They have sure grown. Nice and healthy looking.

Y'all wore them out. You ready for a break and we are ready to get started.

There is nobody and I mean nobody that has a 100% turnout ratio. To me tho the results are more predictable in a established line of dogs.  Just like Tdogs friend who said he probably would have never bred that gyp but then due to a accidental breeding, he found out what kind of producer she was. I have had a few gyps that have produced way better then what they are. I can give you a example: I have a dog named Yellow.  Let's just call him a good journeyman dog. He should have been a really fast dog but just came out with average speed. He did have a really good nose and a abundance of grit. He can go out and get the job done and needs no help but he kind of sits in the shadow of Showtimes, Hank, Amber or a couple others I can name. Those dogs were just in another class. That being said I bred him to a female that was a pretty good dog but she lacked a little grit. Those pups came out the real deal which two of them were Oak and Cypress.  The  main thing that has worked for me is only breeding dogs that can do it by there self. We as hog hunters have to many split races and if a dog will not run and bay his own hog, he has no business being in the gene pool.

T Dog I do try to stay with proven crosses altho like you said they are not always proven. I had a Nite Ch. Plott gyp and bred her to a Grand nite Ch. male. That first cross was great and I kept the worst one of the litter. He would tree squirrels and coons but just didnt have the go to them. Two out of that litter went to competition hunters and made Nite ch. out of them and others went to pleasure hunters but they made coon dogs. I make that same cross again and there was only one in that 2nd cross that made a coon dog. So much for proven crosses but overall I will stick to them.
  Twice in my life I have come close to running out of dogs and swore that would never happen again. I keep enough  now that I cannot hunt them all but have enough variety in them that I can breed to different studs and not back myself into a corner although they are all related. The only time I really need that many is Feb. when we really run into alot of boars in the marsh  and have to lay alot up from injuries.
  I find myself leaving trained dogs at home just to hunt the young dogs.

She had her pups from the Trapper semen almost a year ago.  They started early, the female and male I kept have done well until I had to lay them up for deer season. They are pretty gritty for hog dogs so dont know how long they will last. The female Sissy got really cut up pretty bad on a boar hog we caught right before season. I had another young gyp that got gutted on that hog but she survived despite me and Scotty Needhams Veterinarian skills.  They didnt learn anything because they caught my hog in the pen which was about a 140# with 1 1/2" cutters and got cut up on him.  Joe Hudson got a female and hunted her on bear from 7 months old and by the time season ended told me she was as good as he has seen for her age. She was rigging and cold trailing real early. He also wants me to make the same cross again.
  Sassy is a 1/2 sister to Chief out of the Oak dog. Those are two of the young guns I had posted. The third is Rip and he has everything the other two have except he is not as coldnosed. I sold him over to Sweden and they like him pretty good.

Yeah, Joe bred a female to him and sent him  down here. I am planning on breeding a couple to him and sending him back to Joe for bear season.

  Y;all sit down and let me tell you a story about a dog that doesn't know the meaning of quit. When Chief was 8 months old I threw him and two other pups on a hog we saw swim the bayou. After a  hour race we heard them bay for a few minutes then break and run. After about 45 minutes the hog beat us to No Man's land and we caught the dogs. Chief had herniated from a cut to his gut and I ran him two the Vet the next morning. He had 3 loops of intestine out of his stomach cavity but under the skin. He healed up fine and during the Wisconsin bear season they were bayed up and Andy started into them. Bear broke and the dogs walked him a mile and treed him. Chief was at the tree treeing but Andy knew he was hurt. Took him to the Vet and he had multiple bites and a dislocated hip. Out for a month but ready for kill season. There was a walking bay and the hunter slipped in and shot the bear but the bullet went thru the bear and hit Chief in the leg. We thought his running days were over as he was essentially  head bobbing lame. After almost a year of being off I took him with the other dogs roading them. He started falling back after a couple of miles and I told Andy I didnt think he would be able to stay in a bear race. Joe Hudson thought he might be able to use him to breed a female too so Andy gave him to Joe. Joe tried him on bear and he was able to run. Evidently bear scent gave him more incentive to run then just roading him. Every bear that stayed on the ground he got holes put in him to the extent that you couldn't even pet him on his head it was so puffy. No matter how much he got chewed up, he never quit a bear. Even crippled he ran at the front with Joe's dogs and Joe told me he could take a 10 hour old plus track and get it going. That is high praise coming from a guy like Joe that has had real bear dogs for 50 plus years.

