EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

When I was fresh in to dog hunting I invested in alot of strike dog vests. I have a few gritty strike dogs but none that catch without a catch dog. I want to use my vests but all my experienced hunting buddies say that my gritty dogs will start catching if i put a vest on them, but most of them don't even run cut collars. So I am looking for advice.

help me out here people a strike dog is..... a catch dog is....... and there make up of breeds is.......

I dont know much, but i don't see how you dress a dog affects wat he's gonna do. Are they thinking if they dont get cut up, they'll be more prone to catch?  As opposed to learning to respect a hog by getting cut trying to catch? Guess that makes sense.

 A Strike dog is a any dog that will sniff out a hog and bark to alert the other dogs to come bay it up. A solid bay is when all strike dogs have the hog circled up and barking thier heads off.  A Catch dog is any dog that WONT bark but will go straight in a grab a hold and never let go. From my 3 years of experience the most natural catch dogs are pitt bulls, but i have seen pitt/mastiffs, great danes, Bulldogs, bullies and just plain mutts. My strike dogs are 2 catahoulas, Redbone/blackmouthcur, and 1/4 greyhound/3/4 blackmouth cur(he is by far the best)

Yea they say that if you put a vest on them they get to thinking they are superman

best advice is there your dogs, and if they don't even run collars, well they care more about the hunt and not enough about their dogs . i cant see a strike vest doing anything but saving your dog someday . wish my ol plott gyp had had one on when she got hung up in the thick stuff and couldn't get out of the way . a strike vest would have saved her  she was a real loose baying dog ,but crap happens .

Its really what you think is right. Personally I don't run vest or collars on my strike dogs.

I agree with half breed but will add I've owned dogs that were catchy at first then learned to stand back and wait on the catch dogs then others didn't learn and others didn't leave the woods with that said all i can say is take care of your dogs and they'll take care of you !!!

Not so sure about the vest giving a gritty dog more confidence rolleyes,if hes got it hes got it! I can tell u one thing i didnt like about using vests on my strike dogs,IT SLOWED THEM DOWN CONSIDERABLY,even tried the shorter behind the shoulder vests but too often,epecially in daylight hunts,a hog would break across a field and when the dogs would try to slide under the bottom barbed wire fence the straps would hang and the hog would gain some serious ground,quit using them after that.

Pigrig a strike is the same thing as a bay dog. A running catch dog is a dog that is off lead that will go to a bay and catch. Most catch dogs are lead in. They are taken to the bay on a lead and released.

I put vests on my strike dogs when I started. Then one day there was only supposed small pigs so I ran just a collar. When I got to the bay the boar was at least 300 lbs and I only had the bay dog planning to just go in and grab the pig. When I tried to move around to get the boar he charged my dog and I thought it was over because I did not vest her. But she did some twisting jump and landed on the boars tail to stop him. There is no doubt she could never had done that with a vest on. If she would have been vested she would have been slammed. So I never run a vest on a bay dog now. I also worry about the heat. I want my Dogos to be running catch dogs so I am looking into the Aussie style plates. I don't buy that thest gives any more confidence than they should already have.

Your darned if you do and darned if you don't. Your participating in a violent sport. Heat stroke or cut down ? Pick one.

real sorry to detract from someones post but just trying to get my head around a few things. so a stike dog is usually a trail barker that draws in your other dogs.

i vest my strike dogs up they are just as rough with out the vest 

ITs cool No problem. Someone said earlier that a strike dog and a bay dog are the same thing. I would have to disagree. I have been around some of the best strike dogs that bay very loose(far out) and I have been around some of the best bay dogs that would get in a hogs @$$ and make them turn around so they won't travel so far but won't strike a hog.

Then you got strike dogs that run open, means the bark whether the hog is moving or stoped, and you have silent dogs who only bark when they have the hogs in front of them.  I like silent dogs espesilly if you have GPS because you get into alot of cold trailing with open dogs. means they smell a old hog trail and they start barking like crazy even tho there is no hog. then every bay dog you have is following the cold trailing idiot around If you don't have GPS a GOOD OPEN dog may be a good choice.

