i'm thinking a black mouth cur dog?

kinda light tan, whitish, with a black face/nose.

should he be cur-tailed, or allowed to keep his tail?

coyotes are beginning to take over, even pack up a bit.

not a lot of packing, but with feral dogs it's beginning to happen.

any dog that weighs less than 40 lbs. shouldn't be allowed to run alone?

I'd never cut a dogs tail, that's like cutting off a Italians hands.
He wouldn't be able to talk
A dogs tail tells the world how he's feeling and the mood he's in.
That's good to know sometimes.

yes, i agree. like trimming their ears maybe?

back in the day, the taxes were paid on the length of a dog's tail.

some dogs lost their tails, and others were bred w/short tails.

people will do all kinds of stuff to reduce the pymnt of taxes.

why even have taxes, pray tell?

curtail feists, and curdogs. a tough bunch for sure.

A dog without a tail is like a ship without a sail, would probably just swim in a circle.

I don't know about dobermans, I never tossed one off of a dock.

i've heard a long tail helps a dog migrate across a log on a river, creek, or branch.

they wave it back and forth, and it helps keep them balanced on the short diameter log.

i've never seen a coon-dog fall off a log into the creek. but i guess it could happen.

Sure it could. In fact I saw a bobcat fall off of a log into a creek. It was carrying a rabbit in its mouth, and I figure the swinging made it fall. The rabbit drifted a little and the bobcat swam to it, and then started climbing back up on the log, instead of going to a bank. It did not make it, as I shot it between the eyes with a 30-30 Winchester. miles

You all must not know much about Boxers.

They have the ugliest possum tail you can imagine,
And even as adults, the tail wags the dog.

In Europe tail docking is illegal, except in medically required situations.
Boxers wag so hard, they can break their tails if they hit a corner with it.
They wag so much, those broken tails often get rebroken before they heal,
leading to real problems requiring amputation. On a pup, that's done
easily with scissors or a pocket knife. On an adult, it requires a vet, and is
a serious surgery.

On a dog that's kept for some kind of fighting, I tail can be a liability.
If I had a dog to hunt coyote or hogs, it would likely get docked.


I would even consider docking ears, something I really don't like.

I’ve seen some cur dogs born with only a short tail

We used to hunt a bob tailed Bluetick, not too sure if he ever fell off of a log or not.

You looking? How about drool?
I would go for a Tibetan mastiff
Boss had sharpeis that were good guards

Just a few observations I've made over the years dealing with coyotes and my own dogs.


If you're serious about the coyote risk, docking the tail can be the deciding factor on whether a dog gets stretched out or not.

40 lbs doesn't guarantee a dog's safety, my Emmie weighed 47 lbs with a narrow build when the coyotes killed her about 5 in the evening. When I found her, the muzzle was bruised and her tail split, there was about a 10 ft circle of matted grass around her where the battle took place. From what I could tell they made short work of her. She was 2 years old and had dealt with coyotes her entire life. Interestingly, she had recently been spayed and as soon as she began to recover she suffered a back injury which I now suspect was coyote related.

My dog Brandy was stocky built, about 57 lbs and she had her tail split open numerous times over her 6 years fighting coyotes but I guess she was too strong to completely subdue.

The best defense I have found so far is a large intact dominant male accompanying whatever dogs you wish to keep. It can push the coyotes 2 or 300 more yards from your home and drastically reduce the conflict over territory around the house but sometimes it can require human intervention to eliminate an aggressive coyote.

While coyotes don't actually pack up like wolves, they do form family groups and may allow a pup from the year's litter to join the group. It's these pups and the alpha male that seem to cause the most trouble beginning late summer/ early fall.
The first cold snap is generally the trigger for them to attempt to reclaim territory they surrendered while keeping a low profile over the summer during the raising of pups.

So about how many coyotes does it take to kill a large male dog like a shepherd or lab?

