Goose87…I seen the same thing with some of the plotts…
I’ve done quite a bit of looking for a certain line known for their grit.
A while back I spoke with someone who hunts with the owner of that bloodline and also hunts that same line…so I asked how they hunted their bear dogs…they said almost always rigging or starting them from a bait…

Once I heard that I will not buy a pup because it does not fit my style…my number one priority is casting and finding…some of the Plott dogs are weak in casting and finding and I believe it is because of the hunting style I mentioned…

When we cast a dog in fresh sign I expect a dog to be running a track in less than five minutes…bayed or hearing a squeal…5 minutes is a long time…

The nose…I agree that a colder nose goes with the better hunting dog…but I differ on how it works but cannot prove it so it is a personal theory…

It applies to both winding or starting a colder track…there is a connection between the nose and the brain…some dogs trigger will trip very easily and others won’t…the gold nugget bred kemmer mountain curs can really wind or start a cold track but what I do like about them is they would rather start good tracks…

In open marsh I have seen none of the dogs get interested in the wind currents but one or two dogs…but it is not like blowing up the dog box interest…I just noticed a little interest…I looked to see exactly where the wind was coming from and turned into the wind…went close to a mile before I turned the dog loose and they went straight to the hogs…

I think the right Mt Cur line crossed with the right Plott line we produce Mt Cur type dogs from the old days…I believe back then there wasn’t much difference in the two…

Getting back to the nose…I’ve seen dogs come running by…two run right over a track and the switch doesn’t trip…a little later another dog comes by and opens a couple times and takes the track and lines it out…the same place the other dogs went right over…

Same thing with winding…if the scent is fairly strong in the wind they all can smell it and the trigger will trip but on a weaker scent the colder nosed dog might be the only dogs trigger that trips…and if it is a very weak scent it is up to the handler to set them up for success when one dogs shows little interest but doesn’t react…it is up to the handler to decide if it should be checked…

It’s all about what we do as breeders and handlers…we make the dogs better by how we breed and how  we hunt them…

When we test pups at a young age we can see which has the hair trigger for winding and also which pups have a knack for finding which proves 3 things…nose, ability to find and the right type of brain to go with the nose and finding ability…to me it is all about selecting for natural ability first…

Rubs your last sentence is something I pay a good bit of attention to, I'll sit a bowl of food or scraps up on truck hood or anything elevated and watch to see who detects the scent initially and who can locate the source....

Sounds to me like your dogs are just running hot quick, once a dogs body temp starts rising their smelling abilities start becoming weaker, (hunt by hunt basis, it's not permanent), I don't know your feeding schedule but I would start feeding them every other day, let's say you feed them, MWFSn, double their ration on Monday, regular ration on Wednesday and half ration a minimum 12 hrs before they're hunted on Fridays, a dogs guts and digestive tract full of sh!t does nothing but to create body heat, climbing body heat will make the best of them look like they're standing on their tails, keep some water with electrolytes in them free choice in the box and if you really want to do as much as you can for them freeze a big pot of water, one for each side of box, as your leaving just put the pots inside the box, the dogs will lick them as they feel the need and that will help them out a good bit as well, as they melt you can use them as your water bowls,

Dang thumb hit send, it blows me away the life long houndsmen I've known along time that really know how to work dogs that don't keep water in the box for their dogs, especially this time of year, but you better believe come Monday at work they will be sucking down bottles every chance they get, I told my buddy Francis one day as he is about to fall out from heat as we were laying bricks, "oh no big boy if you throw up I'll club you with a lighter knot, you a hog hunter you supposed to be tough", "ain't that what you said to me the other day when I gave YOUR dogs some water", Francis Spiers is a devout church going individual, and I've known him over 20 yrs and can count on one hand how many curse words have come from his mouth in that time frame, but that day I brought the devil out in him and was kinda impressed with the feller be he used the word "fu*k" as a noun, verb, and adjective all in the same sentence, anyways back to the dogs, what are you feeding, and how much protein, we're all guilty of this and think we're helping our dogs when in reality were hindering them, protein is used to build and repair muscle and connective tissue, very little is utilized as energy, in the summer months you see big performance difference if you swap to a lower protein or cut your normal kibble with a lower grade, less protein, protein also makes the body produce heat as its digesting, and is also hard on dogs endocrine systems when the body isn't needing and using all the excess, now in the cooler months where a dogs is spending his energy hunting, he's usually going harder and longer and also has to constantly shiver if not moving to stay warm, only you know your dogs, go outside and look at them, if you can roll a ball across their back they're too fat, if you can see a little hip bone and on hunt days after the hunt even a little vertebrae sticking up they're good, their K9 athletes and should be in same physical condition as marathon runners, little thin, lean muscle mass and not to bulky....


