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Question?

Question? do you guys that run bear and coyote with the same hounds have many races that start with one animal and turn into another?

When you run two game animals with the same dog usually the dog prefers one over the other or one is easier. Some dogs will stay with whatever they start with but this is not the norm. That is why so many guides keep straight dogs. They can not be wasting their clients time during bear season chasing coyotes.

If your dog prefers coyote over bear it will switch when it crosses a coyote track while bear hunting. Another situation is if the dog is working hard on an old bear track and it crosses a fresh coyote track it will go on the easier track. If the dog has a strong preference for bear then it will stick with the cold bear track over the fresh coyote track.

I had a dog that was a good enough coonhound to make Nite Ch. if I would have competed with her. She had a strong preference for bear. Even though she was an outstanding coonhound she would take an old bear track and spend an hour cold trailing it up even though there were hot coon tracks at the same bait. When coon hunting she would gladly switch to bear.

So the short answer is It depends on the dog. For most dogs switching is a problem we just deal with if we want to hunt more than one species.
Kyle

Thanks for that answer Kyle.

I agree with that 100 percent. I've got a 3 year old redtick that loves loves loves a bear. But he is a great hog dog also which is why I still have him. I hog hunt due to the fact bear hunting is illegal in Florida. But I've had him switch tracks on me a couple times.. one time it turned into about a 6 hour adventure cause the bear wouldn't stay treed when we walked in to get the dogs.