EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

From day one of deciding this is what I wanted to do I've had my eyes open.... watching for any dog that is better than what I got to do things the way I like to do...

Having said that, I've collected what I feel are the best genetics that I've been around... not that there aren't dogs out there that make what I'm workin' with look like chit... but... the best that I've had access to....

I love these dogs I have now... but every day I'm lookin' for that "better" dog, be it a old line bred dog or a wild dog runnin' loose in the woods... I will hunt and incorporate into my program any dog I feel brings something to the table... not unlike who I choose to hunt with...

Having said that ... the longer I've been huntin', the more I'm startin' to wonder if it's not simply more experience(when dealing with a competent dog) that makes the difference...  Seen some awful good dogs that weren't bred to the hilt... but they'd been on a LOT of hogs... and it showed...

I can't speak for everyone but experience has been everything for me. I like to think I have a good eye for stock in general but I'm not a natural. I know a few though.

I wouldn't trade my time at the school of hard knocks for the finest bred dogs in the world. If I did, by the time I was through with them, they would be just a bunch of watered down pot lickers!  ;)

When it's all said and done, I can't help but notice the best dogs I've been around were those with massive amounts of time put into them... maybe as important, if not more, than the breeding of the dog?

yur right time in woods and lots of catching hogs not dry runs,and letting pups chew on hogs,some times my buddys ty all dogs up and let the hog and pups run it or hobble 2 legs and let them hold and bay it, but your right lots of woods time

Two breeders that I truly respect told me that it helps. That's it...........it helps. Lol. No more elaboration on the subject. Like you say, they put a massive amount of time in behind their dogs though.

I think that's the difference between folks like that and me. They know what they have when they have it. I have to spend time to figure it out.

I agree that woods time will definitely make a dog better IF you have a dog that has the want to. But I don't think it's the main thing that makes a dog , I think it's more important to linebreed on dogs you like and produce dogs with that want to and then the woods time will make them better and better..

Glad you posted this; been wondering that myself. Actually just purchased a finished mt. curr almost solely because of her experience and tendency to try and train younger dogs. The seller was given this dog by a guy who was given this dog by another guy who said she was a cull and probably wouldn't make even a yard dog. So he (the seller) spent the last three years hunting the crap out of this little dog and now at five years old I feel lucky to have her. Supposably she is a juke box??? IDK what that is. So IDK if she's well bred or not, but I think given the right chance at the right time anything's possible.

Well, hunting time is important but I got a dog back from my brother that was 2 years old and he was a back yard dog since he was 10 weeks old. I already had him baying shoats and trailing short drags as a pup. My Brother was going to make a blood trailing dog out of him but never started training.

At 2 years of age I put him in a bay pen twice in one week and took him to the woods and he was striking hogs from then on. He was as good as my other dogs within a month or two.

My opinion is that we can't train long range winding ability or cold trailing if the dog is not inclined to do so. We can't train hunting range or the ability to strike and find hogs. I believe that thru repetition and training we can bring out the best in a dog and his ability is dependant mostly by  genetics.

Juke box bred dogs are supposed to be real hard hunting coon and squirrel dogs. I bet she would put out some good pups if she is bred JB top and bottom.

Ahhhh.... but what if I said that I believe all dogs posess the same basic fundamental skills/instincts....

... if one dog can smell one molecule out of a thousand and another can smell one in 1100... I say they can both smell a hog  ;D

I've personally seen more trained hog dogs than purposefully genetic hog dogs.... as far as dogs I consider true hog dogs...

I believe we can tweak a dog through breeding to "start earlier", "hustle more", "take a colder track", etc... but I am really startin' to believe at some point you just got to pick one out and put the time in to make it great.

This is what the breeders I revered to were getting at. A lot of hunting time helps but they didn't put an emphasis on it.
I happen to agree. I know of a few fine dogs that hardly ever get worked but when they do get hauled, you better have a good breakfast under your belt. They never miss a beat.

Thanks Reuben. Noah, I think yer on to something here. So could having too many dogs keep one or two from being great due to lack of time?  I mean younger dogs not finished and with very little experience on pigs. I only kept one pup out of my litter thinking along these lines.

Bingo  ;)   With more dogs than time to hunt I'm in that situation...

Pen full of good dogs or a couple of great ones.... make a man second guess hisself  ;D

You can't make a dog hunt!
If the dog has the drive and want too you can improve his abilities by keeping them in the woods.
I've went through the SUPER BREEDERS out there and have realized if you will do alittle homework and breed what your looking for and make your own dogs you will be alot happier in the long run.

If I can get 2 really good pups out of a litter of 6 or so,I feel like I've done good.
I look more in a young to have drive and sticking power than Bloodline.
Im always breeding my females and looking for the 1 super pup.
I've given away several complete litters that I did'nt think would make the cut.

I have a hand that works for me 6 days a week and his job every morning is to work the young dogs in my 5 acre bay pen.
This allows me to descide which ones will make the cut alot sooner than most.
This works for us.

If you don't cull real hard you will never get what your looking for.

Gotta disagree(sorry Reuben  ;D)  ....

Dogs are EXTREMELY intelligent and a good trainer can teach a dog to do about anything.... including hunt...

Noah, I believe that we breed style, drive, and consistency/uniformity. The work is what makes the dog. Experience in the field is the icing on the genetic cake so to speak. A good breeder spends alot of time training and hunting, if you have good genetics and a good eye for selecting, then you are going to produce consistently solid dogs.

Noah,

I have 2 pits Im going to send to ya.
I would like for them both to bay and get them to range out a little farther, They are both alittle close range for me. ;D

Well, I guess that leaves me out of the "good trainer" category. In better than 25 years of hunting dogs, I have not figured out how to train a dog to hunt.

I agree... just trying to explain to myself how the nothing-bred dogs I've been around became hog dogs... cuz it dang sure wasn't genetics...

Know an old outlaw that right now I could take a golden retriever to and in a couple yrs he'd be a top notch hog dog... some people can just make a dog...