Here's a few things I do just to get a giggle outa watching my buddies scratch their heads while pontificating to themselves what they're doing differ t than myself bc mine don't check up for the heat if I do my part, I'll share it on here just bc of what Tdog said about sharing the knowledge we've gained and I have consumed so much over the years from this site, taking little tid bits of folks methods and applying what fits my pack and adjusting other things, now whether any of y'all try any of this or not is on y'all and just for the record I'm not suggesting or endorsing these methods bc I don't know your owns dogs like you do so that parts on you..

1) mix baking soda in some water at the rate of 3 grams per 2.2lbs of body weight, hold the dogs water morning of last feeding and at regular feeding give this mixture as only water source, also mix the water over their feed, just use your normal feeding cup and fill it up and pour over the feed, this is known as buffering the blood, lactic ACID is what causes cramps and muscle shut down, so in order to hold off LA build up longer than normal make the animals body more alkaline, this is used in humans but has worked for my dogs

2) fasting, I know it's hard for some to do but, especially this time of year, if your dogs are in good flesh then hold their feed for about 3 days, once every other week or depending on the individual, that gives their guts time to clean out, the health benefits outweigh the performance benefits, and even then 3 days may not be long enough, I picked to big game bred kemmers the other day that are outa shape, I wanted to get them completely cleaned out before I started working them, take it how you want and call it what you want, unless you know performance animals then it's hard to fathom, but I didn't feed them a lick until they quit passing stool, I let them run around every evening to help clean out, this just goes to show you how much food can stay in their digestive tract for periods of time, it was 5 DAYS, and these dudes were still passing stool and hadn't had a morsel of kibble, just water and air and yet we're still full gutted, look at wolves and totes, they don't eat a big meal every day but when they do they gorge on it until it's gone and lay around all fat and plump, to fat and slow to catch another big meal until they've ran that meal off and have slimmed down and leaned up enough to be fast and agile enough to take down another large prey.....

3)CORN OIL, I repeat CORN oil, it has to be corn oil, mix a TBS or two of corn oil over your dogs feed everyday and it will help enhance their olfactory functions, I know there's a few of y'all that can't wait to call BS on this, I mean how in the world is that supposed to help, google it, research it, I'm not going to make it easy but I can promise this info is out there, I can't remember right off the top of my head what it's purpose is but it works, it takes about month to start taking effect, it's not going to make a hot nosed help dog become your pack leader but will give them a little bit of an extra edge...

4) Now this is going to really get the blasphemic bunch ready to form a lynch mob, bc they've never heard of this witch craft, but when utilized correctly and at the right times ESSENTIAL OILS, will help them out greatly, especially peppermint oil, you have to be careful with them and get to know about them first, when applied to the inside of their ears, under their chin, down their back bone in a few places, this will help increase blood flow, is a bronchodilator and will open up their airways allowing more o2 absorption which leads to increased physical performance, and also help them cool down quicker, along with a list of other performance enhancing benefits, orange essential oil along with spearmint essential both helped increase performance and stamina, rosemary essential oil also helped increase performance, there are more EO's that help contribute as well, y'all will just have to study about them and how they work and see what fits your needs...

5) Pomegranate juice and seeds has a pile of documented muscle and performance enhancers that it's to many to list, I haven't tried this myself but will be here shortly when I start working some dogs for a competition...

There's plenty more little things you can do to increase overall production, what I listed above may seem complicated and aggravating but really aren't and are simple and are on the more simpler side that can be done at home in the evenings if you want to put forth the effort, all of these things can make an impact but will hardly do anything for an out of shape fat animal, if your dogs are panting from the kennel to the box then chances are they need more exercise, letting them jog next to bike or buggy goes along way but is often overdone and has negative effects and instantly gets labeled as nonsense, if you can run your dogs next to a bike or buggy, do it at their pace, never break out of a high brisk pace, of your dogs has to break his stride to keep pace your going to fast, what you want to do is you more or less want to see them at a very fast paced walk, not running or jogging, and as soon as they start panting with their mouth open, end it right there and slowly build them up to longer distance over time, this builds cardio and works the dogs slow twitch muscles, which are his endurance muscles, hope some of this may help someone somehow one day....

Sounds to me like your dogs are just running hot quick, once a dogs body temp starts rising their smelling abilities start becoming weaker, (hunt by hunt basis, it's not permanent), I don't know your feeding schedule but I would start feeding them every other day, let's say you feed them, MWFSn, double their ration on Monday, regular ration on Wednesday and half ration a minimum 12 hrs before they're hunted, a dogs guts and digestive tract full of sh!t does nothing to create body heat, climbing body heat will make the best of them look like they're standing on their tails, keep some water with electrolytes in them free choice in the of box and if you really want to do as much as you can for them freeze a big pot of water, one for each side of box, as your leaving just put the pots inside the box, the dogs will lick them as they feel the need and that will help them out a good bit as well, as they melt you can use them as your water bowls,

