Dogs are individuals with personalities; their reaction to a big cat may be a case of hell-with-this, I know there’s an issue here. Maybe one dog takes that tack and the rest follow.

Of course with that general dog-cat thing, I might expect an ocelot to elicit the same response. But they might be tougher to tree.

And yep, you might be right about hunters too. Might not make a lot of sense to you to kill your hunting experience by yapping.

Curious: why are mules a smart choice? I remember the first time I saw people on muleback, two hunters in the Flat Tops Wilderness in CO. I thought to myself: I didn’t know mules were good for that. But I’ve seen it a number of times since. There must be a reason, I just don’t know what it is.

I certainly have seen Glenn’s account. I’d forgotten about the circumstances under which it happened. But boy do I remember the photos. (Should have bought it, and don’t know why I didn’t.)

There are lots of variables to consider. Additionally, it wouldn’t surprise me if Arizona hunters would keep quiet about ocelot sightings because they’re worried about an endangered species interfering with their hunting rights. I suspect a lot of lion hunters would keep quiet about a jaguar sighting for that reason. Heck, a lot of lion hunters might not even know if their dogs treed an ocelot or another small-ish cat because they frequently follow their dogs in a truck, and only get out when a possible kill is imminent. Not very sporting in my mind. At least use horses (or a mule if you’re smart).

I wonder if Matt Bille is around as he lives in Sierra Vista, AZ (or used to). If you’re interested in Warner Glenn’s encounter with Macho A (as opposed to the ill-fated Macho B some of you have read about) check out his book “Eyes of Fire: Encounter with a Borderlands Jaguar.” Short piece with cool photos.
Jim Lyding
Walnut Creek, CA

Also some people interbreed other species of Cat with ordinary Housecats. Even Larger species of Cat than the Ocelot.

But when you interbreed animals, you do not know how their temperament will be. Interbreeding animals is Dangerous and can cause harm to you or others.

Actually, aren’t hounds conditioned to only follow sign of the animals they’re hunting? Would they even follow an ocelot track?

It’s possible that the jaguar encounters were as much serendipity as the result of the hounds’ pursuit. But I’m just asking, as I’m not sure about this.

One thing that makes me wonder why we don’t hear of more ocelot sightings in Arizona is that there is a lot of mountain lion hunting there. If ocelots were relatively common in southeastern Arizona I would expect a lot more of them to be treed by hunting hounds just as lion hunters were the first people to encounter jaguars in Arizona after supposedly being extirpated for decades.

However, I’d be surprised if there aren’t about a dozen ocelots in Arizona. The SE quadrant of Arizona has a lot of wild areas that see only a few people during a given year. The area between Superior and Globe is very rugged, and has a good (for Arizona) number of well-watered drainages and isolated mountains that range from upper Sonoran desert to pinyon-juniper woodland and even an aspen-Douglas fir forest on top of the Pinal Mountains just south of Globe. In other words, there is a wide variety of habitat that could support and hide ocelots.