well, Lynn Lloyd is known for telling her pack 'okay, now we’re hunting fill-in-the-blank (coyote, lion, bobcat) and they do. She did once use her pack to search for the body of a missing woman- I can’t recall whether they gave the hounds a scented personal item to check out first, or not.
[QUOTE=Beverley;4136024]
Well, Lynn Lloyd is known for telling her pack 'okay, now we’re hunting fill-in-the-blank (coyote, lion, bobcat) and they do. She did once use her pack to search for the body of a missing woman- I can’t recall whether they gave the hounds a scented personal item to check out first, or not.[/QUOTE]
My first thought was “oy vey…” but then my hunting memory clicked…hounds know the difference between “leave it” and "loo in there " and when you say
“Derby! Leave it!” Delsey does not cringe…they know their names very well, and learn commands anc corrections, so if Lynn knew she was on a coyote trail and told the “coyote” a few times, they would know that name for that scent. Makes sense. Hunting hounds are brighter than most folks think!
Yeah, they pick up on things pretty quickly. When I’ve whipped in to Arie Rijke out west- he only wants to hunt jackrabbits when hunting on horseback, and only cottontails when on foot- so you stop them on one or the other, depending, and Arie puts them on the right thing, and they’ve got it for the rest of that day!
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