T-dog I agree 100% I was just having this conversation with my buddy yesterday and I was telling him that I believe you can force a cur dog down a cold track and that I do it if that's what I have to work with I actually read on here along time ago how to do it and I believe it was BA-IV who was saying that he forced his curs to cold trail but I could be mistaking.Either way I will follow a track as far as I can see it which alot of times isn't very far where I hunt and then I stop I don't talk to my dogs other than sending them down it once or twice if they come back I just sit there sometimes I sit in one spot for a hr quietly and watch the dogs and the Garmin eventually they'll trail it because I am not giving them anything else to work with.Like T-dog said if they have the want to then they'll work it out you just have to give em time.I enjoy forcing them down a track they don't want to try but it takes alot of patience to just sit back open a cold drink and wait.

 

This style takes individuals with PATIENCE, and the reason a lot of hunters can't or won't attempt it, I don't think this is true but believe it is and stand firmly behind this thought and belief all day long every day that it has more to do with a dogs desire to find the game that left the track they are smelling, my ex paw in law whom I got part my foundation of my curs dogs from always told me that that particular family of curs always had way better than average noses especially for cur dogs, I've seen them do some things and work some tracks out that even blew me away In their abilities alone and on the ground with or sent in behind some really good dogs themselves, one instance in particular I was past noon getting to a hunt one day and a pack of high power well known bear plott hounds from a state or two north of my location, had been hunting in there all morning and only Only 1 Hog had been caught all day and it was with a daughter to two of my curs and I was told that this blocks had been ran through and hunted out by the two packs of plotts, I trusted my dogs noses more than my friends observations and within an hr my old gyp, whom I hadn't hunted since the prior May and this being February, had one bayed and would eventually relay and bay another 4 more all within 3-4 hours in a section of swamp across the Rd from my house that my other buddy's bear hounds couldn't line a track out and keep it going for whatever reason, they are some great and very productive dogs, I've seen other instances before this that made me have this theory and saw it with both sides of my cur blood, both sides are built and bred around two outstanding females that I was blessed to own both at the same time, they are two totally different styles of dogs in every aspect, I also firmly believe in and have proven this with my own pack vs their litter mates and contemporaries owned by friends, I take one or two of my younger dogs that are showing all the right things and take them right by themselves at night and either send them in a block I know they'll hit a hog track or put them down on a track, and just let them be, a lot of times I'll fall asleep in the truck, I rarely bring a cd bc I have no intent on catching the hog, and if they put it all together and get one stopped and bayed, depending on the time I'll let them bay and work it a while or cause them to break and catch them off at a crossing and picking them up wanting it bad, a dog sees the world through his nose and when it's lights out they have to use their nose to be their guide, and by doing this I'm able to eliminate a lot of the distractions and deterrents that would normally grab a young dogs attention and focus, it's also been the deciding factor in some getting culled, bc if they can't perform at night at least to an average an above as they would in day light with other seasoned pack mates then they don't stay here, by doing that for the last 3-4 generations I've been able to select and breed for dogs that can put their minds to it and grub out a nasty track if needed to, I've tried and tried to explain this simple method to my friends early all of them say the same thing, "my dogs just don't perform or produce well at night, and those same ones also can't figure out why their dogs can't trail out a track past a certain window of time in which it was laid, the one or two that have listened have seen the benefit within a few hunts, I started doing this out of necessity bc of work and not by choice, I also noticed that my very first pack I ever put together got hunted nearly every night of the week and weekends and they just seem to bay a lot better so I tried baying my dogs now a bunch in a Bay pen bc I fooled with my old dogs every chance I could, didn't seem to help, when I started hunting them at night a few summers ago I noticed they started taking tracks in the day that were way colder than they would normally try and when they started putting game at them end of it I took a hard notice at what I was doing different and finally pen pointed that the night hunting was the key, just the other night my best friend and I were hunting some pups out of his old male and my old female, they are 1st cousins and I have yet to hunt behind a pair of cur dogs that can outdo them on a cold track, at least not around here, the pups just hit a yr on Father's Day and were in some god awful thick overgrowth, every time they'd bog down he'd get jumpy and want to put an old dog down, to "help them out", and I'd just say go ahead, send her in there to show them where it went and the next time after that and time after that when they bog down they'll just sit and wait for ol reliable to come and show them, or we can just sit here and let me enjoy my nap and listening to my young boooo tick run with his pups and let them figure out where they messed up and line it back out by themselves, that way they learn something and retain it bc they figured it out on their own and can apply it next time that situation is faced or get them dependent on a crutch that won't always be there to hold them up when they fall, it's taking him some self adjusting and developing patience on his end but this summer he has hunted his 3 at night a good bit and they are looking just as good and better than several dogs with a few seasons of hauling, I also watch my Garmin and see where the dogs either lost a track or had a bad break down they're having trouble recovering, it's not so much an issue with more seasoned dogs but more so with my young dogs, if they turn back and trail themselves back out I'll try to get to the point of the break down to see for myself what's going on and a lot of times entice and encourage them to grind it on out and get it back up on its feet at a brisk pace, if that becomes a habit for a particular dog then they won't stay here much longer, I'll talk to my dogs if I'm walking a hard track out with them but nothing like, cmere boy, or anything not business related, by the time they get to the woods they've already learned my basic verbal commands at home and I'll use them to keep the dog focused on what we're doing if I see track or sign of any off game or notice they're no longer following the track or scent funnel and are trying to take a path of least resistance, of course none of this can be accomplished if the hunter/handler has catching hogs or stacking numbers as his main objective, it takes an individual willing to devote the time and maintain the patience of biblical proportions to achieve the results and an eye for knowing when to pull the plug on a prospect and move on, next most important factor is having your hands on the hides that have the capabilities to work out and line out older tracks, it's just the way the world turns, some dogs have IT, and some dogs don't, once you've seen one do things that make you the one doing the observing say WOW, even if it's just to yourself bc your really not sure you just saw what you think you saw, you'll know it, one thing I've noticed and seen a correlation to trailing tough tracks at least in my dogs, is when they're young little pups is the ones who seem to be problem solvers and can find away out of pens built like Alcatraz, are seeming to make the better dogs that suit my liking, those are the two main most important factors to start with, there's also a number of other contributing smaller factors such as environmental and atmospheric conditions, the dogs physical shape, and how and what they're fed that all play small roles in scenting and trailing that when all combined all add up and can sway success in your favor or against you.....