I think it really depends on the dog, there is a learning curve for dogs in dealing with coyotes. Some big dogs are very capable of dealing with a number of coyotes including killing them quickly and aren't about to get smoked.
Also, you have to realize that skirmishes and interactions can happen frequently for dogs living in the midst of coyotes.
Sometimes a dog will begin to interact with the coyotes instead of viewing them as interlopers in their territory, when this happens it can become just a matter of time.

Also, I believe the dog's width can play a larger role than their actual weight. As a dog gets wider it becomes more difficult for a coyote to choke or attack the spine.

Pay em no mind 10Ga........

Speaking from experience I've yet to see a Cur dog fall over because it's tail was docked.









A friend in MT's BMC/Red Bone.....tail or no tail NO Coyote want's to tangle with this guy.

Best coyote killer in the country is a Great Pyrenees. They will patrol the countryside all night hunting coyotes and sleep on the porch all day.

Farm and stock dogs around here get their tails docked to keep the tail from catching the bottom wire on the electric fences.

A dog may flat refuse to enter the pasture if his tail brushes the fence and he gets electrocuted every time he attempts to go get a cow. They quickly learn to slink under a fence on their belly and avoid the wire with the head and back. But that happy tail wagging behind or over the back often catches a wire.

The Black Mouth Cur would be a fine choice, however 2 or three , though more to feed etc would be much finer indeed. With just one, well its a numbers game and your pup is apt to loose or at best incur high vet bills in patch work even upon winning. .

A good friend purchased three BMCs from one litter for this exact reason. Within one year of close supervision as to not get killed as pups well, the yotes didn't / don't stand a chance now and period. They now stay far far away from his homestead.

I concur with cropping the tails and ears if yotes are your main objective/ issue, forget the humane aspect, they could care less. You will create a better machine with less ear infections as well, do it early and let them do work.

That BMC / RB is gorgeous. I woudn't kick a BMC / Plott cross out of the mix either !

My BIL's Brittany saved one of their daschounds that had been pounced on by a pack of coyotes.

Smart man^^^^^^^^ My mtn Cur actually has a tich of Plott in her.

Some of the hound hunters up here run Bear with Plotts......the little bit they lack in nose they more than make up for in gritt.

I thought the brindling may speak to Plottish lines in your pup. Very hard to beat a big male Plott for most things gritty indeed.

Had a 125lb bloodhound that was meaner than boiling piss. He kept more than coyotes at a distance in his prime. I miss the mean ole bastard...he was my best friend. He could track wounded game through concrete or 3 feet of snow...loved my wife more than me!

I’m a hound man...I’d take a bluetick or a big ass Black and Tan...or even another bloodhound if I had the nerve

Agreed........I love love Plotts but they run to hard and fast for my old bones....

Course the same can be said for most tree dogs these days so I muddle along with an old worn out mtn Cur.

We had a stub-tailed BMC bitch that was built stocky like this. She went about 75lbs and would bite anybody or anything that wasn’t family. Huge prey-drive on that dog, and good dog-sense. A go-getter for sure.

given the advance of the coyote issue, and small farmers with small animals such as goats, chickens, rabbits, etc.

somebody (besides me?) could probably make a good life breeding a special farm dog.

it'd take some amount of discussion and trial & error. great pyrenees, cur-dogs, hounds.

maybe anotolian shepherds, rottweilers, airedales. i don't know. it would take breeding.

on the side they could develop a method to breed some really good looking mules.

white mules, black mules, red mules, but they all would need to be pretty mules.

i can see the sign now: Pretty Mules and Farm Dogs for sale at good prices.

maybe some side items like corn juice/apple juice. peaches, xmas trees, pumpkins.

some say the BMC are pretty much perfected as they are. maybe they could be more heavy??

i know my old Airedale vs coyote, Airedale had blood on him that wasn't his, found what was left of the coyote in the backyard.

well, there is that.

multiple answers i'm sure.

how to market the optimum answer?

will it be a one dog solution, or a multiple dog solution?

i'm concerned about the feist dogs who range afar. how to protect?

a feist dog is very good against possums, foxes, etc. but the woods are changing?

2 dogs are better than one .

Buy your feist a big brother , Tosa Inu .