EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

   Why is it that some strike dogs find 90% sows and some 90% boars my buddy's dog finds pretty much all boars and mine pretty much finds nothing but sows.

Man it just depends on the dog, some dogs will just go find boars cause they stink and put up a fight others will just find a sow because they bay up faster
Right now everyone is catchin a lot of sows because they have pigs and they aren't trying to run as far so that they can make it back to the pigs

Good question! I'm sure it has more to do with scent than anything. The boar will put off a stronger odor. I could be wrong but I doubt a dog would associate the scent of a boar with aggressiveness. Just track boars only because he is looking for a fight.

It could also have something to do with boars trailing a sounder...waiting for the sows to come in....Which...in areas with a healthy hog population is what most boars do. In this case...possibly?....a dog could cut an older track and have the boar in front of him...as well as the sounder. Or...a dog could cut a fresher track and have only the sounder in front of him and the boar behind him. I guess this theory would lean towards the nose of a dog...hot or cold. Just a possibility.

My uncle use to have a plot he said they may go miles after miles but it was always a big o nasty boar hog

i didnt mean that they could sence aggersion in the track, i ment that they could recognize that the stronger odor means its a boar and it'll fight, but ive mostly seen this happen with rough dogs

I need me a few of them dogs that only trail the hogs they know will bay up fast... Those would be awesome for all those contest!!! 

Amen! Lol

If you wanna catch more big boars, then you have to hunt for big hogs.

Dogs that can smell which hogs will bay up faster and better........ Pssssshhh  he has been in the dog trade WAY to much!!!     >:D

yall are takeing what i said way out of context...

i wasnt stateing that they can tell which one will bay faster, i was sayin from exspeariance most fast hunts and quick bays are on sows and that dogs can smell if its a sow or a boar in the track because the boars odor is way worse than that of a sows

I used to work my pups on sows in a pen most of the time and I caught more sows then I did boars. Could be there are just more sows yhen boars where I hunt. Or could be they are more familiar with the smell.

idk i train mine on boars and i have a puppy thats found 3 already this season and they've all been sows, but that should change in the next month when the sows leave their pigs we should all be startin to catch more boars

Understand that but I don't THINK any dog will pass on a fresh sow track and keep looking for a boar.

Or vice versa

ok i understand where your comin from, but ive had a puppy go off 30 yards and bay a 100 pounds sow and we get to it and then our lead dog at the time before he died, got there after us and looked at the hog saw how small it was just turned around and went off and found a 220 pound boar hog, he didnt even try to help the other dog with the sow

Now this is the kind of post that I find totally fascinating!!!! I've fooled with dogs all my life, and I can tell you this with completely faith on my part.....we, as humans, do not have the foggiest clue what goes on in the dog world as far as scent and trailing/finding a critter goes. Dogs possess an ability that we cannot begin to fathom, so I tend to be amused by all this 'knowledge' about how dogs think and smell. Y'all youngsters need to write all this stuff down now, while you know so much.......before you get my age and don't know s*#t. And No I'm not directing this at anyone on her whatsoever.....so don't be fretting and whining about it.

I know what you are saying.  I had three sisters Cj , War Dog and Daisy . Great dogs but they were head hunters .  It seemed like threwout there life time when they bayed it was big big bad boar hogs and not only bayed but caught what they bayed  .  They very seldom ever messed with little hogs are sows it always seem to be the badest of the bad and as a result all three were gone by five years old .  But some great damn dogs really really great dogs .

back in the 1980s these friends of ours mainly caught boar hogs and my brother and I caught mostly sows and shoats...We were young back then so we had mock hunts, trained the dogs to strike off the truck etc... etc...we never thought it would matter what sized pig we used for training because a hog is a hog no matter if it is a boar or sow so we thought...besides...at that time we didn't have a training pen so we used small hogs because it was so much easier handling the smaller hogs...our friends always used a big boar to train their dogs to bay...we didn't make the connection until I called this guide who advertised trophy boar hunts and meat hunts...He used a redbone for the trophy hunts...My brother and I built a bay pen and started our dogs baying a large boar and after that it was mostly boar hogs that we caught and once in a while a sow...

The guide used a training method for training his dogs but we just used a boar hog for baying purposes...after that I was having trouble keeping the freezer stocked because I don't keep boar meat...
 

Hmmm...interesting.

I don't know...I've used boars and sows both in the pen....mostly boars I guess. All the dogs I've hunted with or behind bayed ANYTHING swine...lol. May have to test that out though...use nothing but boars in training sessions...see how it turns out.

Dont weigh in very often but I have to ask since i see people on hear say it all the time........... Where in th world does everybody here get the idea sows bay faster??? Alot, and I mean alot of the badest boars Ive ever caught in my life have been caught right in their beds......I always feel like thats when they are the badest. The ones that goes straight to the first dog that tries to grab. A lot of times if I go on a long race, it will be a lean sow or young boar

X2

I think he was referring to a sow with young pigs. Sometimes they tend to stay close by...sometimes just circling.

This post has the gerbils in my head running 900 mph on their wheels. I will have this thought stuck in my head for a while now that I'm in the process of training a group of dogs.  Firemedic your thought of writing things down, I have been doing that for a while. In order to not get this off subject ill start a new thread look for it " writing things down " Williamsld I understand what your trying to say if you we're talking in person you'd be able to explain it better

yes i was refering to one with pigs, sorry for not stateing that and making it clear for everyone

man that is a question i dont think can be answered by any human. the only way youll be able to find out the answer to that is learning how to speak dog and see what they tell ya. makes me think of my recently passes barney. that son of a gun would litterally run passed all the sows without looking at em and find and bay the boar every time. good for me cause im hunting for sport and trophy, but he wouldnt have been worth a crap for someone hunting for meat.

I had deer dogs that tended to run buck deer far more than does. I have seen them running 4 or 5 does with a buck out front. Buck side jump and go a different direction does go straight. Dogs came up to the split bawled a bit then lit out after the buck.  Back then u couldn't shoot does so most of the time we just cut the dogs off if on a doe.

My dad always taught me not to kill nothing in front of the dogs that u didn't want them running.

Maybe this is why these dogs tend to run one sex over the other. If a man turned every sow loose and took the big boars in my mind they would get the message that boars is what the are after.

I by far am not an expert or dog whisperer but this is a thought .