I'll reply to the original post shortly lol, found a comment and paragraph that really always interest me....

there's more than one documented instance in which a family of dogs having their tails docked at birth, for generations and then in one generation shorter tails begin showing up in litters

Please show me this documentation

Sure can and sure will it's called the c189g mutation, a very simple search of Google about this mutation or just tail docking in general will give a very brief history on how this gene formed for some breed ands others it's still not explained, and you taking my word on something is t very good scientific documentation, but I'll add it anyways, old man who lived several miles down the Rd from me raised blue healers for years and years and would dock their tails with a hatchet on a flat stump, one day he had a litter and was about to look them over and dock tails and noticed one had stump tail, he kept her and she never had any adverse health concerns and even produced two pups in separate litters later on that both had bob tails, again you don't have to believe my own personal account, but the science behind can't be denied, I knew another account of a man in Florida bob his dogs tails for years and out of the blue he started getting 3/4 and 1/2 tails on his fami,y of dogs, so if you still wish to know more, again the information is out there if we just dig a teeny weeny bit...

Big difference in wild animals and domestic animals.

Domestic animals and selective breeding can vastly out compete environmental factors. You can change domestic animals very quickly. You can change the gene expression of  eye color, coat/hair color, hair length, size in one generation. You could selectively breed great danes bigger and bigger in south Tx.

It would take thousands of years to change a wolf from long hair to short hair. or long tail to bob tail just breeding to wolf.....unless you hybridize with dog.  Then it would not be a wolf anymore. The coyote basically hybridized the red wolf out of existence.

We have mapped the genome of the domestic dog. With CRISPR genome editing you would be able to express ANY trait you wanted. This will be the future in gentics.

So where in the evolutionary chain of events do you reckon the dog and the wolf became separated, ENVIRONMENT would make the physical change happen much faster based on the environmental pressures present in the organisms life at the time, a naturally long haired animal brought from an environment suited for its phenotype to an environment that it's phenotype isn't suited for, within the next few following generations the coat length will gradual,y become less thick and long, this has been proven in the show cattle industry time and again, for that very reason big time showers in warmer climates  have commercial coolers installed to keep their animals in during the summer months to promote hair growth, cold temperatures stimulate hair growth, and given the amount of time it would take several generations to be born and live out their life span, it would be sufficient amount of time for the environmental pressures to start influencing cell and gene expression, there's more than one documented instance in which a family of dogs having their tails docked at birth, for generations and then in one generation shorter tails begin showing up in litters and if selected and bred for correctly bob tails become a genetic expression, dogs aren't naturally bob tailed so somewhere along their evolutionary time line environmental factors, be it man made or freak accidents, became so frequent of occurrence that a mutation took place,  yessir anybody with any little hint of knowledge of genetics could breed Great Danes or any other animal, to what ever size and color of their choosing, it's done everyday, that's a result of artificial selection and genetic manipulation, now you take those same xxl Great Danes those breeders in south Texas are known for and turn them loose in the wild to fend for themselves and let the natural order of things do the mating selecting  and I'll put my lucky marbles against your buffalo nickels that within 3-5 generations at the minimum there will start to become a phenotypical change in size within the population of the xxl Great Danes of south Texas, from one generation to the next until they level off in size to match and maximize what the environment has to offer them, let's all look at the bigger picture here, all those same things that you mentioned can be changed through selective mating is absolutely spot on, we most certainly can do that and we do, but have you ever given any thought as to how those various differences in coat color/length, eye color, size etc. all came about (in canines only), remember all canines descended from one original ancestor, the wolf, one base genome from which all dogs originated, I'm going out on limb here and say ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES, which covers a wide umbrella of different factoring contributions, it's always been I front of us all along, the scientific community couldn't explain it so they just looped it into the category of evolution, which in actuality is changing to adhere to the ENVIRONMENTAL circumstances....



