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janet kosnik

I’ve gotten many requests lately for some information on how to train a hound on mountain lion. So here it is!

I would suggest that you first read my article on training a pup for coonhunting. The basics are the same for coon, lion, bobcat and bear. You can begin the training in the same manner. You can purchase bottled lion or bobcat scent from a hunting catalog or a well-stocked pet store. The pet stores here in Helena and Missoula keep them in stock. If you have a piece of hide, you can use that and you can even add a little scent to it. A training dummy or cloth of some kind with scent on it will do the trick too.

Proceed with training as you would for coon; lay some drags and have a hide or caged kitty at the end of the track in a tree. Make sure you or someone else is at the tree when the pups get there, so that you can give them encouragement on the tree and pet them up for confidence. Now, just like in coontraining, it’s ideal to have that live animal in the tree. A hide will work initially but those young hounds will tree harder on a caged kitty. If you don’t have access to a barn cat, then a coon will work just fine. Just make sure that there’s cat scent on the tree and maybe a little on the coon. You might need to raise and lower that cage to encourage those pups to tree. Keep the cage low enough so that the pups can get the idea of treeing. It’s important to imprint the pups to get up on the tree and bark. And working that cage for them will do it.

After the pups are following the scent all the way to the tree and treeing good, then you can use that barn/wild cat on a live run. You can throw some water on the cat and/or add some scent to the water so that the cat will leave enough scent on the ground for the young dogs to track. This especially helps if conditions are dry. Let the cat have a head start before turning your hounds loose. And make sure there’s plenty of trees for that cat to climb. This is a great way to get your hounds following a track of a live animal and putting it up a tree. Once you are satisfied with their progress, you’ll be ready to get them on the real thing!

Different areas of the country run hounds differently on lion depending on the conditions; snow or dry ground. Out here in Montana and surrounding states and Canada most hounds are trained for hunting on snow. When you take your hounds out to a lion track that you’ve located by riding the roads, sometimes ‘til dawn, before you turn them loose, make sure they get excited when put on that track and that they do open. This will also help you decide just how fresh the track is. It’ll also be helpful if you have an older, more experienced dog along. You’ll want to walk the lion track for a short distance before turning the dogs loose and if they want to continue on it, turn em loose! If you’ve got young hounds on the trail, you’ll want to walk that lion track and not just follow the hounds. Sometimes, those young hounds will drift away from the track and you can keep your eyes on the lion track if you follow it. Call them back to the track if stray far or stay away for a long time. This will get their attention back on the scent and back to business. Your hounds are well on their way when you get to this point. Have fun and good luck seeing one of those magnificent felines high above you with your dogs at the bottom of the tree!

On last thing I’d like to talk about. Please make sure that when you decide to trap a cat for training, that it’s a wild/barn cat and not Fluffy next door. Besides, house cats don’t tend to run/tree like their wilder versions do. Someone’s pet cat is not usually afraid of dogs and will not run from them. And that’s the part of the training that your dogs really need. There’s no need to have your hounds kill the neighbor’s pet cat. That feral cat is a much better choice in training.