How Far Are You Willing to Go?

That is likely the primary difference then.  Mine don't hunt.  And (gasp) I give them deer bones whenever I can get my hands on them.  They will WANT to chase, but don't and on the rare occassions that they've started to give chase, I've been able to call them back.  Eh Eh really is effective with my crew. []

I think probably MOST dogs can be taken off lead without running off.

I agree.I hate seeing dogs that never get a chance to get off the lead because their owners "are scared they MIGHT run off",to them i ask "why not try?If it doesnt work,ever heard of training"?? [&o] Lazy!Is all i can say,it's easier for them to keep their dog on a leash,than have to bother training it [:@]

I dont make my dogs walk next to me either,i may as well stick them on the lead for the whole walk,which after all is their time,i wouldnt be out there in the first place if it wasnt for them! Most times i have the opposite problem of running off,one is always lagging behind snifffing and peeing on every bush he comes across,and the other one sticks within 5 feet of me,i have to push her to wander off and explore a little! Sometimes they'll play chase and run ahead,but stop after 20 feet or so and wait for me to catch up,and then off they go again.

The one common denominator with ALL of my dogs is that they have been off lead from day 1,i guess none of them have ever felt the need to run off as being free is no big deal.But get a dog who has been on lead for their first 6-12mths of life,and you can almost bet they'll be off like a shot because it's novelty i suppose and they want to make the  most of being unleashed??

I would never in a million years let my dog off unless I was 100% confident she was going to heed me when I called her back. This is mostly because she's very short and despite me drilling road sense into her from day 1 I don't think she understands that it's the cars that we're looking out for and would probably meander out onto the road the moment I wasn't right there insisting on road sense. It's also because I think it's unfair on other people sharing the public areas. Some people don't like dogs coming up to them, and sometimes they have food with them in easy reach, and sometimes other dogs that get over-excited in the presence of strange dogs. So out of politeness, I wouldn't inflict my dog on them and if I couldn't be sure she wouldn't leave them alone as soon as I asked her to, she just wouldn't get off and that's that. I think it's irresponsible to let a dog off without at least a little dragline work or testing so you can be pretty confident the dog isn't going to take off and ignore you, but that's just my controlling nature, I guess.

As it happens, Penny has no problem at all going back on lead, which is annoying for me in a way because I can't use it as a training tool. I can let her off, but if she mucks up, she doesn't give a flying fart if I put her back on lead. Oh well. []

I'm not talking about letting my dogs off lead in public places.  The worst we ever do is the fenced school yard on the weekends when no one is around.  And even then they were the little one foot traffic leads to give us a "handle" if we need it.  What I'm talking about is way out in the boonies on 500 plus acres of nothing.  Aside from the leash laws and respect for other humans, I'd be concerned letting mine loose in town because of the traffic on our very busy village roads.

kennel_keeper mentions a good point.  Hunting dogs have been trained positively, and it is possible to do so, but either way, they need to be kept safe, and wildlife needs to be kept safe from them. (By the way, when considering "how far would you go" with hunting dogs, that also includes what one would do with the ones who have no talent for hunting - the rescues and shelters and country backroads are full). But hunting dogs who actually hunt are a far cry (no pun intended) from the ordinary pet dog, whose owners might not understand either how to train a proper recall, or how to apply e-collar training correctly, and to know what kind of dogs it would absolutely be inappropriate with.  There are trainers who have no idea that there are dogs that will be completely ruined by its use, so how would JQP be expected to know that?  Remember, I said aversives would be something to consider when life is at stake.  "Life" doesn't have to mean "alternative to death", it can also indicate "quality of life" for our dogs.  To me, if you are an ordinary pet owner, you don't employ techniques that are that aversive without a complete understanding of the consequences.  You simply keep Rover on a leash.  Or, you hire someone who is knowledgeable to teach you how to apply the technique, or even whether to apply it.  But, you don't cruise the Internet to have an Innotek shipped to you, just stick it on a dog who doesn't really know what "come" means, because you didn't really understand how to teach him that either, and slap a shock on him.  If you have an easy breed, like GSD's or other herders, you mightn't have a clue what it takes to put a good recall on a hound, or a husky.  But, with perserverance, that can be done, too.  "How far you go" usually is determined by the human, not the dog's capacity to learn.  But, if you hope to have a good hunting dog, or you need your working dog for some purpose now, you may take more extreme means than you might if you had more time, and were of a persuasion that dictates you don't want to use such powerful aversives.  IMO, it takes a year to eighteen months to confirm a good recall on a young dog - they learn it quickly, but simply to account for adolescence and the inevitable "selective hearing" that some pups exhibit during that time.  Most people simply take their dogs off the drag lines, and give them too much freedom too soon, plus insufficiently rewarding them for getting back to the human quickly.