I ran some of the ruffest dogs you can run I learned real quick to put vest on them and I have ran dogs that are not so ruff and again I learned real quick I can replace a vest a hell of a lot cheaper than I can replace a great dog.  Either way I try to run at least light vest on the not so ruff dogs and heavier type vest on the more ruffer type dogs.  So one way are another my dogs 99 % of the time have some type of protection on .  They can and they will

save dat butt at sometime are another .

Our strike dogs don't wear vests but they don't catch either. We had a BMC strike dog that was gritty n he wore a vest.

I think it is just terms without a clear definition. There are loose bay dog all the way to gritty bay dogs. But the term bay is to bark at something and keep it at bay. Stike dog? What they hit the hog? I don't know you can use whatever term you want as long as it works for you. I like any dog that finds and stops those pigs and you can call it a flower for all I care ;D I have seen all kinds of dogs both names. I have hunted with many different people and I have not found any name to really say what a dog does from one person to the next. Well except catch dog and that name fits. But I do like to hear what people say on this subject.

i like all my bay dogs to find a pig on their own and they are called my bay dogs . but out of every pack you just have that one dog usually a long lean pig finding machine that has a little better nose can wind a little farther and seems like they allways get there first those are my strike dogs and called as such . but in the end their all just hog dogs .

but to get back to the post about vest and all . i been a thinkin on running the hardcore bibs thi year i bred a little grit back into my dogs . any body used them the [hardcore ] they look good on paper .

Yes i use em and i really like em. Ive got a strike & catch vest from them and so far so good! There service is great too!

ok i think i have it sorted : i like all my dogs to catch there own pigs whether ( in kiwi terms) im running bailers or holders or a mixture of both . i dont use vests i find them far to restrictive but i do use rip collars on any hard holders and somtimes younger dogs until i can see that they arnt going to do anything dumb . smart dogs dont get ripped unless they are plain unlucky

Bailers and holders i kinda have an idea but please explain?

  Cool. Mind sharing a pic of that 300 lb hog you caught with one bay dog?

 very true, thats why i dont vest my strike dogs, they will bay till i send in the catch dogs

...JMO, but a strike dog is a dog that will strike a trail/scent and finish it out! A Catch Dog is a APBT/BD/Dogo or whatever tickles your fancy that will honor a bay, and run in a catch and not let go, no matter the punishment it is receiving. like I said, that is JMO... Good hunting to you!

In my opinion, I have to relate "Strike" to coon hunting. When you are coon hunting, if you dog "strikes" that means they have located a scent. So to me, a strike dog is the one who finds the scent/hog and bay dogs stop the hog and keep it in one place. However,  I feel any and every bay dog should have a bit of strike in them, but again, that's just my opinion.

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Re: I need Advice.Strike dogs and vests?
« Reply #20 on: November 30, 2011, 10:30:24 pm »
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but to get back to the post about vest and all . i been a thinkin on running the hardcore bibs thi year i bred a little grit back into my dogs . any body used them the [hardcore ] they look good on paper .

Where do you find these? They got a web site or what?

a dog that bays and goes to a bay to bay a hog is a cull to me and will be replaced just as soon as he can be replaced with a good strike dog that bays right. That is always part of the plan and good strike dogs get replaced with better strike dogs until a minimum requirement is met...just how I see it...

I know i don't post on here much and i don't claim to know it all but from my experience I don't run strike vests on my strike dogs , but i do run a cut collar. My dogs in order to suit me will have to range far out and put serious teeth in a running hog and help catch hard when my bulldog arrives . I have found that hunting in the heat the vest raises the chance of heat stroke and slows my dog down alot. I don't put them down without a cut collar though ,so i reckon it's what someone likes are dislikes ,it's neither wrong are right it's just simply a opinion . Some dogs learn to back up from a bad hog and others get rougher the more they get cut it just depends on the dog .

g man  hardcorehogdogs  dot com . you really should subscribe to bayed solid ,  every hog hunter should just to support our sport.  but back to the program i agree with mark about the heat and vest thats why i ain't used em plus rubbing the dogs raw . but i will buy me a couple of bibs to try out, because i will try just about anything once where dog safety is concerned .