History
Oak Ridge Kennels was founded in 1978 when I purchased my first registered dog of my own. I grew up hunting with hounds, bird dogs, and beagles. I purchased my first hound of my own in 1978, a female pup out of Russ Bellar's Ky. River Strick (Striker), named Oak Ridge Anne. Anne never really amounted to much. Probably still one of the most outstanding track running dogs that I've owned to date...but the majority of tracks she ran would never be able to climb a tree.....she was an outstanding fox, and deer dog....and I after two years, I gave up on her and started my search for a REAL coondog.
Oh, we had dogs that would tree coon, and I remember well standing at the base of a tree with the other dogs and Anne running across the country side with that screaming bawl...smoking something across country.
Over the past 30 years, we have gone through several transititons. Taking a break from competition hunting coon hounds, but not coon hunting, while my kids were young, and to the types of dogs that we have followed. I believe that we have settled on the type of dogs that we will be following for years to come.
Philosopy
Here at Oak Ridge Kennels, we believe that there is no real difference between pleasure dogs and competition dogs. A dog that is a pleasure to hunt during the week, should be the same dog that you can take to a competition hunt on the weekend and you should be able to win with that same dog.
Too many times today we hear "that's a nice dog, but not a competition dog".... I've never figured out what that means, but my observation is that the "nice" dog has some holes in it..... and you usually find that the dog is not hunted much during the week, and you peel back the layers, and the owner is looking for a "better" dog.
Our founding principles are based upon the very basic elements that make a pleasurable dog to hunt:
- The dog must be a pleasure at home. Too many dogs are setting in the kennel with a bark collar on to keep them quiet. The dog must be your friend, and they must want to please you.
- The dog must be a pleasure in the woods. Knowing their name and responding to it is a must. The ability to call the dog to you is not a luxury...it is a necessity
- Hunt..the dog must have a desire for two things....one is to please you, the other is to go hunting. Game drive must only be surpassed by the desire to please you.
- Game Drive: This is the quality that separates the honest dogs from the tree liars.....
- Tree dogs? I truly believe that we have bred all the tree into our dogs that we need, and it's time to start changing the way we train our young dogs. Capitolizing on the game drive, not on the treeing instinct. I have long since abandoned counting how many barks per minute the dog trees, but instead have focused on the game drive along with the treeing ability and instinct.
- Track dogs. Lets face it, not every time we turn the dogs loose are we going to have an easy time finding a coon track. The later in the night, often the tougher time we have finding tracks to tree....why is that? Over the course of 15 to 20 years of selective breeding for some traits, we have sacrificed other traits. One of the earliest to go was track running.
If you have a dog that is a pleasure to have at the house, is willing to please you, is a pleasure to be with in the woods, has an incredible game drive, can run a track and will tree.....what more could you ask for?
Check out our selective breeding evaluation .
Location
We are situated in the northern part of Indiana, some of the heaviest coon population in the country. We enjoy pleasure hunting in the small "patch" woods of the agricultural areas of home. We do however spend most of our nights in the larger tracts of timber on public ground, or the river bottoms that are to be found in our area.
Competition hunting allows us to travel to different areas, hunt different terrain, and with different folks.
As always, we welcome folks to come and enjoy the great outdoors with us. Bring your boots, your light, and a light heart....we'll cut em loose and let the dogs do the talking!