There has been some discussion on the forums about how dogs react when there is suspected Bf activity in the area.

Dogs are smart animals but it is generally agreed that most responses are based on instinct…. pack mentality….bird huning….deer chasing.

So, I would be interested in peoples opinion on why a dog would act the way that they are reported to act around BF, and is it really a worthwhile thing to bring a dog afield with you during investigative activities.

or

Why do some dogs not BACK DOWN?

I Realy don't know if that would be a good thing to do. The reason i say this is dogs are kind of like us. Some are agressive some are timmid and some of them are about as usfull as a box rocks. But what i don't like about using dogs is that thay may be harmed. I can see it now daddy ( or mommy ) takes spot out on a little walk in woods to see if spot can kick up a bigfoot . Well it ends up spots pretty good maybe to good and spot gets hurt or even killed. (poor spot) But now you get to tell the kids there beloved pet is with gran and gram. Ok maybe i wen't a little to far with that your pet proubly would not make a good search dog. I have three dogs i don't think any of them could find a buried bone if it was marked with a grave stone. But i don't think this is bad idea but i do think i would use a well trained dog.

Dogs could be used for three distinct purposes:

1. As mere "sensors," to indicate by their fearful reaction whether there was BF (or gorilla) scent in the site vicinity. This would be help investigators to focus on the most promising cases, and to grill witnesses more heavily when the dog failed to react. Also, just knowing that a dog would be brought to the site (after the practice had been reported for a year or two) would tend to cut down on the number of phony reports, as there'd be less chance of fooling investigators. Such dogs would not of course be at risk of injury.

2. As "trackers," kept on leashes, the way bloodhounds often are. They'd lead their trainers along a BF's trail. Again, there would be no risk to the dogs.

3. As "hunters," allowed to run free after the BF, perhaps with GPS and radio systems in their collars, to help helicopters locate them. Ideally, as I said in a previous post, they'd be the sort of dog that would be satisfied to bring the prey to bay, and not attempt to attack it. I believe there are dog breeds that behave this way. If so, they'd be safe (hopefully).

I should have included the following sentences under #2, using dogs as trackers: "It would be nice if tracking dogs were to refrain from barking, to avoid alerting the quarry; I believe, or hope, that some tracking dogs do keep quiet. (Is this so?) But the goal wouldn’t necessarily be to track down a live BF, but to locate tracks or nests or tree-twists or poop or kills or hair he might have left behind."

lISTEN i HAVE HUNTED WITH HOUNDS FOR BEARS FOR 15 YEARS AND THEY WILL NOT TRACK A BF. WHEN MY BROTHER AND I CAME FACE TO FACE WITH WITH A BF IN 87 WE HAD 4 VERY, VERY GOOD TOP NOTCH BEAR DOGS WITH US AND WHEN THE SMOKE HAD CLEARED AND WE HAD CALMED DOWN ARE FIRST INSTINCT WAS TO PUT THE DOGS OUT, WHICH WE DID AND THEY WOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE SCENT. THEY DID NOT ACT SCARED THEY JUST WERE NOT INTERESTED. HOUNDS, THE GOOD ONES ARE BREED THROUGHYEARS OF INTENSE TRAINING AND CULLING OUT OF LESSER DOGS TILL YOU HAVE A PURE BLOOD LINE THAT KNOWS FROM DAY ONE THAT THEY ARE A 'BEAR DOG' SO IT STANDS TO REASON THAT IF THEY DON`T KNOW THE SCENT OF A BF THAT THEY CAN`T CHASE WHAT THEY DON`T KNOW AND COMING FROM A BIG GAME HUNTER THAT HAS SEEN THIS FIRST HAND DOGS AT LEAST HOUNDS DON`T CARE TO GIVE CHASE TO A BF

TO ANSWER ROGERKNI THERE ARE SILENT TRACKING DOGS THAT DO NOT BARK YET THE PROBLEM LIES ON GETTING THEM TO CHASE OR TRACK A BF WHICH AS I HAVE SAID FROM MY FIRST HAND EXPERINCE THIS DOES NOT WORK. aLSO I BELIEVE THAT IF A MATURE BOAR(MALE BEAR) CAN FIGHT OFF DOGS SO COULD A BF AND IN PROBABLY MORE SHORT ORDER SO BY THE TIME HUMANS CAUGHT UP TO THE BF ALL THAT WOULD REMAIN WOULD BE DEAD EXPENSIVE HOUNDS

I know nothing about bear dogs, but I do know a bit about "hog dogs". Here in the south, alot of people raise and train their dogs to trail wild hogs. My nephew has a 1/2 red nosed pit, 1/2 american pit that will "go in on" anything that moves when he 'has his nose". Meaning that he has been trained that a hog is a bad thing, and no matter what, he must attack and fight to the death. Once he gets the smell, don't get in his way. My nephew has the scars to prove that.

