DL NH
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Jan 2016
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Posts: 597 |
Re: Cold nosed dogs
quote: Originally posted by buff1978
How do you really know how cold of a nose your dog really has?OK he opens according to track,other dogs don't open on the track but in all honesty how do you really know how cold nosed he is.
There are many factors that affect scent. Moisture, wind, type of ground, vegetation, barometric pressure and other things. I don’t think anybody really understands all the factors that contribute to what enables a dog to smell and move a cold track.
A cold nosed dog can be both a blessing and a curse. The best cold nosed dog I ever hunted with a lot of people wouldn’t own. He would at times open on tracks he couldn’t finish. The good thing about it was he’d usually give those tracks up and come in or just move on. It didn’t happen often but did occasionally.
The other thing I’ve learned is that some people think they’ve got a really cold nosed dog when in reality what they have is a poor track dog that can’t run a hot track let alone a cold one.
I owned just one coon hound that was what I called a cold nosed dog. I had some good years with her and many nights when she’d start a track and move out with it for 15 to 20 minutes or more before it got rollng good enough for accompanying hounds to begin to open with her.
I also discovered that there is a down side to some of those really cold nosed dogs. When they’d get to be 7 to 8 years old they’d begin to start having more tracks that they couldn’t finish. They also seemed to have an issue with figuring out which way the coon was headed and would back track a ways before seemingly realizing they were going the wrong way and turn around and go the right way. This seemed to happen more on nights when scent wasn’t rising much at all.
If you ever read any of the articles some of the lion and bear hunters have written over the years you’ll find that they often keep a really cold nose dog on a leash and walk along on the track until they evidence they have it lined out before turning the dog loose and others in behind it.
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Dan
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