EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

I have been kicking it around for a while but here lately these running hogs have me at my wits end. I actually got fed up enough to take the 30-30 last time I went which worked out well but I'm out there to catch hogs not shoot them. So my question is how much luck would I have breeding my lead strike dog male to my lead catch dog which is full pit? She is more of the older style pit so she has a decent build not just a bully dog. I am wanting either a dog that's rough enough to stop it or flat out catch I don't care. I just didn't know if they would come like I need them to because I know it looks good on paper but what actually comes out is a different story

Steven, I have a pit x cur that works very well for what you are talking about. He is a RCD. He is basically a catch dog that will hunt. He can be run alone or with another like dog and catch plenty of hogs. I can also use him as a true running catch dog from any distance but I will only do that with other very rough strike dogs on the ground as to limit the damage he takes. With loose dogs I use him as a lead in catch dog or sometimes I'll send him when we get pretty close. It can work well but you will have to keep some pups and see which ones work as you want them too. Some may come out straight catch that tire quickly, some may come out as just really rough curs that might catch or might bay which you don't want cuz that can wreck everything. You want with the go and leg of a cur that is straight catch.

A lot depends on how much land you have to hunt & how much time. If you are hunting smaller properties you probably will want to go with running catchdogs & you still will not get all of them. If you have big properties, I would go with hounds or running dog crosses & wear them out & you will still get outrun  once in a while. jmo

Cajun I have a few big places but mainly small ones. What I have seen is any one of my dogs can bay a hog but as soon as another gets even close the hog breaks. Then the race is on and they will eventually bay again but usually doesn't last long then it's running again. I watched it first hand last hunt while standing on top of my mule in a grower up field. My dogs would find the pig but he would plow his way through it and get 20-30 yards ahead of the dogs then stop and they would do it all over again. It seems like that's what happens with every hog here this past year. A dog that would just catch him.would make things that much more simple

As Cajun said property size also comes into play. Our hogs have been doing as you describe for a while now. I personally like the cross and feel we catch more of those runners/breakers with him than without him.

Sambo is there a way you can post a pic of your dog?

For some reason when I try to post pics I always get some kind of error message or another. If you'd like to pm me with your number I'd be happy to send you some. If you can post pics your more than welcome to post him up if you'd like as well.

Just my thought but I would find some that's known for having straight catch cur with no pit get a set and run them with one good strike dog should increase the number caught if it's being out run mike look for a big bottom dog or hound that won't stop and dump some rough dogs to him the second or third time they bay


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Judge I have 2 dogs with a lot of bottom one is my lead dog and the other is an up and Comer that has really surprised me a few times. I had two curs but now I am down to one. I just sold one looking for something rougher. It's hard to find a straight catch curs around me and if someone has some they ain't willing to share lol. But you see a lot of junk looking for what you want. There's always that one guy who has "just the dog for you" if you know what I mean

May I ask ....

Do you believe the hogs are running before they ever see a dog or do you thing they run after they bay?

Do you think the dogs will be fast enough to run hogs down in your woods and catch them?

My guess is that the hogs know the dogs are there well before the dogs get to them and I think they are up and running ahead of the dogs.  In my woods, the dogs are not going to catch up to  the hog, you better have a dog with an accurate nose and a lot of bottom to keep running the 5-20 miles it takes for a hog to stop and bay.  In the case I am referring to, I don't think mixing in any pit will help.  I wish I knew your land better.  I think road access and property size also has a lot to do with it.  I don't really want a 20 mile running dog.  Ill take 4 or 5 fast running dogs and keep swapping the dogs out when I see the road cross.  I assume since you are able to shoot them, you must be able to get in front of them.

If you believe the hogs bay for a second and then run, mixing in the pit may be a good idea.

Hog hunter there may be times when the hog runs ahead of the dogs but when I shot the two last time out both were off broke bays. Where they had been bayed for a minute or two. Just long enough for the gps to read treed. And when the hogs decided to break I decided to break them lol. But in hunts before then the dogs would strike and bay a group and pigs everywhere and they were still in the same spot.