I wonder if you took a dog such as this and trained him with the right scent, if he might prove to be a good bf tracking dog. Guess the hard part would be giving him a consistent smell to hone in on. Something to think about anyway.

I'm with sagehunter on this one a dog only tracks what its trained to(for the most part) My best reference would be (You cant teach an old dog new tricks) With no SAS scent to start off with you have nothing to show the dog how to track that scent when he comes across it..I believe some dogs may fear the scent but nowhere near all.I have seen some timid dogs really buck up when they have to.Just my opinion but I dont think many dogs would be completely scared of a SAS,more curious than anything..

And the problem being where do you get proven no bull s@#t BF smell. I have no doubt you could train a dog to hunt BF if you could find somthing to use. It takes more than 1 sniff to get a dog trained...we train coon dogs from birth to hunt coons and bobcats but we have the tools to do so you can get scent from a bottle or use coon and bobcat tails, fur, etc to train with. I wonder if the scent bait they have used before would be a starting place. I firmly believe that BF is an animal and with the right scent you could track one....however that being said what do you do with a 500 lb pissed off BF. As far as dogs go my encounter had two of the meanest dogs I ever saw trying to get in my lap....so who knows it could work. I believe that dogs reactions to BF has to do with it not being an animal that many dogs have had contact with and may be very confusing to them as to just what they are smelling. Might smell like a cross between man and ??????. I plan to undertake this as I would hunting any animal with stealth and scent control. Some one mentioned in another thread that it does not appear that much stealth has been used in trying to approach this animal, and from some of the pictures I have seen of BF expeditions I have to agree. Try to hunt a deer in those situations would be about as useful as tits on a boar hog. This animal may have as much if not more smarts as a chimp or gorilla in which case they see, hear, and smell us long before we see them. As for BF smell alot of animals roll in carrion to cover thier scent, not to large a leap to think that if a BF was smarter then it might do the same. Just my .02 worth. Jim D

But still the question remains.............why the instinctive fear?

Well,I have heard it said that dogs know/see things we dont. A dogs vision is kinda like a shutter they see things in slow motion(kinda) and there has been people claim that dogs can see ghost(no I'm not saying that BF has anything to do with ghost) maybe they can see a trail of something left behind by ole SASSY's scent that we cant.A dog can feel/sense your heart beat from 100 feet away and can tell alot of your intentions from your heart beat(scared,timid,mad,curious,worried,dead and meaning harm)And a SAS having I'd guess,a heart 2 times the size of a human they could sense it at an even greater distance.So maybe when you have a scared dog there is a SAS closer than you think. It may be silly but it's just a thought..

I think it may be an inate reaction Black Dog. The experts seem to think that squach has been around for many moons.
Peg

I agree that most dogs won't follow a BF trail, and that their fearfulness could be used as an indicator to help determine whether a BF had actually been present at a site where a "witness" claimed to have seen or heard or smelled one.

But, from what I've read, some dogs will follow a BF scent trail, even if they haven't been trained to follow that scent. For instance here is a sentence from Ivan Sanderson's Abominable Snowmen (1977 pap. ed.), ch. 6, p. 157, regarding the aftermath of the 1958 sightings at Bluff Creek, when Ray Wallace brought in two professional hunters: "... their [four] dogs disappeared a few days later when they were following Bigfoot's tracks some distance from the road-head."

And here's a sentence from John Bindernagel's North America's Great Ape, p. 100: "there are a number of reports of Sasquatches killing dogs after having been chased or harassed by them." So some dogs lack the fearful, cowering reaction, it seems.

I could find more quotes along these lines, if necessary. But even if I can't, it's an unjustifiable "leap" to think that a single experience with one breed of dogs establishes a rule for all breeds.

As I said, it would be valuable to have dogs that would follow a BF trail just to turn up BF sign, not necessarily the BF itself. (EDIT: Dogs that would follow BF scent could be either determined by experimentation, by taking many dogs to a site and seeing which would follow the trail and using them in future investigations, or by training dogs with gorilla scent.) It's true that there might be a problem if dogs were alowed off-leash: they'd risk injury or death if they attacked a BF. But don't some breeds hold off from attacking their prey, and keep a safe distance from it once they've caught up with it? (Though I can't think of any at the moment.)

