I am a big Charles Dobbins fan. In his video "The Dirt Hole and It's Variations" Charles teaches that when a fox burries food in a dirt hole, he does not urinate at the hole, but rather, only urinates at the hole when he digs a food cache from the hole. He further states that the smell of urine at the dirt hole communicates to other canines that the food morsal has already been dug out and that when a canine approaches your set and smells urine, he will only give a quick look at the set, then move on.

Like many trappers, I've commonly and successfully used urine at my canine sets, but I wonder, based on Charles Dobbins teaching, which I firmly respect, how many canines have not worked my sets because of the use of urine at the set.

Anyone have a theory on this.

This makes perfect sense,why would a fox draw attention to It's buried food.
But maybe we are all making the dirt hole wrong.Maybe It should be plugged. No lure or urine just bait.

Since animals are all opertunists I guess they are hoping the critter that dug that hole left something behind. Thats why I feel It's important to have something In the hole that the animal can SEE. It just might make them take that extra step or two.
Trap Jaw Is probably right In his thinking about how many animals stand back and are satsified and never work a set.
Most of my sets are urine free,I just feel the bait and lure have enough appeal.

Also stop and think what else Charlie has said and i found out before i even knew Charlie. A plain fresh dirt hole with nothing in it will draw a canine to it to investigate it.

That's correct, but what's your take on using urine when using bait and/or lure at the dirt hole?

Mister Dobbins made some excellent observations. You can read more about this in his book “Great Teachers”. But let’s put on our thinking caps here and analyze this realistically.

Would you really want to make your “dirthole” to be the imitation of where a fox buried a food catch? I doubt it. Read the book. Charles once watched a fox (through a spotting scope) bury a piece of food. Charles went to find that buried food -- and could not find it. He knew within just a few feet where that food was buried, and he could not find it. The fox does not leave a “hole”. Using its nose, it flattens the ground out over top of the buried food.

So, if you are interested in making an “undisturbed” fox food cache set, forget about visual attractors. The set should be invisible when you are done. Also burying the food keeps the odors from dispersing so readily. So you better make sure you are exactly and tee-totally on location with this set. The target animal is going to have to walk right over top of it to find it. Remember, the fox is trying to hide this food so other animals cannot find it. From a trapper’s standpoint, making a set so the animals can’t find it is counter productive.

The typical dirthole, the one that looks like a hole is an imitation of where a fox dug up a food cache. So, the simple visual presence of the hole, is already an indicator that the food has been dug up. I don’t think the absence of urine changes the perception of that.

But the main thing to consider here is the universal attractive power of urine in canine trapping. You can squirt urine on a plain old rock or a plain old stick, and make a set out of that. And you can squirt urine on a plain old hole, and make that an attractive set for canines as well.

That said, I personally don’t use urine on every dirthole set I make. I just don’t think it is necessary. But sometimes I do use it because I really don’t think it hurts anything. In other words, I don’t think the presence of urine will cause an animal to not investigate a set.

-- Hal

I have raised hounds all my life and even before I read Charles book I noticed that when my dogs emptyed their feed dishes they urinated in the empty dishes, Then when I read the book It really made sence. Most of the dogs that did this were males I don't know if this is a perdominatly male thing or not I only ever had one female do it and she was the Alpha dog in my keep. She ruled the roost.

Hal, I followed up on this and you're right. I guess it would have been more appropriately stated as; when a canine comes accross a dirt hole and smells fox urine at the set, based on what I learned from Charles Dobbins teaching, the canine reads that odor as a sign that whatever food morsal was in the hole has been dug up.Therefore, would the use of fox urine create a situation where a certain percentage of canines would not work the set but rather take only a brief moment to smell the urine, then leave.

As a general rule in fox trapping you should have 2 sets within 10 feet of each other.So,I would set one up the way you normally do and leave the other without urine.If you always keep the one without the urine on the left you'll be able to keep acurate records of what is happening. The catch will show you what they prefer.I would also keep a record on adult catches verses pups.I personally don't use urine at dirt holes.I don't want adults associating my dirt holes with my flat sets by having the same urine at both

I don't remember who wrote this comment regarding "foxes using their nose to cover up a food cache".. maybe it was Charlie D. But it went something like this...' I might have to start saving fox noses when I'm skinning' conveying that there might be an attraction to foxes when out hunting trying to locate caches.
If this is the case it makes one wonder why bother with a hole??

Dated for search.