Catahoula Puppies

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Bijeaux II pups @ 7 weeks

OK, it is time for them to go to their new momas and daddies...

They got their eyes on me and some are following me around the yard...

These are not cute little sit around and do nothings because I am already starting to see em jumping for joy, just like moma does!

The 3 leopards below are all male, and one of the blacks is one too.

I would like to show you more photos of Bijeaux II, but she is camera shy,

so below we have a new guest who just came to visit. And I think the owner said he was 8 months.

This is an example of what your dog can look like come deer season later this year, if you was to get a pup now to be your blood tracking dog for the next season coming up.

But back to Bijeaux's pups... they are already following me around the yard, and getting to the gate on the driveway, which is like a 100 yards from their kennel.

Alert, gamey and well focused these are super pets, and come hunting season they want to go everywhere you go.

In fact the more you make them a part of everything you do in the off season, the better in the long run for a working dog because they are comfortable around you 24/7 and know your program.

I get people who want a working dog, but don't have time for them, and wonder why the dog isn't everything they hoped for come hunting season. But the dog never went anywhere or did anything in the off season, except hang out in a stinking kennel and rarely was even let out to twist out and just be a free dog. Then the same dog goes to someone who spends time with it and the former owner regrets "getting rid of em", because he likes the way the dog 'acts' with the new owner. And we hear stuff like: "If I had knew he would turn out like that, I would have kept him." Hello? If YOU had kept him, he would NOT have turned out like that, because you don't put nothin into a dog except some store bought dog food!

Here is how an old timer put it to me: "A hog dog is only as good as the man hunting him."

This is Luke above and Kesahla below center who were just recently bred and should have some very interesting pups coming in this spring.

Below is Bijeaux II and you can see in her eye she don't like this camera stuff, but is just tolerating me so I will go away.

I am located in Lafayette Louisiana about 2 hrs. east of Houston, and 1 hr. west of Baton Rouge on I-10.

I can be reached by cell phone at 337 298 2630 if you want to talk Catahoula, and I am not always carrying the phone, but I will not be doing swamp tours until further notice due to the drama at the lake is more than I am willing to subject myself to, so I am with my dogs on the ground @ home almost 24/7.

And as a result of that lifestyle adjustment on my part, I will have time to talk this spring. So give me a call and lets see if we can match you with the right dog for your lifestyle, facilities, family, and working dog program.

I place my dogs with Viet Nam vets who are suffering from PTSD and they tell me the dog is the best remedy and therapy they have ever had for their disorder.

Also recently I began placing Catahoulas with more families wanting a companion pet for their autistic child for theuraputic reasons and we are getting great results with that too.

Lately I am hearing a lot of people tell me they have been calling all the best breeders and hearing the same thing:"I am not breeding AND selling to the public." OK, now lets analyse this. It does not mean they are not breeding, just that they are fed up with the disrespect of dealing with the public. And I am advising everyone that I am doing my best to fill in on the demand and send some well bred dogs out to the right people, but the more I get to know people, the more I like my Catahoulas! So nothing personal, but I hope you are smiling too and we are on the same page!

Is it just me, or does it seem that too many people grew up watching too much Jerry Springer?

Anyway that may be the subject of a different blog...

I will be getting more puppy pictures up asap as the demand for them seems to never end.

Monday, February 1, 2016

Bijeaux II is solid Black just like her sire, Cutty Dark

Below we have a solid brown female with white tip toes, and what appears to be double glass eyes, but please do not jump to conclusions here,these pups @ 3 1/2 weeks ALL have blue eyes!

And this litter once again proves that breeding for dark colors instead of blue eyes

creates leopard spots AND some blue eyes without the excessive white and all that deaf and blind stuff you read about on the internet. This method of breeding also resulting in a few solid color dogs along with the leopards as you can see in these photos. Because I breed for performance, I get plenty of people who have not have good results with those flashy 'breed for show' dogs NOT working right as a cow dog or hog dog and want a solid black or the black and tan because "that seemed to work better". My reputation for breeding well balanced, easy going, but hard working dogs allows me to breed and market for performance, and as a result, I get a lot of calls for the solid dogs, and I have no problem "getting rid of 'em".

Now people, I don't care WHAT COLOR they are, if they are breed right, they will work because there are no culls in the 'high' breed dogs, because they are all high performance. Though they may be late bloomers and sometimes be 2 or 3 years before coming into their own, if you got a dog to be a cow dog or a hog dog that was breed right, and you give it time, it will in it's OWN TIME fire off and there ain't no looking back. However most of the time we need to keep these little critters out of harms way for 2 or 3 years so they can survive what will ultimately be a test in the wild with something that is a skilled dog killer, the wild hog.

