Dogs in hunting

[Ogur]

An interest of mine has always been hunting dogs. So, I'd like to know how people in non- European countries use dogs. What breeds, how you go about such a hunt, etc.

Here, especially in Sweden, dogs are a very popular addition to hunting.

I'm looking into getting a specific dog myself, so I'll be posting on some of the hunting forms we use here locally on my journey to find out what hunting form suits me best.

I'll start with tracking.

By law in Sweden you, as a hunter, need to have a dog on site within 2 hours of a wounding shot. Doesn't have to be your own dog, so there are tracker companies that you can call. Or you neighbour. This is to minimise unneccesary suffering of the game. Any dog will do, as there is no specific demand on training. Most hunterstrain their dogs on blood trailing. I myself have a tervueren, a longhaired malinois shepherd. She does fine for this purpose.

Another law is that this tracking is mandatory after accidents as well, so if you hit an animal with your car (roedeer sized and over) and it runs off, you call the police and they contact a tracker. These dogs are certified dogs, with some being certified for predators as well. That's lynx, wolf and bear.

What breed they use for tracking depends a bit. For moose they usually prefer moose dogs as they will bring the moose at bay, in stead of just making it jump up and run off again. Examples are the gråhund and jämthund. Spitz type dogs. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A4mthund

With predators they use mostly dogs from the hound group. A guy in our hunting team has a treeing walker he uses for bear and fox. Finnish hounds and the like are popular as well.

Pure tracking dogs would include hanover hounds and bavarian mountain hounds.

For wild boar they usually call in someone with a specialist dog as well as they are dangerous. A moose dog will perform well, but they tend to have a higher injury rate when set on wild boar. Gończy Polski, polish hunting dogs, are rapidly becoming popular here with the wild boar explosion going on. They are better suited to baying boar apparently.

[Cofisher]

Wow! That is a much larger topic than many of us regularly deal with.

I am used to bird dogs. Not a tracking animal. Perhaps some of our southern neighbors will chime in here.

[markiver54]

I used to bear hunt and we would use hounds exclusively. Plotts, Walkers, Blue Ticks etc.
Hounds are great for this.

[Ogur]

I used to bear hunt and we would use hounds exclusively. Plotts, Walkers, Blue Ticks etc.
Hounds are great for this.

Here we only have regular brown bears. It's a hybrid driven hunt here. They release 1 to 3 dogs at different locations around the area to be hunted with pass shooters stationed in and around the area. The handlers follow the dogs. Sometimes it's a pass shooter that gets a shot, sometimes a handler. Pretty similar to how moose is hunted here.

[Hatchdog]

Where I live in the Northwest corner of the US (Washington State) our Fish and Game Department has outlawed dogs for pursuit hunting. When it was legal dogs were only allowed for bear and cougars. Today dogs can be used for pointing and retrieving birds only.

[Ogur]

Where I live in the Northwest corner of the US (Washington State) our Fish and Game Department has outlawed dogs for pursuit hunting. When it was legal dogs were only allowed for bear and cougars. Today dogs can be used for pointing and retrieving birds only.

Interesting! Why though? The concensus here is that it is no worse for the animal than being chased by any other predator. The dog makes hunting more efficient. Also cuts down on "injured time" in the case of a bad shot.
Here dogs are used in pursuit hunting from hares up to moose. Which breed you are using determines what you hunt, at least in the case for some of the bigger hounds. The ones used in predator hunting need to be "roedeer clean" as they are too fast and can catch the roedeer. Same applies for hare hunting dogs.

Dachshund is used for roedeer for example, but also for fox and badger. But that is called a "den hunt". The dog goes into the den and scares the animal out through another exit.

Dogs are used as pointers, retrievers and flushing dogs for birds. We also have treebarking dogs that sniff and listen out forest fowl like capercaille and grouse up in trees, where they start to bark at and "point" the bird on its' perch. The hunter then attempts to sneak in to get a shot with a rifle. Quite hard actually. If the bird spots you they skedaddle.

