Treeing Walker Coonhound - Hunting

Hunting

The breed's strong tracking instincts make them popular as hunting dogs. Carnivore researchers have used a single Walker and handler team to locate cougar-cached carcasses up to several months after the kill date. Hunting singly or in packs of two or more, they are used to track and tree raccoons, bobcats, cougars, and bears. Individual hounds may be adept at catching small rodents such as squirrels, roof rats, opossums, and skunks.

Although the Walker is best known as a coonhound, it is not as cold-nosed as other coonhounds. It is therefore an ideal hound for competition hunts, since they excel at following a hot track.

A typical hunt starts with getting the dog from the kennel. Since it has been in the pen all day, it is ready to run. Hunting is a hunting dog's exercise. The hound is checked for good health, then put into the truck. The handler then goes to the area where they plan to run the hound, usually next to or within a woods or forest. When the hound is let out of the box, it runs off happy to be free to run and excited to find a raccoon to chase. When it smells a track, the hound may begin to vocalize sporadically with short sounds that develop into longer, more anxious bawls. As the track becomes hotter, the vocalization becomes a louder, more assertive baying.

The hound follows the track up to a tree, stands on its hind legs, rolls over a big whiny bawl as a "locate", and begins a chop bark (a "woof, woof, woof") bark. Meanwhile the handler is standing where he turned the dog loose, listening to all of the different barks, and understanding what the dog is doing and where the dog is going. Once the dog is "treed" with a solid chop the handler walks to the dog's location, looks for the game, and rewards the dog as necessary. This is repeated throughout the night.

Some dogs track and do not tree. Other dogs tree and do not track. So, some handlers have one of each and hunt both at the same time. Other dogs do both and can be hunted by themselves. These types of dogs are hunted with other independent dogs, and handlers can also compete against one another, with objectives such as first dog to open bawl on track, first dog to tree, most raccoons found, etc.

• A Treeing Walker Coonhound may swim in pursuit of its prey

• A Treeing Walker Coonhound, front

• The breed is known for its love of lounging

• Treeing Walker Coonhound in profile

• Treeing Walker Coonhound at 16 months (27 inches tall and weighing 65 pounds).