EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

This question is for you.

Knowing that each and every one of you has hunted with countless people and dogs over the years, and having owned dogs that are/were spoken highly of, What is the best dog you have ever hunted behind. If you could only have one dog to hunt from here on out, what dog would it be,and why?  If you will, give some background on the dog. Was it homebred, out of a well known kennel? Breed or strain, how did it hunt?

If it's a dog long dead, have you been able to reproduce it to any degree?

Excellent question

This is better then Christmas...don't keep us waiting to long!

Ready for some answers !!

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The Blue-Eyed Bitch was her name... owned by Herman Harris in North Zulch. She was the hardest hunting, no quit type dogs I ever hunted behind. More dog than most people would care to own. You better grab her when you got to the bay because she was rolling out looking for another one. Covered everything around you and went as far as it took to find one... then stayed hooked till the end.

I'd love to have a whole pack like her.

mike does she have sum hound in her she sure has sum houndy lookin ears.nice lookin dog like the way shes built.

Excellent proportions on that gyp

She had some hound in her, not sure how much. They didn't know a whole lot about her background.

I've hunted behind the blue eyed btch also, and second what Mike said about her.  Can't wait to hear what the others have to say.

Waylon

Anyone know if any of the pups from her last litter turned out? Seems I recall some health issues came up and she ended up being spayed if I am remembering correctly. I think Mike Savoy was in line for some pups from that litter, and I think the sire was a son of Lavon's Buck dog.

not trying to start something but every time i here the best dog ever story the dog seems to always b cross bred with something.not saying strait  bred curs or hounds or watever arent any good but the mixed up dogs seem to shine.

Two other dogs worth mentioning are Jesse Paul's Jet dog and my old Blue dog.

Watching Jet take a cold track in those mountains, stick with a runner for miles on end and stay bayed till the cows came would just flat out make your jaw drop. Fortunately, he's got many little Jets in the making.

My old Blue dog was a hard hunting son of gun before brucellosis hit him and he lost his manhood. Even after that took the pep out of his step, he produced a ton of hogs up until the day he died. Blue had one helluva nose on him. I watched more times than I can remember dogs pass up tracks that he would take and put a hog at the end of it. He'd come back to a spot five or six times, grind it out and find that hog. I'd venture to say that he found hogs over just about every dog he was ever put on the ground with. He could also be cast, rigged, roaded and do it in every type of terrain I put him in. Unfortunately, he couldn't reproduce himself... I had a couple of litters from him before he got cut.

the blue eyed bitch is one fine specimen...

I had a mtn cur like her and heat exhaustion got her...her name was Fly...

mike wat breed was jet and blue.

I agree, most of the better dogs I've seen are crosses.

Or strait cur... with a lot of ear!!!

Jet was a 3/4 cur 1/4 hound.

And sit down... Blue was a papered catahoula.

yea a little shot of hound never hurt anything.

x2...most of the dogs I considered to be great dogs had some hound in them...

Blue was a special dog to more than just Mike. Lots of good memories hunting with that dog.

My Dot female was the best dog I ever hunted with. She went to Punch three times and Jordans Henry once. Punch and Henry were littermates and grandsons of Big Boy and Blondie. She is 14 and the closest to the Big Boy Blondie cross left alive. Bear and Sarah, the dogs we lost to alligators this year were full brother and sister to her, 5 years younger. She was small and heavy haired, a tireless hunter, super cold nose, endless bottom and make hogs do her will. I have had her stay on a hog all day and all night across a flooded river in the middle of January. A guy from La. brought some good Plott hounds over to hunt one time and we went to a cutover milo field. I gave him first shot and the hounds could smell hogs, but couldn't open on it or line it out. I turned Dot loose and she left running on the track like she was looking at the hog and bayed 5 or 6 hundred yards out in a matter of minutes. I've seen her bay sounders and swing out in the woods and put more hogs in the group. I've seen sounders break and she stop the whole bunch several times. She would roll out as soon as the catch dog was turned loose and bay hogs 'till you caught her. IT didn't get too hot, too cold, too wet or anything else for her. Big Ben got to see her nose a couple of years ago. Art Lee, who won the Cur world hunt a few years ago,said she was the best dog he had ever seen.

Big O.....She sounds like something special.

Waylon

bigo.i like wat u said about never to hot,cold,wet or dry for your dog to perform,ive always said u dont have to make excuses for good dogs they get the job done.i hate to hear excuses about a dog for not performing.if a dog dont like to hunt at night,or is shy around people or other dogs they just are not number ones u dont have to make excuses for the great ones.

