Should you show affection to hog dogs?

Neches, I keep my pups stay in the house with me until they learn their name and will come to me good. Then, they run loose outside until my wife gets mad about everything they are chewing up. Then I put them up and haul them around in the truck on hunts once every month or two just to get them used to the routine. I start carrying them hunting at about a yr old. This whole time, I am good to the dogs, but they don't get any babying and hugging or googling over.

Also, you mentioned above that your dogs check in while hunting. That reflects that we have different styles of hunting. I don't walk hunt, I find a track on a road crossing or try to turn out in fresh sign. The dogs either strike or come back. That is why I need one to cover a lot of ground. I don't mind one to hunt for miles, I'll just pick him up at the next place that I can get to him. My Dad likes to walk his dogs in, but I don't. I guess you could blame it on my lazyness. LOL. If I walk hunted, I too would want a dog to check back in with me.

I am not cold hearted or abusive in any way toward the dogs (physically or mentally), I just realize that these dogs in my yard are an instrument to show me a hog. Not a family member, not a friend, but a hunting companion that must perform.

When I was younger, I carried an old hound out of a creek bottom that had shown me hundreds of hogs. He was about ten yrs old and had been cut twice in his long career (the second one ended his life). I picked him up on my shoulders and started walking to the truck while in the company of my Dad and Uncle (two of the hardest men you will ever meet). I started sobbing uncontrollably, to the point I couldn't hardly put one foot in front of the other. Needless to say, I was ashamed to be crying in front of these men. I vowed that day to never get attached to a hog dog like I was to that old Black and Tan hound.