How does any of this EPIgenetics stuff effect the outcome of our litters, if it does at all, again I don't think it's a difference maker in taking thing to another level in one litter to the next, but just as in nature , only the smart then the strong survive, why are the survivors the smartest or the strongest, because they had that little edge over their competition, enough of an edge to survive to perpetuate that gained edge on to the next generation until that edge it had outlasted it's competition to become a set standard within the species population. By knowing your hounds and kinda knowing what to expect in your chosen makings all the little things that have been mentioned in all of these EPIgenetics conversations, that can and are done along the way of a pups development will eventually add up to become slight edge in advantage over its competition, however slight or vastly impactful it maybe, either way it's an advantage and in a game of life, where the end reward  can only go two ways life or death, that minuscule edge of advantage suddenly becomes game changing, this is all speculative theory and pipe dreams to most who will never raise the number of litters to ever see this first hand in life and that's all cool because the sun still rises and sets everyday just the same way it does for those that can open their minds and  be able to understand and comprehend the complexities and in the same thought the simplicity of the science in front of us...

Only thing I'll add to this is that Archie Manning didn't allow Peyton to play full contact football until he was 14 yrs old, he wanted him to be both physically and mentally developed to handle the rigors of that life, the results speak for themselves, correlate that into how science says dogs age and grow that would be equivalent to a two year old dog, a lot of it stands to reason if we put a little thought into it.....

I believe I wrote about this story on here some years ago…

we were having a birthday party for my grandson…he was about 5 or 6 at the time…and just now he has finished his 2nd year of college…at party time my other grandson showed up with his younger cousin named Kaiden who was about 4 years old at the time…

During the party kids were playing outside and they all came running in all excited except for Kaiden, he was kind of calm and not saying much…they said Kaiden was eating the Birdseye peppers…those are some really hot peppers so I didn’t think he was…I said he can’t be, they are too hot…but they sounded pretty convincing so I said go get some peppers and show me…they went to get some peppers and were back shortly…I said where are the peppers…Kaiden said I ate them…I said open your mouth I want to see…well his mouth and tongue were red with the little red peppers and also lots of seeds…he looked as if he was eating a lollipop or piece of fruit…just as calm and no big deal whatsoever…I made him stop on account I was afraid he would be sick…I couldn’t wait to talk to his mom…

His mom showed up a couple hours later…I told her what Kaiden ate and she said it’s no big deal…one day when he was sitting in the high chair he reached over and grabbed a jalapeño pepper and started eating it when he was about two years of age his mom said…

She also said Kaiden has been eating peppers ever since…I asked her if she had any theories or ideas as to why…she said she never ate peppers until she got pregnant with Kaiden and had to eat Jalapeños and kept them handy…she said she craved them really bad during pregnancy…she also said she thought that that is what caused him to like eating them…and without feeling the heat…

The environment in her digestive system most definitely changed…common sense says it was a domino effect or chain reaction that many things reacted to the radical change in the diet…

This was a very unique situation that I will never forget and it just made me want to learn more from it…

Some other person might not give it a second thought…

It is the same with our dogs…sometimes we see it clearly and others don’t or don’t care one way or another…that what makes this world go round and round…we’re all different because evolution molded us this way for a reason…if we were or are all the same we wouldn’t survive…

Reuben, I can personally relate to this account, when my mother was in her 2nd and 3rd trimester during her pregnancy with myself she craved and ate ungodly amounts of watermelon and couldn't eat enough of it, could it  be her body was lacking something contained in the melons and it be a coincidence or not who knows but I can eat an entire watermelon in one sitting everyday, and I usually do average one melon a day while their in season and some days will be the only thing eat, I absolutely love watermelon and it has no ill effects on my digestive system like it does all those around me, I'm the only one in my family that never ever grows tired of eating it, could it have been my mothers consumption of them during pregnancy or just be shear happenstance, who knows......