Haha!  ...You do realize I am an ex-horse trainer...  ;D  For the right  $$  I can train those pits to do anything you want  ;)

Ya,Ya,Ya rolleyes

Noah,

How far are you from Cocoa,Fl

I just ordered a new Diamondback Airboat.
Should be ready around the 12th of May.
Coming down there for a week or so.

Noah, no need to apologize...I do respect and usually agree with how you think...

I will give this example

I purchase a well bred basset hound and would like to train him to run against the greyhounds and I am very rich. I hire the best dog track trainer and I spend millions on training and feeding my dog.

You have a proven line of racing greyhounds and after a year we meet up and have that race.

It doesn't matter how much money or that I had the best trainer in the world you know the end result. The greyhound won and my Basset is still a slow Basset compared to the racing dogs but might be the fastest Basset around. ;D

Either way he is still a cull when it comes to racing.

I bred hard hunting long range hog dogs.

Now I am going to focus on breeding gritty stop a hog quick type of dogs. The type of dog I envision is a dog that will basically run a hog a long ways if needed but should stop it at the first oppurtunity. I think that these dogs will not have that cold nose but I will be looking to get as cold a nose as possible.

I think that the average dog can smell about the same but it is genetics that decides whether a dog responds to the scent or not. Strictly my opinion, just my belief.

Ive got a pomeranian, a sh!tzu, and a chihuahua id like to have as my new pack....they shouldnt eat too much and be good in the thickets if trained right.... how long would it take him to have em ready???

'Bout an hour 45 from where I hunt...

Ask the shop manager if he knows Noah... he and I caught some cattle together on a river a while back  ;D  ... He makes some fine boats!!!

Shop Manager?
Bobby=Owner?
Scooter=Manager?

They are some nice boats this will be my 5th Diamondback from them.

Alright, alright... if yall are gonna give me a basset hound and a chitzu as proof that they can't be trained to be a hog dog... well, that just ain't fair  ;D

I agree that one(including myself) wants to start with the best available to him... but my point is that at some point, good training takes some dogs beyond genetic predisposition.

Kessling, can't remember his name to save my life... older guy, 65ish,  soft spoken, wears an old mini brim "cracker style" black felt hat... hell of a nice guy... he used to be a big hog hunter, now his son does a lot down thata way.... if he even still works there, been a few yrs since I saw him

ok wait a minute i have read this and correct me if im wrong noah, maybe this is an example of what the genuis is trying to say in laymens terms? he had his ellie dog which i read on here a long time ago was a mix breed coyote dog his wife picked up in front of a grocery store? now we all have heard this story many times... noah put this dog in the woods countless hours and many miles on hogs she learned that he wanted her to stop and bay hogs so over time and many moons this dog and noah found and stoped and bayed many of hog. now that dog was not line breed she was just a stray. but she wanted to please her master and with alot of woods time and a good dogman she made a dog. is that the point???

x2

Noah, what type of horses did you train and for what?

Can someone give examples of how you train a dog to hunt, or train one to hunt better?

My "training" (if thats what you choose to call it) has always solely consisted of providing repeated exposure to allow the dog to develop and refine the skills that he/she was born with.  I have raised a lot of puppies over the years, and to this day have been unable to make one hunt to my satisfaction that wasn't born with the desire to do so.

I can take a set of pups at +/- 8 months old to the woods that have never had a hand on them, turn them loose and sit on the tailgate watching for a while and within about 5 times of doing this tell which ones were born with it.  So far in the litters I have raised, I haven't been wrong.
 

I have culled some of the So called best lines out there because they did not have enough hunt.

I have a buddy that came to me in 2004 and said he found the best line of BMC's out there and the breeder guarantees them ALL to turn out.
He wanted to buy the whole litter(7) and talked me into partnering with him.
We pd alot for these pups.
Out of 7 pups my buddy still has 1 left and I would not feed her to this day.

Bottom line is "If a dog don't have the drive to hunt" It does'nt matter what line they are from.
Most of your great dogs are not ones that were hunted once or twice a month and sitting on the chain the rest of the time.
They are the ones that belong to owners that have countless hours in the woods.
And yes there is exceptions to all.

What you said here proves how the "want to" of a dog is what it really takes. Even those nothing bred dogs that have the want to can make a hogdog, I've seen dogs from the pound make a dog.  But without that want to I don't believe any man can train a dog to hunt or be a hogdog. If you figure it out you can ride around picking up stray dogs and in no time be a rich man..
When you do get that dog with the want to and you want to capitalize on it and reproduce it then linebreeding is what will do it. Take him and breed him to a linebred female that's what you like and linebreed from there, That's what will give you consistant hogdogs. But take that dog and breed him to a bunch of non related scatterbred dogs and you will be spinnin your wheels and no amount of training will make your wagon roll, IMO...

That right there is all you need to hear to know someone is full of BS..

Start your own and CULL HARD. You will be happier in a couple of years.

Another thing I might add, is people have to keep in mind when breeding that your not necessarily breeding the dog in front of you as much as you are breeding all that is behind that dog.  You chances of taking a scatterbred dog, breeding it and having it reproduce itself with much consistancy are VERY slim.  If that superstar dog comes from a line of so-so dogs, or if that dogs parents and it's littermates are just so-so dogs, good luck is all I'm going to say.

I'm also always on the prowl for better, but what interests me more than any particular dog is a particular line and I'm not speaking of a "registry" or "registered dogs" or anything like that.  I want to know a dogs ancestry...how it's parents and grandparents hunted.  What are it's littermates like?  How tightly bred is the dog?  Knowing this information will give you a lot better idea of what to expect.

I've said it before, but I'll breed a so-so dog from a bad to the bone, established, linebred line anyday before I'll breed to a scatterbred superstar.  Just my $.02

x2 you about said it all right there. 8) :)

This a good post

I asked an "old timer" one time. What to do to make a hog dog? He said, "Son, you gatta' wear out a pair a'boots"

Coyotes have to "hunt" to survive, so ofcourse they are born with the "want to"......

