I have not had the dogs on a coyote for about two weeks now. I will blame it all on the weather as we have been out about 9 times in the last week. Anyway I thought that this would be a good questions to ask as there is alot of people on here just getting into decoy dogs and such as I am. I was out helping a rancher who lets me hunt open his road from all of the wind and blowing snow. I saw a coyote running for some heavy brush and I took a quick shot. I didnt think I hit him but I never saw him again. I turned three dogs out, Zipper(catahoula/black and tan), Kiya(catahoula), and beagle. Pretty soon the coyote and the three dogs came out of the heavy brush. The coyote was not wounded and I didnt think the dogs would catch it. But I figured they havent been on a coyote in a while, there is no roads, buildings, I am in the middle of now place. So I let them run while I sat and waited till they came back. They ran a long ways I dont know if they cought the coyote or not. But did I help them or hurt them in their training?

I would have turned them out, and let them run as far as they wanted to. If it was wounded, they would have caught it, but if they never get to chase, they get "soft".
I let mine run yotes all the time,some they catch, some get away.But when I send them I know that they will give it thier best.

I was hopin it would help. We were a long way from anything and I let them run till they came back on there own.

We all do things diff, but I think you did the right thing.

Dustballs,

For another point of view, I prefer my dogs not to run the coyotes. Not because it isn't good for them but because if I don't kill a coyote on the stand, I'm ready to move to the next stand and begin the sequence all over again. The more stands I call, the more coyotes get killed. It's strictly a time matter with me.

So, once you figure out how you want to hunt coyotes with dogs, adjust the dogs hunting accordingly.

Mike makes a good point, If you are "decoyin only", its not a good habit for the dogs to get into.
In my case, I run as many as I decoy.Once in awhile, my dogs will run a "nonhit" yote, and I have to wait for them to come back before I go to the next stand. But for me its worth it to know that when a yote is in my calves, my dogs will run it with full intent of catchin and killing it.
Thats the great thing about running dogs, we all have a style, and type of dog that works for us.
By the way, If you wanna stop Zipper from running yotes, you got some work cut out for ya. HaHa!!!

Thanks for the replies. You got that right about Zipper. I was not going to shoot over the dogs heads and he had his collar on. I could have beeped him and he would have came back but I thought I would let them have some fun.