Everyone take a step outside the box for minute and realize that your not going to see any major changes in litters of dogs from one generation to the next in our own kennels in each litter, it's a timely process that has to happen over a span of multiple generations before any sort of genetic mutation starts to take place and even then it takes a trained eye that's looking for it to even know how to notice it, Bergmanns Rule is the most common plain as day example we've all seen and just didn't know it, Judge all the things you just listed, protein intake, climate, such as that, correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't that all be attributed the ENVIRONMENT playing a crucial role, all of the listed have to be locally sourced from the environment, an alfalfa field in a northern state is going to have a much higher output of protein than a coastal Bermuda field in south ms, you care to take the time to look some while back I posted on here a topic titled for Reuben or something along those lines, it was a link to a show done by HBO called Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, on that episode that documented a population of people living on the ocean in the South Pacific Ocean and survived by free diving and spearing fish, long story short this population of individuals have physically evolved to match their environment, so much so that it's become genetically encoded to their DNA and passed on to the following generations, that is what EPIgenetics is,  I don't think there can be any great significant change in a short span of time but I do believe that doing the little things like Reuben and others have said before does awaken, arouse, bring out, etc, certain instincts just a little more than their contemporaries of the same caliber and breeding, not so much that there's going to be a noticeable difference that most others besides the man who knows those particular dogs top to bottom inside and out for generations and generations back is going to be able to see, and let's be real, how many men can honestly say that they have that much knowledge of the dogs they own, I do believe that dogs bred, and hunted for a certain type of one particular game for multiple generations will become genetically inclined to prefer that certain type of game over anything else, the research, data, and results are easily accessed if we want to or even if we choose to believe it or not, could be worse there are folks out there who think Earth is flat....

I have heard that for yrs I don’t believe any of it. To me it’s just plain silly thinking. So will your son be a better student if wife does math every night before bed. What if she played basketball every day before birth your kid will be able to dunk. Maybe just maybe if she chops fire wood every day until birth your kid will be a lumberjack.


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It's hard for someone to believe something that don't have a clue at understanding and since they can't understand then it's blasphemy and bullsh!t, we live in the time of technology in the age of information, where access to vast information is at our finger tips literally, nearly all of us have access to the Internet and the research and information is there at ones disposal 24/7....


Here's an example of EPIgenetics in plain sight every day, if there is no merit to it and it's just nonsense then how do you explain whitetail deer, they're all the same species right, can't mix breed with other ungulates, so why the such huge difference across the spectrum across the country on their weight, body mass, antler size, look at a whitetail from Manitoba Canada, vs a whitetail killed say in the Florida Everglades, ones huge in body and antler mass while the other is spindly built, take that same spindly built deer to Manitoba and feed it the exact same thing as a native deer and that Florida deer is going to continue to reproduce more spindly built deer, why because the genes the spindly deer carries come from its ancestors who have evolved and adapted to make it on what's available in their home environment, now you take that original spindly built deer to Manitoba and continue to breed its offspring for 3 or more generations in the northern environment and eventually they start evolving and changing the actual physical appearance to adapt to the environment, I promise it just didn't happen because that's the way things are, a study was done using wild caught fox who were born wild but had been bred and raised babies in captivity, the f1 offspring were raised around humans their entire lives but we're born from wild raised parents, even being around and interacting with humans from day 1 the f1s were still very much like their parents, the f2s, born from captive raised parents were more friendly and accepting towards humans but still very leery and spooky, the f3s, being the third generation  born and raised in captivity were much more accepting to humans and were able to be handled and taught to do certain task....

Take cattle from far north country that have been bred and raised up there for multiple generations, bring them to the Deep South and they are going to have a hard time, they will adapt and adjust some  but will be hampered by the environment the rest of their lives, in just one generation their offspring born in the southern climate will have no trouble as compared to what their parents did, and the cattle born down from the pair that came from the far northern climate will not face the same struggle, same exact genetics, no deviation from original genetic package but one struggles to perform in a foreign environment they are not biologically designed to flourish and thrive in, then the next generation doesn't have as many problem handling the same issues and the generation after that has even less than the first 2 before, why, bc their bodies are are changing on a cellular level to adapt and make use of the now native environment, cells that were activated and used to function and make it in a northern climate have now become dormant and the ones that are necessary to thrive in the southern climate are becoming activated because that what's needed to survive in a foreign environment, the result is a cellular change in the DNA of the now native cattle, who then pass that change onto their offspring and so on, if all dogs originated from the wolf then how in the heck can you explain the huge differences in all the various breeds, humans don't have the powers or abilities to abra cadabra change an animals physical shape, ENVIRONMENT,Mother Nature is always going to find away to exist and each organism whatever it maybe is going to flex, bend, change, whatever you want to call it to find a way to make wherever it may end up, all this rambling is just the tip of the ice burg, there's so much that is being discovered almost daily on the science of EPIgenetics and environmental influences across of areas of biology, were each our own individuals and have the right to choose to believe whatever we want, if you continue to believe it's just some scientific pipe dream then go right ahead, there's nothing wrong with that, but if you want to put forth a little effort to understand something maybe you'd realize that we've always seen examples of EPIgenetics right in front of us our entire lives and each  and everyone of us is the result of EPIgenetics  ourselves but don't realize it....