[Hatchdog]

I don’t recall the exact reasoning for the elimination of hound hunting for Cougar and Bear, probably it was considered “unfair” hunting. I do know that after the ban the Cougar population increased and this area started having more human-cougar encounters. Some years ago the game dept. did open up a pursuit only no kill season. The idea was to remind cougars that humans are to be avoided. One hunt with dogs I forgot to mention is rabbits. I used to work with a guy who ran Begals for rabbit hunts. I believe that is still legal.

Thanks for describing the various types of dogs and the game they hunt. Really interesting.

[The Happy Kaboomer]

Here in the south we run deer with hounds. Walkers/redbones/bluetick-black & tan and beagles. Great fun and great sounding races.

[markiver54]

Here in the south we run deer with hounds. Walkers/redbones/bluetick-black & tan and beagles. Great fun and great sounding races.

I really enjoyed the races when Bear hunting. Never used them for deer though. Illegal here I believe.
We used all the same except for the Beagle.

[Vaquero]

No hunting with dogs for any Big game here in Tenn.
Now they do use them for squirrel, rabbit, and coon hunting.
Also the various bird hunting.
I had for a few years a mutt, that was part Dachshund, and part American pit terrier.
Best tracker I ever had, and Very smart.

RP

[JEBar]

as others from our part of the country have mentioned, I used to bear/boar hunt with a club in the mountains of Western NC .... our club used blueticks, black & tans, and Plott Hounds for bear and boar .... because they were so much more dangerous, the owners of our dogs were very reluctant to deliberately turn their best dogs onto a boar .... the another club I belonged to used beagles for rabbits and small game .... when hunting big game on land surrounded by neighborhoods we used beagles because they couldn't move what they were trailing at a fast pace over a long distance.... by the way, in 1989, the North Carolina General Assembly designated the Plott Hound as the official State Dog ....

[clovishound]

Here in the south, the use of dogs for hunting has waned, at least for the pursuit hunting. Lots of folks are not happy, myself included, in the way a lot of folks treat the dogs. Nearly starving them, not taking due diligence to pick them all up after the hunt etc. I know, it's a few bad eggs that give everyone a bad name. I used to see way too many starving hunting dogs wandering around, obviously lost during hunting season. My buddy has collected and called the owners many, many times. Sometimes they are slow to come and collect their dogs. Occasionally, they are not interested in collecting them at all.

[markiver54]

Here in the south, the use of dogs for hunting has waned, at least for the pursuit hunting. Lots of folks are not happy, myself included, in the way a lot of folks treat the dogs. Nearly starving them, not taking due diligence to pick them all up after the hunt etc. I know, it's a few bad eggs that give everyone a bad name. I used to see way too many starving hunting dogs wandering around, obviously lost during hunting season. My buddy has collected and called the owners many, many times. Sometimes they are slow to come and collect their dogs. Occasionally, they are not interested in collecting them at all.

Sorry to hear that. I did not experienced that kind of neglect at all when I when I was hunting. We used a lot of dogs for bear hunting. All of them had radio collars, and all were found after the hunt. On rare occasions, there might be one or two still out there, but we would not stop looking. If one still was not found, we would be back out there looking the very next morning.

[clovishound]

Like I said, a few bad eggs. I suppose it may have come from a mentality from decades ago. Attitudes have changed in the general public, and some portions of society are slow to change with them. Sometimes that's a good thing, and other times, not so much. Bird dogs are a whole different kettle of fish than pursuit dogs. They are often part of the family. The pursuit dogs are not looked on in the same way by many hunters. They are tools, not pets, and sometimes don't receive the basic respect they deserve.

[Nick Wade]

what is the best 10mm ammo for hunting

[markiver54]

I've had no experience with 10mm, however, like any caliber, it depends on what your hunting for, as to what is the best load.