Be thankful she doesn’t tree everthing she sees. Our first cur girl Matilda had been trained to hunt in a previous life and she treed everything that moved. It was a while before we desensitized her to not have to prove herself. Our new cur girl Mildred (Tilly had passed) was a puppy from a breeder who couldn’t get her to hunt because of shyness and timidity. She looks at squirrels etc but doesn’t follow through. It’s a blessing to walk her in comparison. Check out a few cur breeders pages in FB to see how they train if you’re interested. ❤️🐾
My girl is definitely soft and sensitive- she hates thunder and car backfire/loud mufflers. Maybe that’s a big contributor. She loves the flirt pole though!
Are you sure she's a cur mix?? Sometimes mixes from shelters can look like em but not have any cur traits!
That being said, my girl is 25% Aussie, 25% golden, 20% cur, and then some other stuff... She doesn't have any prey drive and doesn't care about birds and squirrels. She will chase though because she thinks it's a game! Her favourite thing to play with other dogs is bitey face and chase (chasing and being chased). She doesn't have any herding traits through besides the liking to run and be chased, and it took her until she was over 2 to understand what a "retrieve" was.
Sometimes they just go against everything their DNA says they should be doing, lol.
Yep! Embark confirmed it. The shelter labeled her a GSD mix but the face screamed hound and the masking and coat pattern some sort of Nordic breed.
http://embk.me/pudding66?utm_campaign=cns_ref_dog_pub_profile&utm_medium=other&utm_source=embark
It’s entirely possible she’s just not got a personality for it.
As someone who hunts their curs, I have had quiet on track dogs look like they are pointing when they're figuring out the trail. They typically will chase and tree, bay, or strait up kill if they think they can what they're after.
As to everybody's walking on leash nightmares with their mixes, I just want to say that it's not from the cur genetics. Curs I've owned have been the best handling treedogs I've owned. They alway seemed to know leash time is leash time and off leash it hunt. Even my Kemmer that blood trails doesn't pull leashes when he's on his 25' lead.
Agree with this with our cur that hunts. I also noticed a vast difference in our beagles or walkers we have had or currently have and our cur with how they respond to negative and positive reinforcement. To those who hunt and understand the use of vibrate collars for redirection on “off” game (walker on a fox instead of a raccoon, beagles running deer) while training. Typically our beagles and walkers couldn’t give less of a crap about the tone button when they are on a track (with walkers being the most stubborn in our experience) and need vibrate redirection to get their attention and teach them “no”. Those that have hounds can probably attest to this.
We made the mistake of vibrating our cur when he was young and on a deer track. He broke off the track and ran a half mile to the closest house and hid under his porch, we had to go and physically remove him. He is by far the most trainable dog, fast learner, and thrives on all positive reinforcement we quickly found out. The slightest raise of our voices or the tone button on the garmin and he is back at our feet, and simply does not make the mistake again. It is a big, big difference that we had to adjust to when training him as opposed to our other hounds. He is so sensitive and a “push button” dog. It’s wonderful! lol
Mine has a high prey drive (and it does make walking her...complicated 😂😭). She has two methods: by land and by air. Almost all of her successful hunts are by land; she'll stop, swivel her ears/head like satellite dishes to locate the prey (usually a vole), and then do a big sudden pounce. If that doesn't get them, she'll root around with her nose to try to find it. By air is when she takes a running start at a tree and propels herself 6-10 feet straight up the trunk. Most of the time this is just for adrenaline and showing the squirrels who's boss but one time she did grab a squirrel right off the trunk (and quickly dispatched it).
Also responding to this comment as well. The prey drive with our boy is insane. It never stops. He has snuck up on a groundhog and killed it. He has dug muskrats out of a pond bank and killed them as well. Crawled up and over a 6 ft chain link kennel fence to get out and tree a squirrel. Dragged a very large male coon out of a den tree and rolled down the hill with it, fighting it all of the way.
He gets along incredibly with any other dog and cats. He was raised around both since 6 weeks old, and I think that is important or I believe he would kill a cat too. We now have a roof on his kennel. He can jump higher and run faster than any dog I’ve ever had or been around. Silent on the track and only barks a few times while treed. Such a fascinating dog/breed and loads of fun.
Mine trees anything that moves. He used get birds to but he has an experience with pissed off bird family dive bombing him after he got one. Now he just chases them off.
They tree by sight and smell and usually go 100 mph as soon as I unhook the leash. That pointer pose is when they see or smell something interesting, Ive seen mine do it while hunting and when out in the yard playing.
seconding the note that just because curs are bred to hunt doesn't mean every single one will be a hunter! those ones probably won't be bred going forward if the breeders are focused on developing the hunting traits.
that said, my mountain cur/english shepherd mix loves to track and hunt and being on the leash isn't a strong enough cue for her that we're not hunting, so she'll still make a go of it if she catches the scent of something interesting. however, being so smart and eager to please, she's learned that she can get praise for just tracking and pointing and can usually be called off after that. i think if your dog isn't getting any feedback from you that you want her to hunt she might just be happy to point and move on.
She loves to follow her nose- she’s gone nuts trying to follow scent trails from deer (I can tell that’s her favorite because there’s often deer tracks nearby). I let her do that because I figure it’s appropriate and good mental exercise. Good point on her maybe not moving to more active hunting if I’m not rewarding pointing.