In laymans terms, "if you don't use it, you'll lose it", whatever that "it" maybe, and "you can lead a horse to water, (heck even put the trough right in front of him, )but you can't make him drink".....

Good Looking Pups, and appear to be fireballs. I have often read where folks say the female has more influence on pups because she carries and nurses them, I consider that to be an environmental influence and to be almost completely false. If weaned at an appropriate time she will not have any more influence than any other dog they are closely associated with.    Buuuut all mammals receive their mitochondrial dna from their mother only, so if there are any performance traits attached to the mitochondrial dna they are passed to the offspring only from her which could give the female an advantage. All that I have ever been able to find out seems that the mitochondrial dna is more closely associated with health issues be they good or bad.

Clue, from what I've found on the genetic material that's carried and passed through mtDNA, has a lot to do with muscle control and function, which correlates into athleticism, and working abilities, and it got into a little more detail about a few certain other genes dealing with health, that's a lot of reason why the race horse people and bird dog world has put a lot of emphasis on the females lineage, I'll see if I can find that study again and post the link...

  Secretariat is one of the sires that was involved in a study done by the race industry as to why such on prominent stallion couldn't reproduce a son as equal to or greater than himself, it was discovered that his daughters carried the genes to produce good stallions as equal to their grandsire....

Good Looking Pups, and appear to be fireballs. I have often read where folks say the female has more influence on pups because she carries and nurses them, I consider that to be an environmental influence and to be almost completely false. If weaned at an appropriate time she will not have any more influence than any other dog they are closely associated with.    Buuuut all mammals receive their mitochondrial dna from their mother only, so if there are any performance traits attached to the mitochondrial dna they are passed to the offspring only from her which could give the female an advantage. All that I have ever been able to find out seems that the mitochondrial dna is more closely associated with health issues be they good or bad.

Clue, from what I've found on the genetic material that's carried and passed through mtDNA, has a lot to do with muscle control and function, which correlates into athleticism, and working abilities, and it got into a little more detail about a few certain other genes dealing with health, that's a lot of reason why the race horse people and bird dog world has put a lot of emphasis on the females lineage, I'll see if I can find that study again and post the link...

I have a skull from an old Barr hog I caught in the swamp across the hwy from my house in 09, his teeth had curled and grew back into his head, he was just a hair over 450 but had a little frame and for a hog of his weight had a smaller track, but he was FAT, he had so much fat on him the processing plant made my sausage for free in exchange for all the fat scraps, anyways in this particular section on the swamp and old man and his sons still worked hogs, they trapped yr round and released every sow and cut every single male and turned back out, there were some old dinosaurs roaming around there, this individual hogs skull was much much heavier than a skull of same proportion and size from younger hogs, it is just more dense and heavy and isn’t really smooth, more like calcification pores and small pen like holes all over it, I’ve always assumed it was bc he was so old....


I think regional diet combined with genetics plays a big role on a hogs teeth, Molars in particular, to wear down, I also believe it plays a big part in cutter girth and length, I also think that the mineral content of the soil in different regions plays a much bigger role in tusk length that what has been discussed, I know a good deal of it is regional genetics but let’s look at critters from the west Texas areas, particularly white tails and hogs, the deer will be smaller bodies with freakish huge racks, even before the days of high fence and trophy management, same with the hogs, just about every boar with just a little age on him has a fine set of shanks...

I’ve seen and read countless articles on deer and antler management and one of the very first things that’s mentioned is HIGH PROTEIN, protein produces muscle growth and development, it doesn’t have a hill of beans to do with antler or tusk growth, antlers and tusk are not made of muscle, they’re minerals, if you want to grow bigger antlers and tusk then supplement their diets with the same stuff that they’re made of, it would be interesting to do a small scale study of wild caught penned up hogs and one group fed a regular base diet and another group fed  same base diet but with mineral supplementation just to see if  and how much tusk growth could be easily influenced by diet supplements...

Made the same cross, bred my Ben dog back to his mother, had 4 pups and they all leaned more to the side of the mothers ancestry, I give a pair to a very undeserving individual and never heard anything out of them other than the idiot got one messed up real bad as a young pup hunting them WAY to early just because they would go and do it, the pair of females I kept I gave to two good ole boys I like a lot and both of them are top notch dogs, on Bens top side is bred extremely tight and on Shiloh there’s no line/family breeding so I wasn’t afraid of getting to tight, one of the boys bred his gyp to a son of Ben of another litter and none of the litter made it and I believe they were just to tight and physical abnormalities unseen is what lead to the litters demise...

Scotty is that dog on the right off of Mr. Ronnie old Ace dog?

Goose, One reason the numbers are not as high in the marsh as they normally are is because of the three Hurricanes we had that pushed most of the hogs to higher ground. the farther south we went the less hog sign we saw. The majority of the hogs have not dispersed back in the marsh yet.