Here is my theory of adding pit to make a rougher dog. In most cases your taking away from both dogs. To me makes more sense to get a cur that will catch or a pit that can run. Some make very good dogs but most don't the guys that bred these dogs for the last 300 yrs got it right in my eyes just find a line of that dog that meets what you need its a much better path. Than trying the quick fix methods


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Throw a couple ruff dogs in the mix and listen to the squeal I own a cat bull that's a good strike dog and ruff as a cob lots of guys I hunt with cross Curs and pits also hounds and pits with success.Since you know what you already have and want to cross them for more Grit I would say go ahead. I personally run extremely ruff dogs the only thing about running them is you have to get to your dogs no matter what.if you have loose dogs make sure that you have a couple of the ruff dogs together with the loose dog.

Have you tried running one dog? Sometimes too many dogs will make them run .

Running one dog does work! Seen it time and time again. Have a gyp that bays pretty far back. Silent, hardly catch with a catchdog, she has bayed more hogs alone then with another dog. She will put teeth in one sometimes. Her sister is the same way. Bayed plenty with just them two dogs alone.

Okay Steven, in that case, you may need add some catch but it is a hard question to answer on how much luck you would have in your breeding.  If it were me, I would try to find a dog that was already doing what you would want your pups to do or maybe someone else has a pup that you think would do this off a proven cross.  JMO

Go super loose with less dogs and try it before u go rough as a cob. Lot easier to keep em baying than it is to get them bayed after they really start running. Bringing in some real loose dogs will give u a chance to see before turning loose the heat.


Shotgun
Arkansas

if the hog bays for just a little bit and then runs then it is very possible you have a bat buster in the pack...lots of times one dog will keep them bayed where as 2 or more will cause the hog to break if the dogs put too much pressure...

like already mentioned...if you bred in pit to cur try to breed in a pit that hunts with a very catchy cur...don't was time trying to breed a loose bay dog with a pit bull...

either way you will get pups that don't hunt or catch and a few that will be how you like them...lots of times a pup will look like a cur dog as a pup and will grow and mature looking like a bull dog...

I have seen some that got the best of both worlds that found, bayed and caught hogs...

If you breed your best strike dog to your best catch dog, here are a few things to consider.  When you cross find/bay dogs with bulldogs, you don't get consistent traits in the pups.  Some of the pups are likely to be too catchy, while some have more bay. The problem is if you make the breeding, you really don't know which pups are going to receive the correct genetic make-up from the parents that gives you that perfect blend of nose, hunt, bay, roughness.  You would really need to keep the whole litter and then cull the ones that are too catchy, too loose baying, etc.  At least that is my experience with crossing bulldogs with cur breeds . . . No Consistency.  Now you've got we'll say 6 puppies from the litter to raise, get started, train, cull, etc.  A decent bag of dog food now cost $30.00.  It takes a minimum of 6 bags of food to raise a puppy to just one year old. Could be 7 bags.  So you're looking at say 10 bags of food MINIMUM to get the pup to 18 months old.  That's $300 per pup at 6 pups, which comes to $1,800 to get a litter of pups that you bred up, old enough to pick the keepers.  Now we can say that there is a couple of pups that just aren't going to suit you, and you can identify those pups early, maybe around a year old.  Even so, you're looking at a minimum of probably $1,200 (just in feed) to get 3 or 4 pups that MIGHT turn out to be what you're looking for.  Not to mention the fact that you've got to keep them in the woods to get them going properly, all the time it takes to get them seasoned, wormer, shots, etc. etc.  So for the next 2 years, you're still gonna be chasing hogs while you're waiting for the results. 

For $1,200 - $1,500 you should be able to find (two) pretty decent rough cur dogs with speed and stopping power. You could just drop them with your best find dog and solve your problem immediately without having to wait 18 months for the breeding project to materialize.  You're gonna spend the same money in the long run anyway?  I always used a "calculator" as part of my breeding program.                 