Owner Joe Hudson





-------------------------------Bayou Cajun Hank
---------------------Bayou Cajun Yellow
-------------------------------Bayou Cajun Trumpet
------------Bayou Cajun Oak
-------------------------------Bayou Cajun Hillbilly Jack
---------------------Bayou Cajun Flirt
--------------------------------Frees 3k Brandy
Bayou Cajun Chief
-------------------------------Bayou Cajun Hillbilly Jack
---------------------Bayou Cajun Showtime
-------------------------------Bayou Cajun Amber
----------------------Bayou Cajun Showtime
-------------Bayou Cajun Showgirl
-------------------------------Bayou Cajun Hank
-----------------------Bayou Cajun Auburn
-------------------------------Bayou Cajun Trumpet

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That's a nice healthy looking litter. let's hear some details on the parents.

Lettmroll, I might want to breed to him myself. We have had running dogs hunt with us and they are not any or much faster then the Plotts. That being said. I believe a good cur is the fastest thing in the woods or a Running dog x cur cross.

Real good boar and good  work by the young dogs. They are getting in the zone.

Yall talking about great dogs over here.....and Im just trying to get a good one?!


In all honesty. Ive had some very, very, very good dogs. BUT
Ive yet to have my great dog. The closest thing I had got crippled up young. Still was a very very good dog.

That said Ive only seen 1-2 truly great dogs. Of those ones I have seen.....when bred always seemed to produce  below average dogs, even when bred to good dogs. Dont know if the expectation was too high on the offspring or discouragement from the owners? But it is funny how that works sometimes. Do yall see the same?

Leone I have seen the same thing when breeding  what I consider top tier dogs. Seems like what they reproduce tends to drop more down to the average altho to be fair to the dogs we have bred the females while good were not in the same class as the male. Now what I have seen is dogs reproduce better then what they are.

  T Dog I am going to have to redefine what I call a top dog. I have never been offered a brand new truck for any of my culls, not even a older one. lol

  When I started this topic it was to invite people in on the conversation to maybe talk about the good to great dogs the have had and what are the traits that set them apart.
  I guess I have been very, very lucky to have had what I consider great dogs. Dont know if i would consider them once in a lifetime dogs since I have had several.
  I have had a boatload of dogs over the years that could get the job done, dogs I would call good journeyman dogs if you will. To me what separates the great dogs is simple. They simply make good dogs look bad and do it on a regular bases. They are all business, get gone and stay busy and they produce hogs when other dogs dont.
  T dog out of the five I think were great, one of them was a straight Catahoula.

  I made a post on FB awhile back on what separates the good dogs from the truly great dogs. I had put I had 3 that I considered truly great dogs but after thinking about it I would say I have had 5. I have had plenty of dogs that had the same speed, nose and grit that my dogs that I had considered truly the Elite but the main difference boiled down to bottom. Those 5 dogs simply had the endurance to run a hog down no matter how long it took. I am not saying they ran every hog down because I caught them off more often then not but if left to there selves they would bay that hog somewhere. They also made baying hogs look easy. They had what I called the touch. They knew just how much pressure it took to keep hogs bayed. It is also hard to judge dogs of today to dogs of the past because you cannot run them together. One of many things I have pondered over the years.

Sounds like a great way to start the morning and a good catch for the young dogs. Real nice looking sow.

What make of pocket knife is that?

Thats a real good hog and good dog work.

T dog, I dont think it takes them long at all. They run there routes and if something stops the dogs, they learn from it.

Leone, that is a good group of hogs. Those young dogs will make you pull your hair out sometimes. Thanks for the motivational text this morning. We did go last weekend. Bayed a good boar after a hour race in a hellhole.  all Muscadines and briars. Bulldogs missed or the hog heard them coming. Anyway ran him another 2 hours and they ran him off the club and we had to catch off of him.

  Thanks everyone. I am getting around pretty good now and hope to do some hunting in Sept. Probably do my knee in Oct.

Cajun!  That's what I'm talking about. lol
  T dog I would have never thought in a million years that Fla. would have shut down bear season. Fla. is a huge dog running state and I mean they run everything year round back in the day. Deer and Coyote dogs, coon, Rabbit, Hogs, bear and birds. You can pass through any little town in Fla. and about 1 in three trucks will have a dog box.
  We are starting to call our crew the geriatric crew. With me being almost 70, Charlie about 60, Mike the knife is 63 and Larry is 56. Trust me when I say we welcome any young help. lol