People have been coon hunting since colonial times, our first President, George Washington was an avid hunter, even had Black and Tan's, But that's another story, for another time. Today we hunt more for pleasure than survival, nothing like chasing a pair of ole hounds through hills and hollows in the moon light on a cold November night right? I remember a time, we walked a lot of steps to keep in hearing distance of our hounds, sometimes it didn't matter how fast you picked'm up and set'm down, cause them ole hounds can cover a lot of ground in a hurry! And unfortunately there were times when hounds were lost, thinking about it, probably more often than none. You might find them a few hours or a few days later, sometimes they were never found or found a victim of some tragic accident.
Now days we use electronic devices to track our hounds, we still try and keep within hearing distance but, if they get out of hearing distance we have a greater chance of recovering our hounds or cutting them off before they get into harms way. A good tracking system is like having an added insurance policy so to speak. My wife and I use the Dogtra Pathfinder system, which Bluetooths to your smart phone and tracks your hound on google maps, pretty slick. We run 2 GPS connectors, she wears one and I wear one, she shares her GPS connector and hound with me and I do the same with her. Presto! Now she knows where I am and I know where she is and we both know where our Hound or hounds are!
A while back the wife and I was out with her hound Hart, now Hart is a fine young hound with a lot of potential. Hart struck a trail and shortly after locked down and was blowing the top out of it! I started working my way to him, the wife following and all of a sudden his sound changed, he came off the tree and the race was on! Now we do have bobcats in this area and that may have been the culprit. So, I picked up my pace in an effort to catch him! After about 300 yards of running, hollering, cussing, dodging, stumbling through the woods, all was silent...No hound in sight, not a peep out of him, while standing there gathering my wits and my breath, I noticed not only have I lost my wife's hound........ But I lost my wife as well! To make a long story short, after a few, not so nice phone calls, I located her. Well I actually seen the light of her Big Dog Light burning the leaves out of the tree tops, sending a light beacon a Boeing 747 could spot! She was over a 1/4 of a mile away, went from 10 feet apart to over a 1/4 of a mile apart in less than 30 minutes! We finally made it to each other and eventually tracked Hart down, and that was the reason why we now run 2 gps connectors on our tracking system.
The Pathfinder also has the ability to tone your hound (The Pathfinder TRX tracks only), where you can send a audible tone to your hound to bring him back in, add this to your training program and you have another layer of safety for your hound. If you think your hound is about to get into harms way, just send a tone that signals him to come to you. Not only is our tracking system helping us to keep our hounds safe but, helps us as well, in the event we get lost, separated or both!
Tracking Systems are a good investment if your going to run hounds or any sporting dog in the field, for that matter. But there is one more small piece of equipment that we use to help keep our hounds safe, the Sport Dog locator Beacon. This little LED beacon light comes in a variety of colors and will slide onto a 1" or 3/4" collar and is very bright and has a long battery life ( 250 hours according to Sport Dog), all of our tracking collars have a beacon on them and we wont take a hound out without one. These little lights are probably my favorite hound safety item, not only can we visually see our hounds 300 or more yards away but, the main reason is to make your hound visible to others.
Our hounds are like family members to us and if you care about your hounds as much as we care about ours, then you know how important it is in keeping them safe when out in the woods. If you can't afford a tracking system, then I suggest a locator beacon, like the Sport Dog Beacon, they are a pretty cheap piece of equipment for your hound that you can pick up for as little as 10 bucks. Small price to pay for a little piece of mind.
There is different tracking systems out there and I would suggest that you research as many as you can to find the one that fits your style and budget. This is what we use and found it to work for us, your situation may vary. The main thing is Keep Those Hounds Safe! So that you can have many memorable hunts with your favorite hound and family members! Well, that's it for now and until next time we'll SEE YA AT THE TREE!!
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