Good post red river. People always think adding pit will answer there dreams of having a rough dog ya its a easy fix but your just taking away from each breed. Imo


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I like the breakdown slim hard to argue with the numbers.

I agree 100%.  I've made the bulldog/baydog cross several times over the years and raised the pups, and spent all that time getting them going and all that work, etc. It jut seems to never pay off.  The results are just too inconsistent in the pups, and if you just reach in the puppy pen and decide to keep the "2 best ones" (lol) and sell the rest or whatever, you just don't know if you're picking the right ones.  You waste a lot of time and get disappointed when they turn out to be straight catch dogs "or" straight bay dogs.  So you really need to keep the whole litter to see this project through until the end. For me, it just costs too much and its too inconsistent.  Now I can breed my two best bulldogs together, and I can almost guarantee that they are gonna catch . . . every one of them.  The same can be said for breeding you two best find/bay dogs together. You know what you're gonna get, or at least have a pretty good idea because your breeding similar traits.  When you cross two totally different breeds with two totally separate functions . . . it just seem to "cross-fire" as I like to call it.  I call it buying "scratch off" tickets.

It's so much easier to let the other fellow do the experimenting and then just go buy the end result from him.  All you're really doing at the end of the day is buying the other man's hard work.  You ALWAYS come out cheaper.  

I am totally with judge and slim on this. I have a great cur x pit mix but it is not the norm. Mine is what people want when they make the cross but it does not usually happen that way. Like slim said and like I said earlier you will pretty much have to keep the whole litter to get what you want. When it hits right it's very good but highly unlikely. I got lucky and bought mine from a guy that sold him to young. I do have a buddy that also has a cur x pit gyp that is showing some of the right things so far. If she keeps progressing we have talked about breeding them and see if we can get a higher percentage of what we want from the cross.

Here's a link to an old thread on here.
http://www.easttexashogdoggers.com/forum/index.php?topic=83330.0 (http://www.easttexashogdoggers.com/forum/index.php?topic=83330.0)

I bred the second dog pictured in the thread.

It was a total accidental breeding...never would have set out to do it, but it happened.

Only four pups of the litter made it the first week. Of that I was glad because there were 13 born and I didn't know what the hell I was gonna do with all them damn puppies lol

Of the four I kept one, place two with close hunting buds and gave one to an old couple that we hunt for only because they demanded I do so because they wanted it. I knew it would be too much dog for them when it got older tho.

One of my buds was spooky and was culled, the other was dog aggressive to a fault and was culled. I was hoping the one I kept would be kinda a gritty baydog with a bit of hunt. We put him in a pen with a feisty decent size hog at about 5-6 months old And he went straight in and caught right on the ear. He is a natural.
I didn't want him as a catchdog because I have bulldogs for that so I have him to a mutual friend that's a hunter in a town that has outlawed pitbulls (bsl). They love him down there and he has made a hell of a cd.
The one the old couple had turned out to be too much for them and we rehomed it and it ran off lol.

All this to say that I agree with red and judge. Out of those four only 1 turned out. 25% ain't good odds just too many variables to work out with crossing dif breeds.

Now I did a recent cross with same dam that I set out purposely to do. I bred her to a game dog. I wanted to add some things that were lacking in the ab breed for hog hunting, and that is jmo, I know other folks like their fine. And I too like mine... I just wanted a touch more wind and better teeth among a few other things.
The dam is linebred from a proven catchdog line of abs, the sire is a game dog, but from a catchweight line and I saw his sire catch for many years and sine of his siblings as well. Yes, being gamebred, they are kind of a pain in the butt on hunts at times. But I figured the ab and line she came from, being known for their good temperament and handle would even that issue out. So far those pups are just over a year and they have turned out to be just what I wanted and expected/hoped for.
I think two similar bullbreeds that are individually line bred on certain traits and as similar as the standard ab and a pitbull can be crossed to produce a better and more predictable outcome % wise

I 100% agree with Semmes in every way.  I also am breeding an AB female to a game APBT stud.  I don't have to worry about the inconsistency of inheritable traits because it's bulldog to bulldog.  While being different breeds, they still have the same function at their core, to catch anything with fur on it and not let go.  But the bulldog/cur cross, well that's different. 