Replace the "want to" with "have to"

Yep, and mother nature has been culling the coyotes for thousands if not millions of generations. A coyote does not need an 8 in 1 shot and if it don't hunt it don't eat etc. etc. If it doesn't meet the coyote standard it won't live to reproduce it's kind.

What ever you want to call it , they have it.... and if you breed another dog or coyote with it, it will most likely have it too... therefore, it is "Bred" into it, not trained....

If everyone would cull as hard as mother nature there would be more good dogs around..

Not just dogs people too.

x2 .... but if a dog can be "trained" to hunt, like they say, then why do we have culls?

If you cull a dog because it wont hunt, then isnt it your fault for not being a good enough trainer?

If you cull a dog because it wont hunt, then isnt it your fault for not being a good enough trainer?


[/quote]




Maybe yes...Maybe no...

this is very intresting here is my take, no you cant make a dog hunt. you can cull the thing if it dont but you can provide the best chances for the dog by putting it on hogs, in sign etc.. another words putting time and energy in it not just pulling up to a fedder casting a dog and if it dont roll out and find a dog then call it a cull? i mean put the dog in some hogs over and over. a dog man will know when an individual dog should be doing something i mean is there a set standard? every dog is different there are so many varrible.. but i have heard this line breed theory for so long and i know your chances are better but you still inherit some problems. if it was the perfect solution then there wouldnt be so many different people trying to find better dogs all the time? you would just buy you a linebreed dog and catch pigs right?

OK... here I go...  ;D

Here's the deal.  There's horse riders then there's trainers... just as there's dog hunters and dog trainers.... But not all trainers are created equal...

As a trainer, one can usually spot out the "great" trainers from the herd... They are the ones that usually seem to have the best animals.... because they are genetically superior animals or because the animal has been trained to be superior by a good trainer?.... truly an un-answerable question...

I've spent a good portion of my life studying this type of trainer.... and I've had the priveledge to spend time with some of the best out there...  Here's a story that might help exlplain where I'm coming from...

Hands down, the biggest influence in my career as an animal trainer was a man named Pat Parelli... As close to genius as I have known to this day.  The man was, quite simply, on another level, dimension if you will, of thinking and of animal psychology...  Saw a video of him riding horses bareback, bridleless, doing advanced reining maneuvers... jumping fences... cutting.... you name it...  THAT captured my imagination and for the first time, opened my eyes to what was possible with the right training...

In school at UF for engineering at the time... I basically knew nothing about horses, growing up on the ocean(son of a commercial fisherman out of Tampa Bay) I had little experience with livestock to that point, but I fell in love with the idea of it immediately... that was all the incentive I needed to pull out and head west to try to learn this radical new training technique... little did I know this "new" training technique was not all that new... just forgotton in a modern world.  Xenophon(350 BC) is testament to that...

Went to work for him as a hired hand that summer... oblivious to what I'd gotten myself into  ;D  I knew that I wanted to be able to train a horse to do what he could do but never could have imagined how much more I'd come away with... The first couple mnths I spent building his new international study center in Pagosa, CO... I'd taken my own horse, Beaver, a 3yo foundation bred gelding, out there with me... worked from sun up to sun down 7 days a wk for no wages... my salary was nothing more than food(vegetarian at that...which I secretly supplemented with grouse I gathered in the forest  ;D) and board... and the opportunity to learn from the master... a master that was over in Australia teaching while I was breaking my back  rolleyes ;D...

The "international study center" we were constructing in a valley amongst the Rocky Mountains, was just that... Wealthy, overly intelligent, scholars of animal psychology from around the world actually PAID to come over to "talk dogs".... er... I mean "horses".... basically it was the same thing we do here... like minded souls getting together to form a think tank to stimulate each other to a higher level of understanding of what it is we do... and what it is that might be possible...

I remember the first day I met him... there's certain people in life that have an "energy" to them... you know it when you see it.  Eccentric, unorthadox, brilliant... sometimes seemingly insane... within a few wks his right hand man and I had a fallin' out that got perty ugly...  ;).... the next mornin' that same man was made to come apologize to me and ask if I wanted his position...  ;D... Was his shadow from that point on... absorbing all of it as fast as I could...

I was granted access to true genius.... What I learned was "how to learn".... more important than any "trick" in the book...

....To be continued... got to go to work... If this does not make any sense to you then it was not meant for you and I apologize for wasting your time.





 

You have an advantage coming from this type of horse background as a dog trainer. You learn to controll your emotions and to be ultra sencitive to body language and timing of the release and the preasure.

Noah, instead of quoting your "book", ill just reply...  ;D

It sounds to me like this guy was good at bringing out the best in the horse....
Give him a Shetland Pony and let him train it to race... no matter how much training you put into it, it will never beat even the sorriest of race horses....

Just like with dogs, a good trainer can bring out the best in a dog with extensive training and exposure....
But If the dog doesnt have the hunt or want to, it will never perform at a level that meets a trainers expectations.... therfore we have culls....

oh and by the way, that guy must have been a REAL genius to have your working all those hours and days for a few pieces of lettuce..  :D J/K!!

How about that zebra you busted Noah?! Lol ;D

False alarm... may I continue...  ;D


Understood as only a trainer could understand...

T.wilbanks... I ain't got to my point yet...  ;) ;D


SO.... Basic animal psychology 101....

"When training all living things, make desireable actions easy... undesireable actions difficult... consistency over time creates ingrained habits unbeknownst to said specimen"...   Pavlov's dog at it's most simple...

Pavlov was a pioneering Russian psychologist from the late 1800's(sorry if you've heard this story, but a lot here I'm sure have not)... basically, ol' Pavlov took a dog and cut a hole in the side of his jaw to it's salivary glands... stitching in a tube for drainage...

Each day Pavlov would ring a bell, then feed the dog... day after day...

One day he rang the bell but no feed... the tube began to drip immediately... and thereby showing a fundamental basic of psychology... conditioned response...