Great stories guys. Keep em coming. Some of us can only hope to look back one day and speak of dogs like these

I believe that the heavy coat that shows up sometimes in Bigo breeding actually helps the dogs in the heat and briars, it is hard to believe it but it really does help. The only time that I had the pleasure to hunt with Dot it was a freezing azz morning, the ground was froze solid. We drove the mule about a mile in this place, seen some rooting that was froze over on the way there not worth putting down on. Bigo sent Dot and Bear into this thick patch, When Bigo sends his dogs they go the direction he points everytime. Dot was not having it, she spun around and went back the way we come, she was running the road like a pup. Bear headed with her, stopped and looked back to see if he was gonna get in trouble. Not a minute later that ole dog was bayed solid on a group of big hogs. There was absolutley no breeze so I know she didnt wind them from the box, she smelt the scent from the frozen rooting from the box. It blew my mind and then on I was gonna get me some of these dogs no way around it. I just wish I would of found Bigo a few years earlier to see her in her prime. Oh yea we ended up with a boar around 250 that almost had me for breakfast.

these sorts of stories is why I come here...don't stop now fellas....

Erik's Roscoe dog is the best I've ever seen. Uncle and great uncle to the dogs he has now. This dog would do it all. I got to start hunting with him as a 5 year old. In that 3 year span, he was a one man wrecking crew. He finished 99% of the hogs he started.  Didn't matter if it was the dead of summer or 12 hours into a hunt, he had no quit. Not just the bottom he possessed that was so special, this dog would hunt too. He would take you to the hogs, even he had to go miles to find them. He was always saved for afternoon hunts because he could get it done no matter the conditions. A good many days of we would be going into the "hopeful" last bay of the day and say  F the hog, somebody catch the damn Red dog because if not he'd pull off and go finish another. 

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Boogie runs a close second. Hands down COLDEST nosed cur dog you'll ever see. Coming on 4 in a month or so. He still has his best years ahead of him. This is another no quit, go as far it takes to find them type dog. He's another one man show

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The best I ever hunted behind was a dog I called Abby.  Kinda funny story how she came about.  A number of years ago I had been looking for a plott dog to play around with.  I had come in contact with a guy from up around Paris, TX that had what I thought I was looking for.  I drove up to this guys place one Saturday morning and long story short the dog I went to look at just didn't excite me much.  However, on a chain across the yard I saw what I thought was the best looking yellow brindle female I had ever seen.  I inquired about the dog and he said she was a well started dog...hunted pretty good but wasn't for sale.  I told him I'd be real interested (don't know what I was thinking....I knew better even back then to buy a dog based on looks but there was something about her) if he would sell her to me but he was pretty sure that he wanted to keep her, so I ended up leaving empty handed and drove 6 hours back home.

About two days later, the guy calls and says if I was still interested in that brindle gyp that I could come have her for $150.  I told him I would be there the next day and so I drove all the way back up there and picked her up.

The following weekend, I took her hunting and as my luck would have it she wouldn't leave...wouldn't hunt...and when we caught a hog she wouldn't have anything to do with it.  Started dog my azz!!  (I found out later on that this guy was a big-time dog peddler).  So, I set about working this dog from the beginning...laying tracks...mock hunts...a little work in the pen.  Wasn't a few months later, and she quickly began her journey towards occupying the #1 kennel.

Even at a year and a half old, Abby was what I consider the best I've hunted.  She was SUPER fast on a track, would hunt as deep as I would give her time to hunt and had a working style all her own.  It was fun watching her cast into a block of woods, then come blazing out of the woods a hundred yards down or so working back and forth on the ground, then hit a 180 and back in knowing she was running the track the wrong way.  I got to where I would purposely hold her back when hunting with other folks, let other dogs make a round and then put her out.  9 times out of 10, she would come bayed somewhere.  In fact, Richard Walker on here had come out and hunt with me one weekend shortly before she died and witnessed me put her out to times behind other dogs and her strike.  Impressive is what she was.

I lost Abby in Oct. of 2008 at a young age of almost 3 years old to a fungal infection in her lungs called Histomycosis that she picked up while hunting.  Unfortunately I never bred her before she died.  A good while later, I was able to run down the guy I got her from and he was less than helpful about providing me info about her.  I made mention (just to see what he would say) that I would probably pay upwards of a couple thousand dollars to have another from the same breeding and he started to back-peddle saying this and that....at which point I told him a few things my momma probably wouldn't be proud I had said.