Here are the results of two of the bulldog/baydog crosses I made:

1) Bred a stomp down catching machine APBT 60 lbs. to a Jude Hart bred yellow cur, real good go yonder gyp, loose bay, not gritty, but find a hog.
2) Also made the cross the opposite way. I bred my Rip dog, go yonder Hart bred male, real good dog to a real good bulldog gyp.   

I forgot how many pups were between the 2 litters but I ended up keeping 6 puppies. I won't separate the pups into two different categories for sake of this discussion because both the yeller dogs used were both real good dogs and similar bred, 1/2 bro and sis, and the bulldogs were both top notch.
So out of these 6 dogs, we hunted them in groups of 2 at a time, with 2 seasoned older dogs on the ground with them.  Never taking a bunch of puppies at the same time so they wouldn't pick up bad habits from each other. Sometimes we ran just one pup with 2 or 3 older dogs finished dogs. Ran Garmins on everything.  Waited until they around a year old to start them, and we had them going with some real deal yeller dogs too, not something trashy.  Started them in a 5 acre training pen, the whole deal.  I'm saying that they weren't just thrown to the wolves and told to make it or die.  They were actually brought along right.  Out of the 6 . . . NONE MADE IT.

Here's what I got: A couple would pack-up and go step for step, even if it was a mile or more.  They would either just be another "me too" loose baying help dog, or the other extreme and be a "wanna-be" catch dog.  Not enough bulldog blood.  This is a common problem with this cross.  The pup thinks he's a real bulldog and he's only half of one.  Just nothing more than a bay buster as far as I'm concerned.  A couple of them would range out about 500 yards tops, turn around and come back to the ATV's, but take em to the bay and turn em loose and they thought they were bulldogs too, but they weren't either.  So these were useless as find dogs "or" catch dogs.  Nothing more than a liability.  One pup was inconsistent, looked like a million one day, and junk the next.  He didn't know whether he wanted to be a hunting baydog or a catch dog, just depended on the day.   And finally the last one showed a lot of promise.  He would pack up, or break off and hunt by himself.  Had a range of about 3/4 mile (in no sign).  He was at almost every bay, not too rough like a bay buster, but gritty.  We really like this dog.  He found and stopped two hogs on his own.  Then one day, he just decided he couldn't stand it and turned into a straight running catch dog, which is OK if you like or need that, but all my older dogs were loose baying find and stop bay dogs.  So now you got this puppy catching everything and the older dogs are now backing him.  Well this pup aint the bulldog he thinks he is, so he's getting the older dogs cut down.  I gave him to guy and last I heard he was using him as a lead in catch dog and loved him.

The percentages and consistency are just not there.  Of the ones I gave away from the two litters, all reports I got back were similar and most all of them were culled as far as I know.         

P.S. . . . As a side note, I will NEVER make another bulldog/baydog cross again, and if anyone on this board sees me doing it, please make an intervention and call me out on it, lol.   I've done it 4 times, and I have a buddy whose probably done it about 4 or 5 times as well over the years.  He has real good yella dogs (top notch stuff) and real good bulldogs too.  We talk about this subject on occasion and we both agree that it never works out to a degree that would make you want to do it again.  It's just a waste of time and a whole lot of effort and work and training and hunting, just to get disappointed.  I believe that bulldogs have a very specific purpose, and it needs to be kept pure and not messed with.  It's not the cur that messes up the cross, it's the bulldog that messes it up.  REAL bulldogs are just so "task specific" that they don't need to be confused by crossing them other breeds.   

if you breed pit with cur dog you want to breed as similar traits as you can...a pit bull that is built leggy that has some hunt to him as well as some of his close kin having had similar traits...the cur dog should have plenty of hunt and  with a decent nose...and a gritty tight baying cur dog...