Yep from what I’ve gathered from folks over the winter that have been hunting around the diamond head area said the numbers were sparse after the storms, top it off with it not being a good mast year up into the hard woods all the way up to our area, luckily we didn’t have to deal with High water and the river getting out of its banks and flooding the swamp, would’ve sure enough put a hurting on the new litters...

Sounds like a good time, the hogs numbers are down all the way the pearl river valley basin area, I hunt all up and down it from Columbia Ms to Bogalusa La and live right on the edge of the swamp less than a mile or two from the river, for about the last 5 year’s we’ve had bumper crops of acorns, this year they didn’t produce as well and even up further north from where y’all were hunting we just don’t have the numbers after this winter as we have had in the past...

I’ve tried every setup you could imagine, some of my dogs are high strung and will really work a chain until they start getting older, I took some 1” round stock and cut it 4’long, welded an old disk blade to it at 3’ with 1’ left sticking up, I measured down from the top of 1’ section 6”and welded a big flat washer, then welded an eye bolt to a piece 1 5/8” pipe cut to 4”, slid that on pipe and welded another washer to cap, drive it in the ground and attach chain to eye bolt, I tried that set up to end with the chains getting tangled, and not have the issue of the dogs working the chains and causing the dirt to mound up in the center, for some dogs it worked great and are still being used, some of the ones I had male dogs on and they kept pissing on the center post and eventually rusted the eyebolt sleeve, they were something I put together on a rainy day, Austeus the cable set up I’m about to post a pick of would probably work for a slab, I’m going to give it a try myself, I got a pile of pieces of concrete slab that I’m going to drag up and piece together to make a square pad, and fill the cracks and gaps  in with sand and top off with cement, biggest problem I’ve had over the years Is not really the chain setup but the hardware for the collar wearing out, my buddy and I had the idea of making our own, I’ll post of pick of it as well, we make them and sale them....




Machine cut shaft with a loop welded to a sleeve,  capped with a nut welded to shaft , he runs a machine shop so we made the first ones outa stuff we found laying around...




Next set I build I’m going with bigger posts, and different way of tensioning my cables, I was letting an old friend keep a few dogs at the house and he’s the one who built this set up, I sent him to another friends house who actually came up with this idea to see how his was built bc I liked his designs, I came home and he had built his version of if, it’s worked for 3 years so far, it makes
Cleaning up behind them a lot easier, each run is 15’ long and they have dang near 3 1/2-4’ of room between each dog, I found it good for them also bc they are always jumping back and forth over the cable....


End of the day the simplest and easiest way to go about it is like judge and everyone else mentioned....


Austus I’ll have to get a pick of it but same buddy I made the swivels with made a run with a bearing pressed into a piece of pipe with a shaft sticking up with a piece coming off the top at a 90 degree angle where the chain hangs from and your set up never touches ground...

One thing our grandfathers and founding fathers never battled was big tech and social media and the way they’re used to manipulate the minds of millions, Trump might not have been the savior this country needs but at least he was the best thing this country had going for itself in years, decades should I say, it’s hard for one man to fix 30 year’s worth of constitutional decay in 4 year’s all the while being bombarded with the foolery he was, yes I believe COVID-19 was all man made and think it’s a joke, yes there have been people “die” from this but how many were already on their way out with other ailments before COVID, the establishment tried everything thing they could to bring Trump down and had to come up with this, and when I say establishment I mean the 1% that call the shots not a certain nation or nationality....

Glad it went that way for you. I had dogs relay after killing a sow Sunday morning, and cross in to a neighboring property. Got them on leashes and walked them out, grabbed the sow and headed out to the truck. The land neighbor was waiting for us at the truck and got all pissy about the dogs crossing. I tried to work it out and asked if he had a number I could call if it happens again, told him I could catch and kill the pig, turn it loose, or whatever he wanted. He told me he didn’t want me to turn out on my legal land there so it wouldn’t happen again. Told him it doesn’t work like that and he started saying he would call his dnr buddy. Well long story kinda short, I told him to go ahead and do it so we could get it worked out.

I wait 45 minutes for DNR to get there, everything goes well with them. They search all through my stuff then asked about the situation and acted like we were fine. He goes and talks to the other guy then comes back and gives us tickets for the max for a first offense. “Trespassing to hunt” and a $200 ticket that takes 14/18 of the points on your license. Never been in trouble before and tried to do the right thing just to get screwed. He wrote multiple things wrong on the ticket, lied to me about the points, and it seems like a conflict of interest if he was friends with the other guy. I have my lawyer looking in to it now and am going to try and get it dropped in court. I sure wouldn’t recommend a friend to go about it the same way... I would’ve been better off to just drive off.


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Does your state have a right to retrieve your dog law...