Some years ago, before I had tracking collars, I lost one of my dogs on a hunt.  He was always real independant, He was born in my pens, all he ever knew was me.  He was always real hard headed, and no amount of "attitude adjustment" would make him handle well.

Well......I lost him In a huge wooded area, No house contacts of really any kind.....after 3 weeks, he showed up under a campers trailer....They read my collar and called me......He was about shrunk down to skin and bones and covered in ticks.......

I brought him home and got him back in good shape......THAT DOG LISTENED GREAT FROM THAT POINT ON!   He handled perfect......Every time I called he would come.....Loaded up, sat down.....just handled like a dream...

your dogs have intelligent eyes....

Glad to hear it Maverick! I had a similar experience with my old dog about 3 years ago but my son berried him! We get a call 2 days later to come pick up our dog!

I still dont know whos dog my son berried in my back yard! LOL

? man....you got to expand upon that......

In south florida, you pretty much don't hunt during the day.  There are a lot of reasons, but 95% of most every dog hunter hunts during the night.  I read a lot of your posts, and I think a lot of ya'lls misconceptions are from you and your dogs not being used to hunting during the night.  My dogs hunt better at night.....cause they are used to it......and actually once you get to doing it alot, you will find that you catch more hogs on darker night, NOT bright moon nights.....there are several reasons for this, but the main one is that the hogs don't move until 2 -3 in the morning on bright nights.....darker nights, they move late in the evening or several hours after dark........down here, we say we are going "BARR HUNTIN"....if we start at about midnight on a bright night and go till the mornin hours, cause that's when the big daddy's move......

The question shouldn't be "Why are hogdogs so much"..........

the question should be "WHY ARE HOGDOGS SO CHEAP"?

Dog feed for 1 dog for a year $250......multiply by 4 years to finish out a dog......now you got $1000

A couple of fix-ups at the vet in that 4 year period.......$1000 (very conservative)

so now your at $2000.....then multiply that by the 4 dogs your gonna raise to find one that is worth braggin on or that manages not to get killed.......

now your at $8000...........why the hell would anyone raise a dog? lol......you can go buy a nice dog for $1500

Most all curdogs will wind on top of a box......some just are better at it than others......naturally, some have better noses than others.....but the big difference is whether you will have to keep the dog snapped up on top of the box, or if it will ride unsnapped and stay up until it strikes......I call this the dog's "manners"......The big difference I see between a good wind dog and a great wind dog, is whether you need to keep the dog snapped up while you are riding or if he'll stay put, unsnapped, and then load and unload without you getting out of your truck......

For instance,  my two main strikedogs can rig a hog with the best of them.....but the minute you unsnap them they are gonna take off on foot, whether they smell one or not, and if they come back and load up, if i don't snap them to the top, as soon as the truck starts moving, they will unload and starting roading again......so i leave them snapped and ride till they start barking.  That is why i don't consider them great wind dogs, there "style" is not right.....

Some of my old dogs that are long gone, would ride unsnapped all night, jump when they smelled one, and come back and load up if they couldn't work it out, and then you where off down the trail, without having to get out of the truck.....That is a much better style of wind dog, I always seemed to catch more hogs with that style of dog, all other nose qualities being equal.....

All you can do as a hunter, is throw them up top, night after night, until you learn what kind of manners your dogs have....then work it the best angle you can.....knowing how to hunt your dogs, is just as important as how good of a nose your dog has......

as far as training them to hunt in loops....you can't.....they are just gonna hunt how it's bred into them when they are unsnapped.....

9 weeks is way too early.....I wouldn't even start bringing them to the woods until they are 9 or 10 months old.....

michelle mears from south florida bred up those registered dogs with the red noses....i don't know enough about what made up her lines too tell you if your dog's are out of her stuff, or how they are related, but that's where it comes from......

too further the point, i don't know if she is the one who put the red nose in, or if she got the first red nosed dogs from someone else, and then continued to breed it through.....i'm not sure....

as far as how them registered dogs acquired a red nose.......well i guess that a story for around the campfire......

your dog looks very typical of what she was producing

Like a lot of dogs, this one just needs to be hunted. A lot.

Dan, are you saying that 2 year olds doing all those things is not common? 

Yes sir....a 2 yr old dog that can do all of those things, on a consistant basis.....is not common....

I think people....in general...expect to much out of a two year old dog........

at two years, they are just starting to put the puzzle together.....

You must make good money and elect to put your money into dog food.  I myself think it may be better to invest in a better line of dogs.  At 2 years old, they should be impressing your hunting partners and you. 

Well let's see......if i can key you in to what i'm trying to say....

Show me a 2 yr old dog that will strike a hog off the box by himself.....and i will be impressed
Show me a 2 yr old dog that can put an end to a track on the road.....and i will be impressed
Show me a 2 yr old dog that will run a hog for 3 or 4 miles by itself
     and be bayed at the end                                                   ......and i will be impressed
Show me a 2 yr old dog that will load on command and respect
      a caught hog                                                                 .......an i will be impressed

Show me a 2 yr old DOG that will do ALL of that ON A PREDICTABLE CONSISTANT BASIS.......well......I don't think you can show me that dog........

HOWEVER......I just got done feeding two 5 year old dogs that can.......get my drift.......

I think people....in general...expect to much out of a two year old dog........

at two years, they are just starting to put the puzzle together.....

My best strike dog....at two years old.....would cast out wide....by himself....and strike and hold the hog till you got there......like a pro.......but when you finally got to him......he would come out to you wagging his tail......kinda like  "look what i got".......and then go back in and wreck the hog......

at three years old......he quit that altogether.....he just needed more time to mature.....