As my psych professer told the story to me... "Pavlov rang the bell and beat the chit out of the dog... after a couple days... every time Pavlov rang the bell... the dog chit all over hisself...  ;D"  .... graphic, yes... but to the point.

When you truly understand the power of psychology you can train anything to do anything.... limited only by physical ability(I.E. a basset hound entering a grey hound race...  rolleyes...) ... and the amount of effort you're willing to put into it  ;)

I'll give your brain a break...  ;D  (Bo-Ninja I'm still tryin' to forget about that son of a bitch thank you very much  ;D)
 

I am not a great writer, so hopefully this all makes sense….if it is rambling I apologize but I am most definitely enjoying reading this thread -  GOOD STUFF!


Noah, I always enjoy your posts, they make me think and are extremely insightful....almost philosophical and I cannot wait to hear the rest of your story.

I often ponder the same thing…..is it genetic, a learned behavior or a combination?  All dogs have prey drive in them, some more than others obviously and I don’t think that can ever be bred out of them.  The smelling/winding (whatever you want to call it) ability IMO is part of that prey drive once needed for survival but it also must be a learned behavior in some sense.  

As an example, a coyote puppy does not hit the ground hunting but they do hit the ground smelling…..they have to learn how to hone that sense of smell, control it, associate it with prey and follow through to a kill.  

Another example, I got a wild hair a few years ago I wanted a house dog (wrong).  I searched high and low for a cocker spaniel….drove a few hours away to pick him up.  He was a two year old PURE city dweller that they were going to use to have puppies but his puppies were HUGE so they decided he didn’t fit the “bill”.  Well, I got him home and after combing his fuzzy hair, washing him every other day and then him dragging his rump across my carpet he soon became an outside dog.  

We were working puppies one day and out of nowhere this little liver and white fur ball comes flying under the board fence and starts baying like a champ….when the puppies caught, he caught.  I made the comment to my husband that we could shave him and put him in the sugar cane since he was so small….but unfortunately he ate a cane toad a few weeks later but I am pretty sure I could have had him finding hogs.

My husband also had two little mutt dogs, one was part cocker spaniel and the other was part austrailian sheppard that I think his brothers had drug home or something….they were of no special breeding but were both hog finding/baying maniacs ……was it genetics or just that prey drive that all dogs posess with a little fine tuning?

I believe that a seasoned trainer can access parts of an animal (horse, dog, etc) that others cannot, whether it is from either lack of knowledge, patience or a combination thereof.  They can take a genetically superior animal and make it into a superstar by optimizing that animals capabilities and I also believe that they can take a less than genetically superior animal (conformationally correct or equal, just genetically lacking super stardom) and turn them into a hand….at times they even turn out better than that tight bred, genetically superior animal.



I guarantee you if he had that Shetland he could train him to race without a doubt….now as far as winning you are correct, he would never beat even the sorriest race horse because he isn’t built to run against something who's legs are two times longer but that doesn’t mean he isn’t trainable....you are just setting him up to lose because they are not conformationally equal.  

That is almost like taking a gritty little Chihuahua and expecting him to hold a 200lb hog….he may lock on until all freezes over but he isn’t going to hold him because he isn’t conformationally equal to that big bull dog or gritty curr dog that could stand there and hold him.


I couldn’t agree more….

Spaniels and Aulstralian Shepards have both been bred as working dogs... so they should have drive to them....

Also, your dogs showed to have the "drive" in them, you just showed them what you wanted them to hunt.....
They werent "trained" to have the drive.... You cant force the dog to hunt no matter how much time and training you put
into it.... it has to WANT TO HUNT!!!!

We are never gonna agree on this are we!!  :-\  ;D


 

If you look back, almost every (distinct) breed had a purpose with some sort of necessary prey drive, whether it was herding or hunting of any given type of game.  Some have just about had it bred out of them for pet and show animals because it isnt needed....but if given the opportunity you can almost always tap that natural instinct, some will excel and others will fail miserably just as not every coyote pup wouldnt make it.

Thankyou hogaholicswife... you and I on the same page  ;) ;D



Now here is a "wrap your head around this chit concept".... hopefully I can adequately describe it...

So... I was out in Colorado training horses, watching horses being trained, talking training 25 hrs a day.... 

I remember his face.  The blank expression on his face before that moment was what made it memorable....


I was in a very large birch railed, open air arena on the side of a mountain.... In this arena were 50-60 horses flown in from around the world... mustangs, olympic champions... mares, breeding stallions.... ALL loose... all "at liberty" to do as allowed by "us" as a collective group of trainers....

To say it was an "intense" environment would be an understatement... The idea was, "keep every horse moving until it finds it's master"... not an easy task with estrus mares and multiple breeding stallions tryin' to kill each other... (anyone who's had to break up a stallion fight knows what I'm talking about)....

In the chaos of it all was my Beaver.... I'd spent an inumerable amount of time with the colt... he and I had been through more riding than most horse and rider get in a lifetime...

Being at liberty(loose and free to go where he wanted) .... amongst the fighting, kicking, running chaos that was around him, I saw(from the far side of a huge arena) Beaver LOOK at me...

Let me explain what this means... When I say he "LOOKED" at me... I mean, in the midst of a tornado he looked through the turmoil and literally "asked" me what I wanted him to do... I can't make this chit up.

At a distance and environment that would be completely impossible for him to actually hear me... With two studs standing on their hind legs goin' at each other right behind him, I looked at my Beaver and asked him to come to me.  And he did.... He looked through the chaos into my eye.  He "saw" me ask him to come to me and he began walking to me....

Dumbfounded... I asked him to stop to convince myself that what I was seeing was not real... and just coincidence...... but he STOPPED.  :o

As best as I can describe this is as follows... imagine a computer.. doing what it was told because that's what it understands... but one day it becomes "self aware"... at which point, it is no longer a one way conversation... rather a partnership... with a mind that understands you, great things can be accomplished...

