If my experience with raising hounds is ANY indicator, Howard is going to have a STEEP ‘Learning Curve’ in front of him.
Here’s one for ya! Beau and 9 dogs left yesterday evening for Bear Camp, 6 hours North.
He has one dog, ‘Shawnee’ (two years old) who is a total go-getter and has been VERY good on the training hunts so far this season. HOWEVER, she is not a hound (Plott Hound) that can be contained! She is a fence-climber, a tree-climber and always finds a way OUT of any dog box you put her in for transport.
Beau added additional metal strips to the dog box that she would be riding in yesterday to make the ‘windows’ that they can stick their heads out of SMALLER. Somehow Shawnee STILL managed to jump out of the dog box when he stopped at A STOP SIGN for a few seconds in Rhinelander. (Way-Up-There Northern Wisconsin!)
He got a call about an hour later from a lady who said she had his dog! (All of our dogs have collars with metal tags with Beau’s phone number on it.)
He turned around (about an hour away) and there was Shawnee, in the back seat of this lady’s SUV!
So happy she wasn’t hurt, and Beau NEVER would’ve found her again if that nice lady hadn’t found her.
Life with Hounds. NEVER a dull moment! EVER! Please! Could we just have ONE Dull Moment? Pretty Please? ;)
I think you're referring to learning which fences are which and Howard figuring out if it's ok to cross or not?
In that regard I've got help - Booger the Aussie. She'll be five in December and is really good about not going to the places that we've taught her are off limits. Howard sees her following her instincts to stay close when we go on our romps and is quickly picking up on the fact that his collar doesn't vibrate when he does the same.
But if we turn our backs on him for five minutes... all bets are off. He's still very much a puppy and there's no escaping his hound genetics but we're making steady progress. When he gets out of sight and we call him back he'll come on voice command most of the time. If he doesn't come within a couple minutes I give him one beep on the training collar and he comes straight back every time. He's very food-motivated so I always carry a little tupperware container of treats in my pocket when we're out and about. Good behavior earns a reward.
I'm glad you got your Plott Hound back. It was good fortune that the right person picked her up. She could have just as easy wound up in a fighting pen. Might be time to put jail bars on her travel box. lol