Most dogs have an instinct to stay with a pack, and since my first 2 were German Sheps. it was pretty easy to train them. The second 2 were Husky mixes, just alone the breed Husky can give a trainer the willies....[], my success has been having 2 trained dogs, and really giving praise and petting the animals upon return, the Husky mixes followed suit. Last week another pup arrived(pic is in my signature line), he is 9 weeks, and already seems to follow the rest of the pack, he won't be too much trouble on recall.

Glenmar - why do you use drag lines?
 
Dodger (Foxhound) has a high prey drive as well - he is not used for hunting trials but is Mr. Hunter (he's "trashy though[]). He also has excellent recall and a solid drop on recall and can be called off scented or sighted prey (he spends most of his time off-leash).  I have encouraged his hunting in appropriate situations, given him daily opportunities to hunt and still reward randomly for abandoning the hunt and coming back to me (sometimes the reward is resuming the hunt).  A good friend of mine who walks with us said that I am like his "homing beacon" because he naturally tracks and keeps tabs on me when separated (purposely set up).  I can only hope that my future hounds choose to be attentive rather than being completely consumed by the hunt.
I should add that Dodger is my first dog and as such, I had no idea what I was doing in the beginning so it was a mixture of clicker and "physical" training like leash pops, tapping the nose/bum and grabbing the muzzle when he scavanged (which by the way he still does so we are using the clicker for that now[])

I use drag lines for my own peace of mind.  I'm 99.9% certain that they don't need them, but it's that .1% that keeps me putting them on.

I'll probably use drag lines forever with my akita when I finally get him, too. I wouldn't blame a dog for bounding after a kangaroo that burst out of the brush and hopped right across our path, and wouldn't be terribly surprised if the dog took off even with a pretty solid recall. But that's what I love about dogs. I used to try to get Penny to chase things with me when I was a kid, but she never would and it just wasn't as fun. Of course, when she finally did decide that chasing roos was fun I was trying to study wild birds and her mad careening through the bush after 50 odd roos was not helping my cause in the slightest. Fortunately, they outpace her in about 3 hops and then she gives up and comes back. The problem is the ones that can keep pace with them. We used to have a whippet cross that would chase wallabies at high speed for about 20 minutes and discover that she was completely lost when she finally lost the wallaby.

Sadly, we don't have many places we can take our dogs off lead that are completely safe. Our patches of bush and dog beaches have roads not so far away, so we have to be pretty careful and confident in our dogs, and there's often other people with dogs around to mind.