In this surreal blur of dust, fighting horses, whips, and screaming were myself and my Beaver... looking at each other, eye to eye from several hundred yds with a world of commotion in between...   I asked him to come towards me again and a skirting runner smacked right into him hard... immediately he regained focus on me and continued to come to me as I'd asked... flat   out   spooky.  I asked him to stop, even to back up... and he did.  Laugh if you will, but he still does it to this day...   When he finally got all the way to me I realized what it really meant to reach "that" level of understanding with an animal... it takes time...

.... one more break and I'll get to my point ... ;D

Why would the others fail if they can be " trained " ?? It would be more of you failing to be able to train them....

Ok, forget about just a breed of dogs, and find a dog that does not have the will to hunt.... then you try to train him.... and let us know when you cull it...  ;)

THE DOG HAS TO HAVE THE WANT TO NO MATTER WHAT KIND OF DOG IT IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

... so, as this whole shpeel relates to hog dogs...

It is my hypothesis, that there is a level of time put in on a dog that "evens out" any advantage/disadvantage that similarly equipped dogs may exhibit in their first few yrs as a hog dog...

The idea of a high-end bred, early starting dog finishing the same as a "scatter" bred, slow starting dog...  given the time to develope( in my opinion 3-5yrs) and an adequate volume of hogs to bring out the necessities in both ...

Does this mean I don't believe in culling?... Nope.  But it sure does make me think about it more when I do...

And now for training a dog to hunt...

All dogs can smell adequately enouff to run a hog... once a dog has been trained to please it's master... it can be trained to engage anything, if not for self gratification, then for approval from it's master...

Been studying some Shutzund trained dogs lately... they base their training on a reward/conditioning program and it's hard to deny the results... I still am a long way from understanding the entirety of the concept but the amount of ferver dogs trained in this fashion exhibit is immeasurable....

A dog that wants to please can learn to hunt.

**** Disclaimer***** These thoughts are not representative of Noah Metzger's long term understandings... merely an attempt to understand further that which he has yet to make complete sense of....  ;D

NOBODY SAY ANOTHER WORD... i need more popcorn...  8)

Noah,

It all sounds good in theory, but here's the deal.  You're taking a horse and training it to do something that a horse in it's natural environment, and without your direct influence would never do.

I'm taking a dog, and with the assistance of what I call well bred genetics I'm expecting it to do what it was strickly bred to do without ANY of my influence.

Now...if your knew there was a way you could breed all of what you described into your horses without influence of a human hand, wouldn't you do so?

I'll use THIS example.  My hunting partner breeds a line of some of the finest BMC dogs I've ever seen go.  He NEVER interacts with his dogs.  Doesn't feed them himself, his hired hands do it every evening. He very seldom even goes down to the kennels.  Most of these dogs (even 8, 10, 12 years old) don't even know their name.  They are sometimes a bit wild...can be a bit hard to catch in the wood.  They don't really care for people...they have honestly had very little human interaction.  Having said all that, when you take any of these dogs to the woods, you better have your game face on and be ready to hunt.  Drive like you can't imagine.  Long range...care less about you or what anyone else or any other dog is doing.  They have one thing on the mind...hog.  NOW...what drives these dogs...trainer, or genetics?  I've met a lot of good people who would consider themselves good trainers, but never one who could consistantly produce dogs as good as these.

[quote author=Noah

SO.... Basic animal psychology 101....

"When training all living things, make desireable actions easy... undesireable actions difficult... consistency over time creates ingrained habits unbeknownst to said specimen"...   Pavlov's dog at it's most simple...
 


Noah, I agree with most of what you are saying but I would prefer to breed natural ability and that will minimize how much training will be involved. If it takes hundreds of man hours to train a dog to hunt and 3 to 4 years  for the dog to be a decent hunter then I don't want it.  Breeding mediocre begets mediocre. The pups will require the same training and time as there sire and dam. Totally unacceptable to me.
Breeding for natural ability will produce the same ( Natural Ability),especially if line breeding and inbreeding. I only keep pups that have natural ability because I don't have the space for one of those slow maturing dogs. Besides, dog food is expensive.
My ultimate goal is to feed a dog that gives me great pleasure when I am around him. This type of dog will be a dog that hunts well and looks good doing it. He also is one that is an early starter because I want this dog to be good enough for breeding, hunting and look good to boot. The all around dog... :)

Taking it to a higher level like you are talking about I will tell you this right now. The dog knows that you take great pleasure in him so this will up your game as well as the dogs. If I don't like the dog it will not perform to its full potential because it knows I don't like him, besides, there is always a reason why I don't like a dog. This dog only stays long enough until I can replace him with a better specimen.

I use the pups hunger and boredom for my advantage when training them. I really don't train but expose the pups to certain conditions and the results from each pup tells me which will make a hunting dog and which might be the best. However, I have seen pups that I graded low and they made top dogs. But the ones I score high usually make hunting dogs.

When I was a kid I hunted almost every day and all I had were mutts and they were all good dogs for the style that I hunted them. There was a huge incentive for them to be good because they ate what we caught otherwise they would go hungry. The other reason why I thought they were good is because we hunted almost every day. These dogs read my body language and I was their leader. Hand signals and a pst here and there and a few yips and we caught lots of game. So yes most dogs can and will hunt...

Still taking it to a higher level I will say that the Mama dog hunting evey day and eating the game that she hunts will make the pups better dogs when born. The smell that excites her will excite the pups and all types of chemical reactions are taking place and It is my belief that the unborn pups are picking up on this. They are connected to the mama dog... Then taking the pups when they are old enough to keep up makes them better dogs. I also believe that a kid that hunts his dogs on a regular basis can make top dogs. As a kid when I stepped off in the woods I became an intense predator... This I believe made my dogs the best they could possibly be. As a grown up I can't get in that zone... ???

We as humans are brilliant compared to most animals and through evolution animals have learned to survive and part of this survival is a higher level of mental telepathy that we have not understood yet.  This higher level of awareness is to make up the difference in brain power. Dogs can read our emotions as well as our body language and especially our tone of voice. They know when we take pleasure in them as well as when we do not.