But, it would appear too many of us want to believe we are 'training' or making them be a hog dog or a pet, when in fact if it wasn't breed to be a bay dog, or a family pet, you ain't, and let me say it again, you ain't gonna put it in em! In this case, with the right people, they can go either way, becausre I breed for balance.

I am Marcus de la Houssaye, and I can be reached at 337 298 2630 if you want to talk Catahoula.

Red girl and Rock female wit double glass eyes

Rivers and Cutty Dark glass-eyed female

Thursday, January 28, 2016

A FEW WORDS OF ADVISE

I am once again confronted by people who do not know how to treat their animals for parasites.

I have a lot of animals, grew up on a farm with lots of animals such as horses, cows, dogs, chickens and ducks. The result of this is I have veterinarians in the family but I do most of my treatments personally rather than visiting a vet because that is what I have always done for over 50 years.

Like heartworm prevention, I buy 1,000 doses at a time as you can see in the bottle above and at 50 bucks for a 500 ml, that calculates at 5 cents per dose. Meaning it costs me 60 cents a year per dog if I treat my dog with 1/2 cc of Ivermec per month which is recommended by the manufacturer.

And how much does your office visits and meds cost you per year per dog to prevent heartworms?

The point I want to make here is: What do you do when you can't afford to go to the vet?

Let your dog go without treatment? Or MY ADVISE: learn how to do it yourself

AND SAVE MONEY AT THE SAME TIME!

Below is a tube of Panacur, active ingredient; fenbendazole, and this is used to treat intestinal worms,

NOT heartworms.

Fenbendazole is the same ingredient in Safeguard(below) and both brands are owned by a corporation called Merck Animal Health. A 25 gram tube(above) is $14 at the General Vet Supply store about 2 miles from my house. Below you can see a 290 gram tube I use to refill the 25 gram one and that 290 gram purchase runs me about 50 bucks meaning I get about 4 times a much for the same money when I buy in bulk and refill.

My advise here is learn to do your own vet worm treatments at home and don't miss a treatment just because you ain't got the money OR TIME to go to the vet!

OK, here is another thing people waste a lot of money attempting to control: fleas!

And I have a very effective, non-toxic, economical remedy. As you can see in the photo below, Dr. Bronners Castille Soap, one with eucalyptus, and the other with tea tree oil. Both are effective at repelling fleas, ticks, mange and ear mites that I am amazed it took me so long to try this on the dogs.

And the best part about this is in the wintertime when I do not like to get my dogs wet for bathing I can spray them with a 15-1 dilution of this soap with water and just spray a lite mist upon the top of the dog, and no fleas, AND also they always look clean and have a shiney coat.

Now I am offering this word of advise because I have always had people who do not worm their dogs unless they go to the vet, and along the way, they "get behind schedule on the worming"
and the dog goes down. Well one such couple came from Grand Junction, Colorado and bought 4 puppies to be cow dogs on their ranch. Well about a month after they got back they called me and told me their dogs had hook worms and I asked if they were worming them. They replied no because they don't worm as much in Colorado as we do in Louisiana. I said yes but you came to south Louisiana where I told you we have a lot of parasites in the environment and to worm these babies once a week with Panacur. Being a working cowboy, he was familiar with Panacur. I thought we had an understanding about worming these babies every week?

Well apparently there is a lot more worms in the environment here than at 5,000 foot elevation in the Colorado Rockies, and my cowboy friend acted like he had bought the puppies there, not in Cajun Country.

The result these puppies almost died from parasite infestation.

Last week a couple moved to south Louisiana from California and went to the vet for a rabies vaccination and the vet asked about worming. They didn't want to worm the dog because there were no worms in the environment in California where they came from like here in south Louisiana. The vet being undaunted in his conclusions offered a FREE examination to PROVE the dog needed worming and came back and said you are right, you dog does NOT have worms! He was surprised because based upon his veterinarian practice, dogs ALWAYS have worms here in Cajun country, and he can then charge you for something he knew BEFORE he tested, and then there is the treatment and the meds, and the follow up visit, etc, etc,etc. All this based upon your being ignorant of how to worm you puppies or dogs at home.

The point I am trying to make here is that just because the cowboy doesn't worm his dogs every month like we do in Louisiana doesnt mean he should NOT follow my advise and worm the puppies EVERY WEEK for the first couple of months. Why? Because he BOUGHT them here and brought them to Colorado, and they had worms when they got there. It is unavoidable to have/OR BUY a dog in Louisiana and it not have worms! Treat them at home, and treat them often!

In my opinion going to the vet every two weeks for worming is expensive and a lot can go wrong if you do not PROPERLY worm according to your climate and local environment.