hAVE RAISED AND HUNTED WITH HOUNDS FOR OVER 15 YEARS I DO BELIEVE WITH ALOT OF HARD WORK YOU COULD TRAIN THEM TO TRAIL A BF BUT THE PROBLEM REMAINS THAT YOU WOULD NEED THE SCENT TO TRAIN THEM WITH THEY HAVE TO KNOW WHAT SMELL YOUR SENDING THEM OUT ON. THIS SEEMS A TUFF TASK TO OVER COME I DON`T THINK A BEAR HOUND, I USE WALKERS, WOULD BE FEARFUL THEY DON`T SEEM TO BE SCARED OF ANYTHING. IT JUST WOULD BE HARD TO TRAIN THEM TO TRAIL ONE

I agree with the comments that it all depends on the breed/training, etc. My wife and I have 2 dogs (our kids)...I frequently take the husky/black lab cross out with me in the woods to act as a sensor. If anything gets close (bear, deer, coyote, etc), he is going to bark - I then wake up and head out to investigate. The only problem is that he doesn't differentiate between different animals - he growls and barks (hasn't cowered yet) whether it is big or small...but I have him always on a leash when checking out the sounds. I wish I could have a confirmed BF experience so I could see his reaction but as it stands now, his reactions have been all the same.

I do have a hard time with the idea of turning dogs loose to try to go after BF...I can just imagine what my wife would say when I come back with our "son" in pieces.

BTW, our other "kid", a collie/shepherd cross is much more intelligent but tends to bark when she sees even the remotest creature whereas the husky will only bark when the animal gets close. They make a nice team in the summer but when it gets cold in the mountains, only the husky can handle it.

James

i wanted to weigh in here with a few thoughts on this topic.

for 25 years i have taught students with autism, and severe language disorders, and multiple sensory disorders, and and severe to profound retardation. they kind of get lumped in the same category, or they did--that's changing because we have learned so much more about all of these learning disabilities over the course of 25yrs. i quit medical school to learn to teach these kids, so i do have a scientific background.. in addition, the experience of teaching kids with those kinds of over-welming sensory and developmental problems forces you into the scientific method in order to figure out what's going on with each kid and then how to most effectively teach each of them. you know, observe, hypothesize, test the hypothesis, etc. anyway, over the years i have come to understand that not everyone in this species senses, processes, and then reacts in the same ways as "normal" folks, even with esentially the same "equipment." and THAT"S IN OUR VERY OWN SPECIES. their experiences certainly are radically different from ours and certainly "disordered" in terms of their ability to function in the "real world" but no less valid than ours. they are what the are. (some folks have such acute hearing that they are overwelmed by the sound of water rushing thru the pipes in public buildings. and i actually taught a child whose primary experience of the world was thru his sense of smell!!! that's a weird one!)

as far as dogs are concerned, i wanted a dog for as long as i could remember.. growing up i begged often for one and always got told no. my dad was career navy and we could be sent anywhere at any time but as a kid i just couldn't get it. when i was in high school, he retired from the navy and we got a dog for christmas that year. i have had dogs ever since. right noow i have four--fool that i am--and one foster. i know dogs, and they are like any other species--some are bright and talented, some are downwright dumb. some are avid explorers and observers of the world, some are total duds. some are gentle and compassionate, some are evil or psychotic.

dogs smell at some phenomenonly greater level than our species does. i've read the literature from the researchers but can't remember the exacts. they also hear at frquencies well above and below ours. again i don't remember the specifics. some dogs see better than we do too. and there are dogs and cats who have found their way home from being lost--or abandoned--at distances hundreds, even thousannds of miles away. these are documented cases. so who knows what they really are capable of understanding about the world that we just aren't capable of perceiving.

i also have other interests that i "contemplate" including the possibility of "extrasensory perception" (why can't there be other ways of sensing that are more and/or less developed among members of our species). we've been developing and adapting for millions of years and i suspect there are sensory and neural traces still existing in our bodies and brains that are not recognized because they aren't hugely critical to out modern lives. i have had personal experiences both as a teacher and an every-day person that make me know that thre are other ways of knowing and communicating than those most people call the "average" ones. details aren't imporatant here. there are also the effects of electromagnetic fields--those produced by our own bodies as well as those produced by all the living things around us, the various electronic/electric/magnetic/blahblahblah things we have invented to "improve" our lives over the last few centuries, and by the earth itself. new physics is indicating that according to something they ccall string theory everyhting is vibrating and connected. there is a very interesting book out there called by a british scientist named rupert sheldrake, in which he explores some new ideas about how dogs specifically might "know things" that we might not suspect.

anyway, dogs (i don't know much about cats or any other kinds of housepets) experience the world differently than the way we do and it's not an inferior kind of an experience. it's just a different one. and i personally don't believe we can discount what we observe of their behavior when the bigfeets are around. who knows?

hope this doesn't come off preachy because it's not meant that way. it's just that i've lived alot of years and experienced alot of things and i like to share what i have learned.

mh

i think there must be two bigfoot/dogs threads and i just responded to the wrong one good grief!! mh