If I said I got 100% hog dogs in a litter you probably wouldn't believe it... :o ??? :) Well I did after 15 years or so...But did it by culling hard and making sure I used dogs from within the family and these were selected from high scoring pups turned hog dogs.

When breeding redbones all dogs are red maybe a different shade of red but red. This does not make them hunting dogs but it is easy to breed red redbones because it is visual.

 I say at some point it becomes easier to breed for hunting traits within a strain if all the breeders are solid hog/hunting dogs... This is harder to do because some people will breed because it is a pure bred or it is registered but the dog doesn't hunt. Hunting traits are not so obvious so some breeders over look some of these traits. Therefore, some breeders breed a higher percentage of culls....Breeding for color is visual but breeding for hunting traits is a little more tricky thus more culls in this area...

Getting back to the Redbones...

Cross that redbone with a plott hound and in the first generation the litter will be multicolored. Do this a few times with other breeds mixed in and you don't have consistancy any more. The same with hunting traits...

That genius horse trainer you talk about probably was one of the best... Therefore I will venture to say that he had access to the finest horses and stables, training arenas and what not.. This is clearly an advantage but his reputation enabled him to get the best horses to train from the rich folks. Not only that but he probably had an eye for a horse and he only took on the horses that would make winners upping his winning percentages and of course upping his game...

The bottom line... A great hunting dog is born not made... :)

This is the way I see it. ??? :)

byrant, does his hired hand start his dogs for him to in a pen or woods or are you saying these dogs as pups because they are so linebreed dont even need to be showed their way just drop them in the woods and wait??? wow them are some jam up dogs im missing out on this linebreed thing.

This is a hog dog, I like the look... this type of dog just makes me want to go to the woods... I bred one of my gyps to this dog today. Hope to get a few like him...

(http://i988.photobucket.com/albums/af5/cuell27393/DSCN5839.jpg)

(http://i988.photobucket.com/albums/af5/cuell27393/DSCN5803.jpg)

(http://i988.photobucket.com/albums/af5/cuell27393/DSCN5820.jpg)

(http://i988.photobucket.com/albums/af5/cuell27393/DSCN5804.jpg)

None of his dogs have ever set foot in a pen.  When they're old enough to go, they start in the woods behind the older dogs.  When they hit the ground, they are anxious to go and usually have no problems with them wanting to hang around.  That's the genetic part.  As far as dropping them in the woods and waiting, thats the only way we hunt.  I don't walk with dogs or let them work ahead of an ATV.  No better or worse than the way anyone else does it, just our style and preference.

Linebreeding has no affect on how good his dogs are, it just helps keep them that way.  With any type of breeding program you can't start with trash and end with something spectacular.  The main purpose of linebreeding is simply consistancy and usually people who are serious about a line breeding program can quickly tell you the foundation dog they started with which is the one they are constantly striving to reproduce.

i agree with putting the pups with older dogs thats also how i hunt to start dogs except sometimes i road them sometimes free cast sometimes send them on a fresh track etc.. just depends what property i am hunting to how i hunt my dogs. but at some point in time your buddy had to spend some woods time with the foundation dog because they werent just born all knowing? now i know a older dog can be a great teacher but a dog handler, or trainer call him what you want has to be around to evaluate and to refine or make proper adjustments maybe switch things up but my point is a dog can be trained   to some degree...jmo

Noah

You posted that you know an outlaw hunter that could take a golden retriever and make a top notch dog?

What do you consider top notch?

Noah, I wish a beaver would look at me the way your beaver looks at you!

Seriously, this has been a good thread to keep up with. Better than goof TV!  ;)

For every good answer, first, there must be a good question...  ;D  THAT is a good question ScDogman.... I have a lot of thoughts on the subject... However, when pointing out the different "types" of top notch dogs... it is very hard not to ruffle feathers in the process...

... When I hopefully have some time(and more engery  ;D) tomorrow, I'll get into all that  :D



Ninja, that's the oldest trick in the book... just got to wiggle your finger and say "come"   ;) ;D  ... Once they understand that concept, they won't take their eyes off a ya'!!!! HAHA!!!   :laugh:

They weren't born all knowing, but they WERE born with what my oldest son calls "a big engine" and an intense desire to go.  The woods time spent with any dog should never be time spent trying to teach them to hunt, but rather teaching them what is and what is not the intended quarry.  How to do it more effeciently is the part that comes with lots of exposure (which is lots of woods time I guess you could say)

                                   i agree with that. man this ha been a good post with some good thought. again anything i have stated is just my opinion or what ha worked for me but at the same time im open minded to hear what others have to say... i like to learn new stuff i guess you could say.

[/quote]                                   i agree with that. man this ha been a good post with some good thought. again anything i have stated is just my opinion or what ha worked for me but at the same time im open minded to hear what others have to say... i like to learn new stuff i guess you could say.
[/quote]


x2
I agree...

Noah, rest your brain and then give us the rest of your analytical, philosophical and theoretical view on training a dog versus natural ability/instinct. :)

I can agree on this... The good trainer with a young dog that has been born with the natural instinct to want to hunt will bring out the best in that dog.

The wrong trainer with the same dog can ruin that dog. Some will cull this young dog because it is trashy.

                                   i agree with that. man this ha been a good post with some good thought. again anything i have stated is just my opinion or what ha worked for me but at the same time im open minded to hear what others have to say... i like to learn new stuff i guess you could say.
[/quote]


x2
I agree...

Noah, rest your brain and then give us the rest of your analytical, philosophical and theoretical view on training a dog versus natural ability/instinct. :)

I can agree on this... The good trainer with a young dog that has been born with the natural instinct to want to hunt will bring out the best in that dog.