what one would do with the ones who have no talent for hunting

 
Anne, I agree with you on this one. Any dog that I have (2 to be exact) that is not trial material, stays with me (one is in the closet snoring as I type, lol). I have never placed a "failed" dog to a pet home. They will remain with me, get "fixed" and live out their days being loved as a pet. They still get to go out into the field and run, but they don't get to "load up" come trial day.
I do know people (trialers) that "cull" their packs. They only keep dogs that are either brood bitches, stud males, or prospect pups. Any dog that doesn't "cut the mustard" gets culled. This can mean being PTS or sold as a pet dog. This is something that really gets under my skin because I know that those dogs will NOT adjust to being a PET most of the time. They were not raised with a human pack and have no idea what it is like to be a house pet. These dogs need alot of work and many of the people buying these dogs have NO IDEA the amount of work these "throw away" dogs can require.
I also know people that have "blown up" dogs with e-collars. Misuse is a big thing with "newbie" hound owners (trialers, hunters, and pet owners). These dogs are lead by their nose and are prone to totally ignore a mild stimulation, so the user will just turn it all the way up to "get the dogs attention". They also will use e-collars on pups that are really too young to be expected to understand it. It will make them shut down and be fearful.
It is understandable why you are trying to educate people about the use of e-collars, and I agree, they are not a cure-all and can make for a troubled dog (I have seen it happen). But like all other methods, they do have their place (with the right education and user training).

I also know people that have "blown up" dogs with e-collars. Misuse is a big thing with "newbie" hound owners (trialers, hunters, and pet owners). These dogs are lead by their nose and are prone to totally ignore a mild stimulation, so the user will just turn it all the way up to "get the dogs attention". They also will use e-collars on pups that are really too young to be expected to understand it. It will make them shut down and be fearful.
It is understandable why you are trying to educate people about the use of e-collars, and I agree, they are not a cure-all and can make for a troubled dog (I have seen it happen). But like all other methods, they do have their place (with the right education and user training).

Now that's abuse in my book!! [:@] Not to mention VERY cruel!![:@]

I totally agree Swissy. The total disregard of the welfare of the hounds is one of the drawbacks of my chosen "sport". There are, however, MANY great hound owners in it as well, but the few that mistreat or abuse their dogs is just unacceptable to me. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do, but I have no respect for them and eventually, their tyrant treatment will be recognized by the governing body at some point. A person can be banned from competing if they are observed abusing or neglecting their dogs and none of them want that.
It does "burn my biscuits" though. It's much deeper than discribed here as well, in many cases.

I have to say that when I got my coonhound I went on this here internet to look up information on coonhounds and maybe find discussion groups where I could ask questions about my hound to other people who had them. And I gotta say, I was horrified by what I found in that department as far as how people were talking about treating their dogs. And I'm not talking about simple differences in training methodology or situations that I can't know anything about because they are specific to hunting (for instance, I can't hold much of an opinion how to get a dog to stop running trash, becasue I don't hunt), but things that literally made me go red in the face with horror and feel like crying. I decided I had just better join general dog communities instead and hope there were some other people on them with working-line hounds that I could talk to. I'm still pained by the lack of coonhound-specific info I can get access to because I so strongly object to most of what I see out there on the web regarding the breed and I don't live in an area where coonhounds are common. I have found 2 yahoo groups, one for redbones that focuses on them as pets, and one just for coonhounds in general which does deal with hunting but seems dominated by people with pets and several who do wacky things with their hounds like agility and obedience (!).
 
Anyway, back to the original topic!

I agree houndlove - it is so hard when the breed you love is not commonly seen as a pet.  The general public have so many misconceptions and think of hounds as untrainable...But when you do find people with breed experience, they are usually first and foremost hunters and don't care about a hounds capacity to do anything but hunt.  If you don't trial, or they are trashy, or you treat them as a pet - they're worthless and you've "ruined" them (which is exactly what a local hunter said to me)[] 
 

ORIGINAL: kennel_keeper

I totally agree Swissy. The total disregard of the welfare of the hounds is one of the drawbacks of my chosen "sport". There are, however, MANY great hound owners in it as well, but the few that mistreat or abuse their dogs is just unacceptable to me.

And Queen Elizabeth, as it turns out. We all know she has loads of corgis amongst other dogs and is a very outdoorsy type. She feeds all her own dogs and takes care of them herself. There was once an ambassador she saw pick up his beagles by the ears. She was so appalled she deliberately kept him waiting while she tended to her own dogs, sending the message loud and clear that she values her dogs more than an important ambassador that mistreats his hounds.

"We are not amused."