Still miss this dog...


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CHris,
   The gyp was fixed due to some problems during labor. I had a male and female pup from that litter. Bryant,Scott and I all worked on those pups. I gave the female back to Scott  and the male is in a back yard down south. I held on to them for year and a half. THey had no desire to bark at a hog. My pup from Bryant, cash/buck x Madison , is doing well. Almost a year and on track to make a dog.

Those pups you had from that Blue Eyed Bitch were sure good looking dogs, but dang if I didn't try every trick in the book and the one I worked with had ZERO desire to work any stock at all even at a year and a half old.

Cward.....Its your turn.  Time to stop politickin or cattle rustlin or what ever your doin and spill the beans popo

Waylon

The single best dog I,ever hunted behind was a,bitch named,puddin. She was a Woodruff linenreed dog with a tad bit,of hutto dog in her. She had a cold nose drive to hunt a such a natural working,hearding ability to her. She could,read a,human and tell what they were thinking. It was really amazing to see a dog think about what,is going on. Sometimes I wonder how smart she really was. she was a producer. She was the kind that good sure enough get a hog up when nothing else could. I think that a dog can be breed to stop running hogs but not by force or pressure by out thinking a hog. I believe it just because of this single dog showed me things that was amazing . I told the owner of this dog one time that I would tell other hunters about what she could do. Not only did he say but the other 3 cowboys standing there said people just cant believe it cause they just ain't never seen it. The guy who owed her was never out to prove anything with hos dog or dogs. So they were never showed off to alot of people.

Cward...I think what you just described about the smarts of the Puddin bitch dog is the main difference between a once in a lifetime dog and a great dog...The once in a lifetime dog will have a colder nose and the ability to think...we can breed dogs that can find a hog behind a pack of dogs that went thru the woods just ahead of your pack... and then your pack goes in right behind that pack and strike and catch a hog...but the once in a lifetime dog will have the nose and the brain power that is head and shoulders above that of the above average good hunting dog...I don't believe a dog of a lifetime can reproduce itself because it is outside the norm...if they could we would see more of them...

TShelly...I wouldn't mind having a few Roscoes in my back yard... :)

Gosh dang man my name shouldn't even be in the title with these guys makes me blush a little with caliber of dogs these guys have . Exspecially cward when he turns out he ties 10 or 15 every time hell my dogs do good catching that a week!

Any way I have had some dam nice dogs thru the years that anybody would be proud to own they were all the same as these men have described just go wonder and getter done type of dogs didn't matter the circumstances  ;)

Lion boar sure is one to brag!    Lol is that all?   I have been watching this post to see what he had to say!  Noah you are good with words maby you could help!   I'm poking with respect, this has been a very good post on some great dogs and what kind of dogs a person should strive to have, lots of info for a person to use to look at there dogs and others dogs!   Lion boar you remind me of several old gone but not forgotten cowboys with your being so humble!

x1000! You all get the job done with class and style! Great looking dogs everyone! And I hope to have at least one dog of that caliber before I'm dead and gone... Great post guys and thanks for sharing!

I will add a few more of Roscoe's amazing feats. One of the more impressive things he used to do was back trail the first hog after we had gotten there and caught it; he'd go find the rest of the hogs that were with the first hog. In his prime there were a good many hunts where if he struck a sounder of hogs, there was a really high possibility that we were about tie every hog in that group. 

Another hunt we were hunting some real open country. It was daylight and the dogs were rolling good we had tied 6 when the whole pack went across a 2 mile pasture to another block of woods. As we were leaving going to the rest of the dogs we could hear Roscoe bayed back behind us! 8 hours later we had finally caught the rest of the dogs and got back to our original block of woods where Roscoe was still bayed.


CWARD-
Did you ever hunt with a dog named Jasper on any of your trips to Woodruf's?? I'm not sure if Curtis Bennett owned him or Ol man woodruff. Jasper was bred to Herschel's Dixie dog and is the Daddy to CB, which is Blasters sire. Just wondering. He's the one dog we know nothing about

That is a cool deal. I've seen my older one do that several times but didn't realize that was she was doing the first few times. But sure as shoot even if she was on the roll out after the first few, if she doesn't like the wind shell go back past the first hog and turn up a roll fest.