The wrong trainer with the same dog can ruin that dog. Some will cull this young dog because it is trashy.
[/quote]                      reuben i agree and would also add the wrong trainer or person might not put the dog in good hog sign or on hogs i have seen this where they take their pup to a deer club see old sign and dont know how to read it like two day old rooting or 12 hr old track and they put the young dog down and he dont take any thing no where comes back a bit later and they say he dont hunt well my opinion is you dont know how to hunt... you didnt give the dog the best chance to start especially with young dogs i dont care how well bred they are you gotta build their confidece in the beging to make them think every time they hit the dirt they will find a hog if they hunt jmo...but again alot of this is someone who dont understand starting dogs..but i guess like stated earlier if you have older dogs that are proven you can use them to help train but not everyone has that option

A fresh opinion from someone that has none of the experience of you hunters, so thats why its free.  A basset hound will never outrun a greyhound, but I do believe that you can train a basset hound to chase a rabbit in a circle to the best of his ability.  When comparing a scatter bred cur to a cur with proven genetics I belive in 3 -5 years like Noah said you could have comparable dogs.  I believe the scatter bred cur will take a lot more commitment to training and take a lot more experience to perform at the level of the cur with proven genetics.  But at the end of 5 years I believe both dogs could perform at the level that would be expected from a finished dog.  I believe the problem is even if the dog owner is a person who can train the scatter bred dog to the best of his abilities, that most hunters aren't going to make this type of commitment to one dog because even once he is a jam up dog his offspring will be a crap shoot.  I think with specefic attention most curs could be trained to do what is expected of them because of there willingness to please and all curs should have prey drive straight from the factory it just might need to be fine tuned.  But IMO the dog with proven genetics is going to give you what you want faster and provide a solid foundation for breeding.   

The more I think about what yall are saying the less I know lol dang noah ur brain is deep and so is some of u others.  I just know most the dogs left on my yard have some type of line breeding in their back ground where the scattered one have been culled

I totally agree with this...If I was in the market for a retriever I would probably be looking for a lab puppy from a long line of hunting back ground. If I needed a gaurd dog I would be looking for a Rott or Doberman from gaurding stock. No AKC champion stock...

I appreciate everyone's post but Silverton Boar Dogs 1st post and this one from War Eagle sums up my thoughts pretty dang good.

There is a reason why some young pointing puppies(8 weeks) will point on bird scent without any training the first time they are exposed. Or a young retreiver pup will retreive all day without getting bored.Or a coonhound hound pup with tree on a scent for hours without ever having game shoot to it.

By theory, we are saying that a "expert trainer" can train any dog to be as good as a dog bred to perform one task for numerous generations.   I wll put up money and take that bet.  Just name the price.

First I would love to see a Goldern Retrieve turn into a catch dog. 

Second, I would love to see a pound pup turn into a cast into a big block of woods a go deep with or without sign. I would love to see him cold trail and leave on walking  old tracks(6 to 10 hour range) and put hogs to it.  I would love to see him run 6 to 10 hours on running hogs with or without them baying.

 :)

Bought plott puppies . But doesn't mean I would not feed a pound dog if it would find and bay a pig.

Why did u buy plott?  Take them back, I'll  get you some pound pups for half the price.   If there is not a difference why pay more money for plotts.

Noah you have put alot of trouble thinking it.
Your Parelli experience atleast gets you to thinking about it. Did you see the show where Parrelli and Ceasar Milan came together to work dogs and horses together?
I have arguments monthly with dog trainers that now want to expand into "hog Dogs" they are good traioners and get a dog to do about anything building from the dogs physocolgy and figuring out what makes each dog tick, will determine how to get the most out of them. However the Gurus that all these trainers follow are usually the big name EGO driven German style trainers, and I will give the germans alot of credit they can find and cull to get very,very hard dogs, and are very particular about their breeding, but they do have"TRAINED or CONDITIONED DOGS" that were bred for Drives and traits that are not the same as what are used in an independeant dog that does not look for supervision and that does not work for rewards given from a human accomplice. HUNT drive is different that prey drive, and I will argue that until I am blue in the face. Tracking and searching are all with the intent of getting that "good boy" at the end of an excersise. How many trained tracking dogs are going to run for miles without being conditioned to do so? they will come back looking for the reward, a hunting dog looks for a reward in the hunt itself, not from a human, and that is genetics not taught, trained or conditioned. Yes I believe you can be a succesful hog hunter, and catch hogs with a conditioned dog. Or you can breed a dog thats natural instincts trump the ability to train/condition. I can get on asoap box on this subject in a hurry, so let me get back to the point, of the trainers who now offer "HOG DOG training" they are of the mindset, that you have to "work and condition these dogs" and I have been there and done that myself, I enjoy working the dogs, but I/We am not able to see instintively the dogs true breeding of these dogs coming through when they are conditioned behaviors take over and that makes the dogs that they will be breeding from these program trainable and not Natural instinct, there comes many times in the woods when "Common sense" makes a dog respond a certain way to determine the outcome. that may be the difference in the dog deciding to take the trail 40 ft after the hog breaks and quit, it may be the difference of the dog being so hooked up he will use every skill he has from tracking, winding, that does not finish this particualr hog, or the down right true instinctive "Hunt DRIVE" that you cannot condition into that dog starting to make loops of 300 yds and 500yds and 700 yds until he finds scent again and then is able to track/wind that hog and find taht hog was smart enough to circle back and hold up before moving out. All the Conditioning/training in the world won't help a dog in this situation with out the "Breeding" of intellegence and pure instinct to go to the next level. CONDITIONING to scenarios and training to particular skills, can't prepare you for each and every situation always being different, and to "THINK" to counter act the challenges of dealing with another thinking animal(s) all at the same time. We as Humans the most intellegent beings cannot do it, SO HOW CAN YOU TRAIN OR CONDITION FOR THIS?


