squirrel dogs

emiliozapata · #1 04/18/07, 08:34 PM

been researching a fascinating way to hunt squirrels , with purpose bred treeing feists and curs , cant wait to learn more and maybe obtain one of these amazing animals , anyone out there have any experience or knowledge to share? Much obliged.

big rockpile · #2 04/18/07, 09:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by emiliozapata

been researching a fascinating way to hunt squirrels , with purpose bred treeing feists and curs , cant wait to learn more and maybe obtain one of these amazing animals , anyone out there have any experience or knowledge to share? Much obliged.

Got a neighbor that raises all types of Squirrel Dogs.I mainly use my Jack Russell.He mainly hunts by sight but he does have a very good nose.

big rockpile

pancho · #3 04/19/07, 12:34 AM

You can make a squirrel dog out of just about any breed. Some are a little better than others but most dogs will make good squirrel dogs. I have hunted squirrels with every breed from pit bulls to cocker spaniels.

My personal chooice would be any dog that does not bark on trail, just when treed. Too many times if a dog barks while trailing the squirrel will be in holes. Silent trailers will tree more squirrels on the outside of trees, not inside of trees.

emiliozapata · #4 04/19/07, 10:12 AM

well apparently the point with these purpose bred dogs is that there is no need to "make" a dog hunt squirrel , it comes natural to em. Seems like this would save a lot of work

CGUARDSMAN · #5 04/19/07, 10:40 AM

I have seen a lot of JRT's that take right to squirrel hunting. I have a JRT and a Fox Terrier both great little hunters!

pancho · #6 04/19/07, 11:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by emiliozapata

well apparently the point with these purpose bred dogs is that there is no need to "make" a dog hunt squirrel , it comes natural to em. Seems like this would save a lot of work

Sounds like a sales gimic, a way to sell dogs. Any breed with a little prey drive will make just as good a squirrel dog. Get one from the pound and they will do the same thing. It is natural for all dogs to chase smaller animals, its called prey drive. All it takes is encouraging this.
Training a squirrel dog is different. They will only be as good as the person who trains them. It doesn't take any special breed, traits or intelligence. They just smell a squirrel, trail it to a tree, and bark. They will get better with experience. Some are sight dogs, some are trailing dogs. Some will not ever learn a squirrel can and will jump from tree to tree and some will watch the squirrel and follow when it jumps.
There are no special breeds for squirrel hunting, just some with more prey drive and trained a little better.

Bear · #7 04/19/07, 12:59 PM

I had a lab/boxer mix and she was on heck of a squirrel dog, everything just came natural to her. She would chase em up a tree and then follow as they jumped from one tree to another, and never barked as long as she could see me or hear me coming to catch up.

JasoninMN · #8 04/20/07, 11:58 PM

If you are really interested in learning about squirrel dogs I would check out
http://www.sqdog.com/forums/index.php
Yeah any dog can chase a squirrel and put one up a tree but if you are seriously interested in hunting suquirrels then I would buy a dog bred specifically for it for obvious reasons. My American bulldog can tree squirrles too but its hardly a squirrel dog. Its kind of like any dog can pull a dog sled but if I was going to be a musher would I choose a great dane or a siberian husky? I have a feeling some posting here really have very little experience truely hunting squirrels. The family pet treeing squirrels off the bird feeder in the front yard is hardly the same.

DrippingSprings · #9 04/21/07, 08:41 AM

I am a JRT fan also. Ive owned a few and they all instinctively pursued squirrels. I had two lil JRTs catch a 14 pound coon in my chickens and actually killed it. If you get them from a reputable dealer that breeds them for hunting like they were intended and not from a lap dog breeder they can be magnificent hunting animals.

I started my male at barely being weaned to search for a laser pointer by asking him "where is it magnum" and after he got about a year old I could walk him over and hold his head down into a small speck of blood and ask him and he would locate downed deer in a flash for friends. Id shoot the first squirrell and hold it to him and ask him "where is it magnum" and hed hunt for me all day treeing squirrells.

Excellent animals and really smart. Mine was killed by a free roaming pit when he was a few years old and I havnt had the heart to get another one because Ill get attached.

pancho · #10 04/21/07, 04:43 PM

I started hunting squirrels before I was 6 years old. Many times that is all the meat we had to eat. At that time I didn't have a choice what breed of dog I wanted, I was just real glad to have one. We didn't have extra money for shells so I had to make every shot count. Often I would gather pop bottles to sell so I could buy a box of 22 shells. A dog that treed a squirrel in a hole was no use to me as I wasn't big enough to chop one out of a hole and the ax we owned was not to be taken off into the woods. I needed a dog that would hunt quietly until treed. I also needed a dog that was smart enough to follow a squirrel when it decided to jump through the trees. Since I didn't have a choice in dogs I had to train the ones we had to do the job. Most were crossbreeds because they were free. One of the best I ever had was half cocker spaniel and half wire haired fox terrier. The breed didn't matter that much, the training did.

I was about grown before I learned people actually hunted for sport. I was a meat hunter, squirrels were available so I hunted mostly squirrels. Both me and the dog had to be good at what we did because if we weren't we didn't have meat to eat nor did our family.

We didn't have a bird feeder, couldn't afford one or the grain to put in it. Didn't even know people really fed the birds on purpose.

emiliozapata · #11 04/21/07, 07:00 PM

pancho , how was that 6 mile walk to school , through the snow with no boots I bet! Glad to see you escaped that abject poverty and found yourself squarely in the information age. Good job and keep up the good work. Did you reward any of those squirrel hunting mutts of yours with some squirrel and dumplings in their dog bowls?

Ed Norman · #12 04/21/07, 07:28 PM

I always preferred a rat terror. They run silent until they tree. And they make a fine house dog, companion, pet, etc. But they love to be in the middle of a bloody murder scene. Mine would hunt any animal I asked it to, even retrieved birds.

The way I always reward a squirrel dog is to unzip the belly and let them suck the spaghetti out.

pancho · #13 04/21/07, 09:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by emiliozapata

pancho , how was that 6 mile walk to school , through the snow with no boots I bet! Glad to see you escaped that abject poverty and found yourself squarely in the information age. Good job and keep up the good work. Did you reward any of those squirrel hunting mutts of yours with some squirrel and dumplings in their dog bowls?

Didn't have to walk but about a half a mile to school. There were 4 people in my grade for the first 8 years. The school had 3 rooms, one room for the 1st through 4th grades, one for the 5th through 8th grade, and one for a lunch room. The school had 2 teachers for the 1st through 8th grade. Also had a cook that worked part time. At the time I didn't know we lived in poverty. It didn't snow that often where we lived, only about every ten years. We couldn't afford boots, they would have been for dress up only if we could have afforded them. We had shoes, I always wanted a pair of boots but had to wait for many years before I finally got a pair.

We didn't have enough squirrels to share with the dogs, they got the skins and guts and the bones that were left. My parents had 8 children, there wasn't much left over when we got through eating. We usually fried the squirrels, we fried almost everything. There wasn't enough fat on a squirrel to make dumplings. Those who were better off then us could afford to make dumplings.

We got lucky when I was a little older, the armadillos moved into our part of the state. They were good eating and had a lot of meat on them. The first one we killed no one knew what it was. We took it over to the general store/post office and left it hoping to find someone who knew what animal it was. A couple of days later a salesman coming through told everyone what it was.

That was about 50 years ago. A lot has happened since then. Not everyone was born and raised in a city. Some are lucky and do not have to experience hunger. I wasn't one of the lucky ones, hope you were.