Ive always been told its in the dog some dogs have it some dont. The dog has to decide which way the rabbit went by how strong the scent is, if the dog is back tracking the scent is going to get fainter. the dog will usualy figure it out with time. I am world worst for not running my dogs as much as i should or would like. been told " ya gotta hunt a dog to have a dog" best advice i could give ya is run em as much as you can. when ur not able to run em drag scent trails. mite try dropping a piece of hot dog in the scent trail every couple yards and leave some at the end. heard of ppl doing this on pups but seems it might wrk in this situation as well.
If you are talking about a pup, you should get in front of him and force it to turn around. They sometimes don't have the experience to determine direction very well and need help. Now if you are talking about an older hound, I've seen very hounds try to go backwards especially when they are tally hoed to a track and they are pumped up and excited. good ones tend to figure out they are wrong quickly and will self correct before going very far backwards. The ones that continue to hammer along on a backtrack never seem to come out of it in my experience and will mess up a good day in the field in a hurry causing many lost rabbits and much embarrassment to the owner. Will wind up eating more feed than a good one does if not culled properly.JMHO James
some good advice here i have one thing to add try toneing them when they start to back track. i have toned and give them a shock and it has worked for me.
The scariest part of using shock collars is knowing when to use it and when not to.......I may know where the rabbit went that I saw and there could have been a second one that I didn't see... I would let an older hound work it to see if it can figure it out before I intervene with punishment but on a pup I will definitely turn him around on the known line.....Inexperience versus Experience.JMHO and I don't know everything about these amazing hounds for sure because they have fooled me many times. James
You're right on here James. My experience with an older dog that does this will ruin your hunt. They have developed a bad trait for what ever reason and should be culled from your pack. Sometimes an older dog will lose his scenting abilty and trail back and forth not able to move the track. Roger
