There are reasons to use coons for training a decoy dog, like to fire up the game drive in a pup and maybe to teach a pup what end has teeth and means business... other than that, the dog will learn very little that will help it with coyotes.

When I ran curs, I used them for both decoying coyotes and treeing game. They did well at both. If this is the plan, coons are valuable training aids and very worthy quarry for young dogs. They learn to strike, run and tree their own game and once they start to figure coons out, they have the foundation to go on to cats and bears.

If all you're ever going to do is decoy with your dog, coons are useless in your young dogs training (Except for teaching a young dog how to fight smart).

As far as decoy dogs NOT needing to know how to fight...? Anyone that believes that, needs to go call more coyotes in to their dogs. Sooner or later your dogs are going to get caught by coyotes that mean business. Coyotes are very territorial and when they answer your challenge howl and come on the run, they're not coming to introduce themselves and shake hands.

Some coyotes will see your dog and turn tail and run, some WILL NOT! I want my dog to be ready for a fight and that is why I bring them up the ranks learning to fight other critters.

If you take a green, year or so old pup out and run into a big, aggressive male yote... You'll wish you had gave him some preliminary bouts beforehand, with something more manageable and so will he. That's a real good way to ruin a promising young dog.

This isn't rocket science, it's common sense. It's all about exposure to game and setting them up for success. Take the right pup, raise it right and you'll be amazed at what that dog will learn to do.

Take care and happy hunting!

some very good insight catdawg but isnt that where a decoy dog decoys them back? nipping there a$$ aint gonna kill a dog, maybe the handler should of recalled sooner?i guess if a fella is just taking pictures,yes but if the handler is toting a firearm? i no i'm speaking out of turn but rockinbar's schnauzer has made it work for alot of coyotes.i see lots of pics of decoy dogs and there aint none of them scarred up like they have been fighting. maybe the coyotes around here are different? dont know, maybe every body see's fighting/ defending at different levels?has anyone on here that decoys coyotes ever lost one to coyotes killing them?

fight or flight...

Hate to see folks get upset. I feel like the process here has yielded some really good discussion which brought out some well articulated info. Sure was valuable to me. Isn't that what this is all about?

You know how some dogs hate to turn loose after they get ahold.

I love that about Terriers ....... and their owners.

You don't run decoy dogs.....so why do you continue to act as though you know coyote behavior with regards to decoy dogs ? Starting to piss me off.

i have ran her like a trail hound many times pushing creek bottoms and moving several coyotes