This time around I have a redbone/pitbull cross and his 2 sons that are quarter redbone, quarter pitbull, and 1/2 mt cur...bred one of the 1/2 mt cur with a plott gyp and now have 1/8th pit pups...time will tell what I will have but so far I am happy with the 3 older dogs and the pups are looking pretty good at this time...

I just got rid of a 1/2 parker 1/2 pitbull that was given to me as a pup because she didn't have either of her parents qualities...she started out looking like a cur and she matured into a pitbull looking dog that didn't have a nose, hunt nor any catch...she is a good me too catch dog but me too catch dogs are a dime a dozen...I want all the traits I mentioned but not a solid catching cur/pit mix...

ultimately I want a few dogs that are telling the hog if you run I will rip your nuts out then I will catch you by your ear...A hog can read a dog...and he will pay close attention if he believes it...

if you breed to a stock type dog make sure it has lots of hunt and a great nose and can find a hog...

The catahoula in the post above that bred my ab by accident is 10yrs old now. He is hot nosed and got plenty of hunt and bottom once he gets in one...as much as his older body will let him nowadays.
Gritty as can be but will bay even smaller hogs by himself but once another dog gets there it's on. He wears scars to proove he be left holding the bag in more than one occasion over the years.

Guess his proponent genetics lined up pretty well with the ab in that one dog.

He is a very blocky built sob... Lots folks on leases we hunt ask if he is a pit mix. But he is all cat out of mason chilli/blue breeding

I plan to bred that cross pup back into one these pit cross pups with same dam down the road...since he came out straight catch and fold that into a cross of one these other pit cross pups bred with a full performance ab breeding I did with the same dam as well. And therefore line breed on that b!tch with a gamedog out, a catahoula out, and a performance ab out. Ought ta be plenty of genes to work with in the future with all those dogs and all being out of proven catchdogs.

This is purely catchdog breeding scheme. If it works out over the next four years ought to be some pretty healthy and genetically diverse but line bred dogs at the same time, by trying to cinch down on traits with all the tools to be not only great catchdogs but athletes as well...

Off topic I know...but it has been a plan in my head and I don't intend to over accelerate the process either....chit may change over time...

Semmes...I am bringing it from the other angle...a little more power and a stronger jaw and yet retain all the hunting/strike dog traits that I like in a strike dog...some will be a little too catchy but hopefully I will breed one or 2 with the right blend of traits...

I can appreciate that approach...

It's all about a vision...breeding working dogs...

No matter what angle or goal or application, one has to keep vision and breed (and cull) toward it.

Catchdogs is what brougt me into hog hunting and that is still where my heart is

But I sure wouldn't have any hog to catch without strike/bay dogs lol

Glad I got folks around me whose vision is in that arena. We all mutually benifit haha

Heres my take on running hogs...rougher is not always the answer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUvbcb4BGdE

That fella made few key points that I like and agree with. One was that people say well you can't catch the hogs over here there or at my buddy's place total nonsense like this guy stated. Second rough dogs ain't the answer most of the time it ain't bout rough or loose. It's bout having the right dogs. Another was every one thinks there right this is the biggest one lol the more open minded you are the better you can adapt to what's going on jmo


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You said a mouthful right there when you said you needed to be open minded about something. Soon as you make blanket statements about a subject, someone is gonna come along and make you look like a fool!

I totally agree Judge and way-out. There ain't nothing set in stone bout the best way to catch a hog.The pit crosses that I have and plan on in the future come from pits that strike and catch hogs as well as the Curs the only added benefit for the cross is heavier catching on one side and heat tolerance and endurance on the other side.I agree that crossing a loose dog and a walk in catch dog would be highly unlikely to get what you're after but if both sides lines already perform similarly then its not such a crap shoot. That being said I retract my earlier statement.

x2... Keep an empty cup!!! If you're cup is too full, there is no room for more. ;D so many different styles of hunting, different dog breeds, crosses, to each his own... But if anyone thinks there way is end all be all they are most certainly wrong. There are so many ways this can be done and done "right"...