For  those that think a dog cannot be born to hunt hogs, I disagree, very few are out there, But a dog that has never seen a hog, never been outside a backyard, until a year old and then when taken along on first hunt, is exposed to catching a hog with other dogs, and from that time on is striking and "holding bays" tahts pure genetics kicking in, The dog has a calling and may not be good at anything else, but one day the switch flips. I don'y have them that good, but that would be the goal, that the dogs are born with a calling and when exposed at the right time, the dog falls into place as if its never known anything else.
almost Any dog can be conditioned to "chase" a pig, almost any dog can be conditioned to bark at a hog, bite, trail one, but that does not make a hog dog! if you don't know the difference, well then you are not a dog person. A dog born of the skill to know how to "bay" and not just bark it a skill, if you don't know the difference, well you are clueless. I have had some pretty off the wall breeds that I could find and catch hogs with, they got the work done but they were not hog dogs.

Another thing Science cannot determine the soul and will of an individual, it does not matter that they think they have a way to measure how much a dog can smell, its like the difference between a man that can work with his hands and a man that spends his life behind books and schools, he may be a scholar but they have the same IQ. Common sense and book sense, two twin brothers physically challenged and brilliant the other dumb as a box of rocks but an athlete. It happens, and some things will never be explained and I believe that they are not supposed to be explained otherwise we would not need to have FAITH

Noah, Now Use some Human Physcology, and think about it, Mother Nature is working against us, Or I should say we are working against her. THINK if you were going to Train and Get ahad of the game, you would start using Hog Phsycology, figure out how to whisper to the hogs, I believe that what Pat would do, as that would be the way to understand it naturally. As now you are thinking of of to use one animal against another in an unatural way, not for survival or coexistance but as a "Control method" and thats not natural thats human.

Uglydog,

When I saw that you had posted on this thread I knew it was going to be good and rather long winded.

 ;D :)

I have trained lots and lots of bird dogs and quite a few hog dogs. I have had lots of champion bred dogs and some of them were national champion bred. Without a doubt the all time sorriest dog I ever owned was bred the best. His sire was a national champion and his mother was a direct daughter of a national champion.

What I have found is that "want to will beat can do when can do don't want to". Rex was the well bred bird dog and I was determined that I would break him. I could get him to point and hold birds but he really never handled that well. At some point he was going to twist off and just do what he dang well pleased. His sister was exactly the same and threw it to her pups.

Once I wised up and culled that dog and changed my methods the quality of my dogs incresed by leaps and bounds.  After that when I got a dog I put them in front of a horse and they better run to the front and keep up with me. If they didn't they got culled. If you want to fool with them go ahead and be my guest. Seen lots of guys that had winners "all I got to do is get him to handle".  Good luck.

My best hog dogs kind of come here doing it. They liked me, wanted to please me, hunted for me, and were hog crazy. Had some that could care less what planet I was on and no telling which way they were going to hunt. As high as food is these days I cannot afford to mess with a whole bunch of dogs. I know there are guys out there that probably have better dogs than mine but they please me.

Haha!  I knew I could count on a strong opinion from you Krystal  ;D

Brain... still.... worn out.... from bein' on call this wk....  :P ;D

When I get to feelin' like myself again, I'll try and clear up what kind of dog I'm talking about... everyone will see this differently based on personal experience, take what you will, leave the rest... that's what I do ;)

When u get time describe a top notch dog? 

Also I will take the bet about a golden as catch dog and the random pound pup turning into a "top notch" strike dog.

Scdogman out.

Had to re-read that to get it, sorry Krystal!    You have studied your Parelli, haven't you?   ;D

I, however, have been privvy to what really goes on "behind the barn"... where the "real" training goes down.  "Real" does not really sell.  Just as people don't want to know where their hamburger comes from, neither do they want to know how Rugged Lark became the super horse that he is... It doesn't just "magically" appear, wrapped in celophane at walmart.... just as Lark wasn't "magically" trained to be what he is by Lynn Palm...   

What you point out is where Mr. Parelli and myself differed, and ultimately, came to an impass... again, it was not pretty...

I used to be MUCH more aggressive in my younger days... was quick to take the lead if you know what I mean....  I became aggrevated in Parelli's "passive" ways when i knew that he used much more "aggressive" techniques on his own horses... and I saw fit to demonstrate this on my own to the masses.... wasn't long and there was a split in the ranks... those that had gone to him, now asked me... "me" in my "vast" equine experience of all of 3yrs... rolleyes ;D... (I was waaay too big for my britches...)

I've always been a quick student, and very good at finding what works...

On another man's ranch, with "his" students now looking to some 19yo punk for advice did not rest well obviously... and so there was the break....

I was asked to return when "submissive" lol... let's just say that never happened...  ;)

Fact of the matter is, what he taught me, I took what I wanted... which is how to train an animal with utmost efficiency...   Sometimes that requires not being "completely natural" as defined by the public... as defined by nature, however, there are no rules  ;)

I agree 100% in this...

TTT want to hear more on this one Noah.

Haha!  Thanks brother, but I figured everybody had probably had enuff of my bullchit for a while...  ;D

I do have more to say, but I'm savin' my energy up for it... cuz I got a gut feeling it's gonna be one a lot of people will have intense opinions about  ;) ;D

 Noah,
I was a waiting..... kinda dissapointed truthfully, I had an idea of what you would come back with... and all you got is "I ain't got nuff energy", I do have a whole other theory, one day when I have more energy and plenty of wind I will share with you on the conditioning/genetics also, beause I do feel you can go wrong/ overboard with the genetics its only theory after trying so hard to grasp more knowledge on the subect, where it will end up/go and the conclusion I have come too,

After all Parelli, Lyons,Anderson, Cox, Cameron, Reis and all the other 2nd generation "whisperers" took their info from the ones before them,  still brainstorming off one anothers, and applied what works in their areana, gave it a new name/twist and marketed it to sale it.
"Dog Trainers" do the same thing,

New names that mean exactly the same thing like:


1940's... shell shock
1960's... toxic shock syndrome
1980's... post traumatic stress syndrome

 ;D :o :)

X2. I'd like to hear more also. Keep it coming Noah and Krystal

I was waiting on the superior trainer to train a golden into a catch dog and a "top notch" strike dog.

(http://i714.photobucket.com/albums/ww150/justinroden/dogs/13748934.jpg) .....