Buddylee,   to go back to your original question......I don't believe that a dog's ability to wind or track has much to do with how far it will take a runner....that is just drive alone.....

Really a good wind dog doesn't have all that much to do with whether the dog runs head up or nose down.....it has more to do with the dog's manners on the box....

What i would call a good wind dog (which is the style of dog i prefer)  is a dog that can ride the box without being clipped.....and have good enough manners to ride the box until it get's a solid nose full of swine.....this kind of dog doesn't jump off every time your truck hits an open field where the wind blows strong ......if you know what i mean.....

I have two very solid grown dogs right now that will strike off a box as good as any.....but if they are not clipped to the box....they will be on the ground......runnin.....they just don't like to ride.....so i guess what i'm tryin to say is they will wind on the box as good as any.....but they do not have the style to be good "wind dogs"......

I havn't read bayed solid or boar hunter in several years......but it seemed like it used to cater to gun hunters, bay penners, and catchdog guys.....seemed to have very little for a dog man.....

I think there is MUCH more in FULL CRY for a person who likes to talk dogs.....very little for hogdoggers, but a ton of info for dog hunters in general.....

Very nice setup.....i built a similar setup several years back......here is a couple pics....

I really like your dog bowl setup mounted on the door....i'll have to get ahold of TNT for some of those.....

My dogs would chew the heck out of those plastic water bowls, though.....

I hope your septic system ends up working out better than mine.....I just never could keep the in ground pipe clean of debris....pine needles mostly, but everything seems to get into that waste pit.....i ended up capping off my system, and simply digging a big hole to wash all the waste into....I works much better, and you only have to dig it out 2 times a year.....

I tell ya.....If i was to walk up on ya'll in the woods with the miniature dogs, semiautomatic weapons, and a coat wearing plott hound.....i believe i would crack a smile......

Noah,  are you mark chessner's buddy?  He's spoke of a gentleman named noah with a wolf dog and bird dog crosses.........

I hunt south florida dogs.....ranch stock crossed over birddogs mostly.....I've bred 4 generations of them....they are what it takes to get it done down here.......

you better wear a wet suit.....if yer goin spear fishin......i believe i would wait until about april

Noah, i'm a sw fl boy.....grew up huntin all these ranches....which one ya'll headed to?  how long you gonna be in town?

Somewhere around 10 years ago I made my first phone call to Randy Wright....talked with him about his dogs off and on for several months.....he always had the same things to say.....unbelievable amount of successful puppies, "chainsaw on a hog rearend", super long range, on and on......he and a couple of his cronies where breeding piles of dogs....he was in kahoots with a couple other guys around the south and they were popping out puppies and shipping them all over....If i remember one of the other guys name was lamon....or something like that.......

The sad simply fact is that Randy Wright is not a hog hunter, nor were his cronies......they were strait up pupppy peddlers......breeding piles of unproven dogs to unproven dogs.....always with some kind of grandeous story behind each one.....at the most he was a bay penner.....

but let's take Randy wright and his buddies lack of woods time completely out of the discussion.......It is completely impossible for ANY PERSON to own enough proven finished breedable dogs and produce the amount of puppies he did.......

I got a puppy from him....it was junk.....no big deal, no litter is 100 %....I have hunted with 6 other grown ben dogs.....all not worth my feed......

Now i'm not saying that all ben dogs are completely junk.....i'm sure there are some good ones out there.....at least i hope there are......cause there is a pile of ben dogs on the ground.......my point is with that many unproven dogs being bred to create a line.......you are not buying anything that is any different than your average grade dog......your just buying a normal curdog pup.......

I've always said "Hog hunting is 60% land, 30% Dogs, and 10% handler".......

The guys i know that catch PILES of hogs....don't want a dog that needs a tracking collar....They see no reason to wait for a dog when they can just go around the corner and throw out on another pack......

well i'll play devil's advocate on this one.....

I think it is a pretty safe bet you ask anyone "would you buy pups out of dogs that aren't prove?" they are going to say "no"....because it sounds right, but consider these three scenarios, and tell me what you think....

I've owned and bred a line of dogs I picked up from a friend for the last 10 years.....One of the litter's we had only 4 pups survived.....3 of the 4 stayed in our hunting group and one was sold for a pet.....well all 3 turned out to be barn-burners and I happened to get the female i kept killed......well an opportunity came up for me to get the one female that was sold for a pet back so it did.......The dog had seen nothing but a couple penned up hogs the guy kept around his house for her entire 3 years with him.....I took her out to the woods dropped her out on a pack of hogs with some other dogs, and she ran and bayed for 2 hours.....I proceeded to take her home and lock her up for a year until she came into heat.....The pups are about 5 month old now......I know this dog's blood like the back of my hand....but she is far from proven herself.....what would you have done, keep in mind i've had a real hard time keeping gyps from this line from being killed in action....

2nd scenario-  my buddy raises up a pointer gyp for the sole purpose of crossing it into his this same line of proven dogs.....she never seen a hog before or after she had pups,  The dogs from this cross are 2 years old now and hard to beat.....

3rd scenario- another buddy raises up and trains a leapard gyp to a finished dog.  This gyp is as nice and solid a female as i ever seen hit the ground...maybe better.....caught hundreds upon hundreds with her over a 6 year period.....we bred this gyp 3 different times to good males, everything she threw was junk......

I guess what i'm saying is sometime's blood is as important as experience...maybe sometime's more important

I would not do anything....dogs that are that young are not going to consistantly stop bad running hogs.....when they get some age on them you will be much happier and will be catching more hogs with them hunting independtly......patience now.....reward later