• Started dogs anywhere between the age of 10 months and 1.5 years, will have trailed and treed one or two cougar (bear, lynx, and/or bob cat upon request). When received by a customer it is recommended the dog be allowed to adjust to their new owner, home, climate etc. for a period of time (one to two weeks). This allows the dog to become familiar with the customer, family members, other hounds and the new home location in general.

 

• At this point it is simply a matter of taking the dog out, finding a track that is reasonable to trail and just let the dog go. Your dog will do the rest. Off game such as deer etc. are not of concern. Your started dog will not run "off game" and will only chase the game that it has been genetically selected to chase for generations and encouraged to chase by the handler i.e. cougar, bear, lynx, bob cat and raccoon. That said, mistakes in handling can “train” your dog to chase off game such as deer, elk, moose etc. An example of this is by running a young hound with other dogs that already chase off game species.  

 

Note #1: When we are developing young dogs ourselves at Layser’s Kennel at this stage of the dog’s first real trail and hunt we will typically use only a group of pups without any experienced dogs. This ensures the young dogs are not relying on the ability of the older dogs to get the job done. If one or more of the pups progresses in their ability ahead of the others, those pups may be left at home the next time in order to allow the other pups to work on their own and develop the abilities. This process creates a group of individually minded dogs that are all capable of working the trail, baying a cougar, locating and treeing as a “PACK” of “INDIVIDUALS”. Once experienced, the dogs will work together to trail the toughest tracks and capture the worst cougar no matter how many packs of wolves a cougar has survived or other dogs it has killed.

 

Note#2: If there is a significant time period between when you receive your dog and the actual hunting season or work expected, it is encouraged to use a piece of fresh cougar hide (for example) to lay a drag for the dog to trail and tree in order to provide an opportunity for you as the new handler to praise and encourage the dog to work the scent and tree FOR YOU. This very simple and easy exercise goes a long way to clarify what you want in the dogs mind and is more important with a young dog and a handler that is new to them. This also allows you to place the trail through difficult terrain for the dogs experience and increase the age of the scent trail up to a day or two old. 

 

• At this point in the progression of your young dog, as a “started dog” it will have trailed and treed anywhere from 2-4 cougar. At this stage it is highly recommended to begin conditioning the young dog toward becoming a finished dog by working on progressively more and more difficult tracks. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways including simply working older and older tracks but also working tracks in more difficult conditions and terrain, i.e. desert, raining, strong winds, rock bluffs, swamps etc.  This practice is often done as a specific task in and of itself (if only for a short period of time). For example, finding a fresh track and leaving it for a day (or multiple days) and then coming back to let the dogs work the trail. This is often lost on inexperienced handlers; the purpose is to refine the ability of your young working hound, not simply to catch another predator. Executed correctly, the patients taken in the early days of handling your Layser Hound correctly will pay dividends for the lifetime of your dog and its ability to trail and capture the worst of tracks and the hardest of predators.

 

• Keep in mind, any dog, regardless of the quality of the breeding of cold nose, dry ground trailing ability will become “LAZY” if allowed to only trail fresh or hot tracks. Often this can un-intentionally become the case when using the hounds on research studies where tracking collars on cougar allow for easy locating of fresh tracks or guiding for hunting clients where only fresh tracks are chosen that have a high likelihood that a client can reach a tree.  (On the point of "lazy", our hounds are known for being easy to keep in regards to the type and amount of food required and regular exercise is important to maintain physical conditioning and capabilities i.e. we run our pack specifically for exercise approx. 10 km (5 miles) twice a week).