I'm out of town this coming week but when I get back Me and josh wanna have you come down to the grain fields still.

Cward, I have had quite a few above average dogs that hunted hard and a few died of heat exhaustion due to not stopping after a few hogs, these dogs were built right and in shape but sometimes dogs are bred  to hunt too hard and fight a hog as hard...some of these dogs were kept on leash until it was time to go because they went when the dog box door opened or the leash came off...but they were probably a different style of hunting dog from the type you use...catching 10-15 hogs on a hunt on a regular basis is awesome...I usually caught one good boar and went home...every now and then 3-8 good hogs but not to often...even though some of these dogs I kept were as good as any good dog out there the once in a lifetime dog I had the pleasure to hunt with was in a class all by himself because of his intelligence...at 8-10 weeks old he was trailing drags and made it look easy after a few drags...I did a figure 8 drag and a back track and he made it look easy...after that back track and finding the chunk of liver in a five gallon bucket it was time to stop running drags for the pups...he trailed way ahead of his siblings when running drags as he did when he was grown running a hog track...he found hogs at 4-5 months old...didn't catch them but he started the track and the big dogs left him behind...I have tested many a pup since him and none have come close...I bred his son at least 6 times to a daughter, grand daughter who was also a niece etc...etc..and got some top notch hunting dogs but never another Yeller #1. Number one because I have had a few Yellers since him...

Gritty dogs may not be the best for hog hunting but I like lots of grit...

are the dogs you hunt now BMC or just good old cow/hog dogs from the big thicket of east Texas?

Ruben my dogs are just easttexas curs. I have kept mostly the yellow ones. But its not odd for me to have a,black or black and tan. I have,hunted behind tons of great dogs. If we are in a group of hogs we the odds are we will catch most in that group. If there is a loner boar or Barr and that is the only hog there we catch just that hog.  Terrain makes a difference .
We catch lots of hogs. Hunting with Tshelly and vandorn between are teams dogs41 hogs in two days. The tdha competition only running two groups of dogs 28 head in 2 days. Vandorn has the same breed dogs as I do. They all started from the same dog men.

Tony......From what I remember being told.  CB was out of Dixie and a dog off of Curtis Bennett's yard.  Other than that I don't know anything else, so i can't add much.  This is the first I've heard of the Jasper dog but I have always wondered about the dog Dixie was bred to that Produced CB.  H. P. was very critical of male dogs, so just going by that, the dog was solid if he bred dixie to him.  Id like to hear more about this Jasper dog also, if you know anything Chance.

Waylon

Not to change the subject but do any of you big dogmen know of the Winfrey line of dogs or a yella dog named Tom out of mr winfreys line. My old gyp is out of Tom just curios if y'all new any thing about it.

this to me is some really neat stuff.  I knew the Tom dogs as i told you yesterday. But the Winfreys , hoggs, Robinsons, Bennett's, Woodruffs and murrys all breed dogs together its amazing how these dogs made it around and are still producing some real nice dogs.

I have to say Big O's Dot was the best I have ever followed, his son Jim Bob  had a little gyp named Ellie that was pretty awesome in her own right. I believe she was Bennie Cowart, and some of the same dogs Dot was out of.

I've been fortunate enough to hunt with quite a few hogdogs.  The best that come to mind are Woodalls Hollywood, Oneals Stoli and Dman and my Lily.  They all produced hogs under any conditions.  Lily never  produced any great dogs. 

I would have to say I would take Stoli for my one dog.  She was the best producer that I know of.

I told Mandi about this thread, and she said Kevin is going to say Stoli. She also reminded me of how much she enjoyed watching Stoli work.
I thought your answer might be Hollywood... He was pretty banged up when we went to Kevin Os place, so I didn't get to see him work his magic.

Without opening a can o worms.... Seems I recalling Hollywood going back to W Ben. Is this correct? And was Stoli a parker or some cross of?

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Stoli was 7/8 Parker 1/8 catahoula.   
 The reason I would prefer her over Hollywood was because of what u said.  He was banged up alot.  I would feed him anyday.   He is a Ben dog.

Waylon I found out about Jasper being CB's sire from Lloyd. I agree, as good as they say dixie was I bet Jasper was also the truth. I will try to call mr. Perry and see what he says about him. I'll also try and talk to Curtiss's son Brandon and see if he remembers about Jasper

ten-4,  I was gonna make a phone call as well.  Lets see what we come up with and compare notes.  haha

Waylon