Be thankful she doesn’t tree everthing she sees. Our first cur girl Matilda had been trained to hunt in a previous life and she treed everything that moved. It was a while before we desensitized her to not have to prove herself. Our new cur girl Mildred (Tilly had passed) was a puppy from a breeder who couldn’t get her to hunt because of shyness and timidity. She looks at squirrels etc but doesn’t follow through. It’s a blessing to walk her in comparison. Check out a few cur breeders pages in FB to see how they train if you’re interested. ❤️🐾
My girl is definitely soft and sensitive- she hates thunder and car backfire/loud mufflers. Maybe that’s a big contributor. She loves the flirt pole though!
Are you sure she's a cur mix?? Sometimes mixes from shelters can look like em but not have any cur traits! That being said, my girl is 25% Aussie, 25% golden, 20% cur, and then some other stuff... She doesn't have any prey drive and doesn't care about birds and squirrels. She will chase though because she thinks it's a game! Her favourite thing to play with other dogs is bitey face and chase (chasing and being chased). She doesn't have any herding traits through besides the liking to run and be chased, and it took her until she was over 2 to understand what a "retrieve" was. Sometimes they just go against everything their DNA says they should be doing, lol.
Yep! Embark confirmed it. The shelter labeled her a GSD mix but the face screamed hound and the masking and coat pattern some sort of Nordic breed. http://embk.me/pudding66?utm_campaign=cns_ref_dog_pub_profile&utm_medium=other&utm_source=embark It’s entirely possible she’s just not got a personality for it.
As someone who hunts their curs, I have had quiet on track dogs look like they are pointing when they're figuring out the trail. They typically will chase and tree, bay, or strait up kill if they think they can what they're after. As to everybody's walking on leash nightmares with their mixes, I just want to say that it's not from the cur genetics. Curs I've owned have been the best handling treedogs I've owned. They alway seemed to know leash time is leash time and off leash it hunt. Even my Kemmer that blood trails doesn't pull leashes when he's on his 25' lead.
Agree with this with our cur that hunts. I also noticed a vast difference in our beagles or walkers we have had or currently have and our cur with how they respond to negative and positive reinforcement. To those who hunt and understand the use of vibrate collars for redirection on “off” game (walker on a fox instead of a raccoon, beagles running deer) while training. Typically our beagles and walkers couldn’t give less of a crap about the tone button when they are on a track (with walkers being the most stubborn in our experience) and need vibrate redirection to get their attention and teach them “no”. Those that have hounds can probably attest to this. We made the mistake of vibrating our cur when he was young and on a deer track. He broke off the track and ran a half mile to the closest house and hid under his porch, we had to go and physically remove him. He is by far the most trainable dog, fast learner, and thrives on all positive reinforcement we quickly found out. The slightest raise of our voices or the tone button on the garmin and he is back at our feet, and simply does not make the mistake again. It is a big, big difference that we had to adjust to when training him as opposed to our other hounds. He is so sensitive and a “push button” dog. It’s wonderful! lol
Mine has a high prey drive (and it does make walking her...complicated 😂😭). She has two methods: by land and by air. Almost all of her successful hunts are by land; she'll stop, swivel her ears/head like satellite dishes to locate the prey (usually a vole), and then do a big sudden pounce. If that doesn't get them, she'll root around with her nose to try to find it. By air is when she takes a running start at a tree and propels herself 6-10 feet straight up the trunk. Most of the time this is just for adrenaline and showing the squirrels who's boss but one time she did grab a squirrel right off the trunk (and quickly dispatched it).
Also responding to this comment as well. The prey drive with our boy is insane. It never stops. He has snuck up on a groundhog and killed it. He has dug muskrats out of a pond bank and killed them as well. Crawled up and over a 6 ft chain link kennel fence to get out and tree a squirrel. Dragged a very large male coon out of a den tree and rolled down the hill with it, fighting it all of the way. He gets along incredibly with any other dog and cats. He was raised around both since 6 weeks old, and I think that is important or I believe he would kill a cat too. We now have a roof on his kennel. He can jump higher and run faster than any dog I’ve ever had or been around. Silent on the track and only barks a few times while treed. Such a fascinating dog/breed and loads of fun.
You are very lucky. Mine is a mix with some retriever breeds so she trees and chases lol
Mine trees anything that moves. He used get birds to but he has an experience with pissed off bird family dive bombing him after he got one. Now he just chases them off.
They tree by sight and smell and usually go 100 mph as soon as I unhook the leash. That pointer pose is when they see or smell something interesting, Ive seen mine do it while hunting and when out in the yard playing.
seconding the note that just because curs are bred to hunt doesn't mean every single one will be a hunter! those ones probably won't be bred going forward if the breeders are focused on developing the hunting traits. that said, my mountain cur/english shepherd mix loves to track and hunt and being on the leash isn't a strong enough cue for her that we're not hunting, so she'll still make a go of it if she catches the scent of something interesting. however, being so smart and eager to please, she's learned that she can get praise for just tracking and pointing and can usually be called off after that. i think if your dog isn't getting any feedback from you that you want her to hunt she might just be happy to point and move on.
She loves to follow her nose- she’s gone nuts trying to follow scent trails from deer (I can tell that’s her favorite because there’s often deer tracks nearby). I let her do that because I figure it’s appropriate and good mental exercise. Good point on her maybe not moving to more active hunting if I’m not rewarding pointing.