On questions 1 and 2, I ask myself that all the time. lol On # 1 when a few of my friends & i get together, we normally have to many dogs out, 5 or 6. We might only have one or two finished dogs out and the rest are young dogs. Has nothing to do with me not having confidence in my dogs baying a hog. If they are old enough for me to start taking, I have every confidence in the world that they can bay their own hog if the opportunity arrises. Also, I have people that come and hunt with me a lot and a lot of times their dogs might start with mine but they fall out before they bay it.
I have at least twenty head out there and it is hard to hunt them all. I have a 9 yr. old, 7 yr. old, & a 5 yr. old gyps that are finished dogs and I rarely hunt them because I am always taking young dogs with me. Of course I get a lot of dogs on injured reserve & they can and will step up when I need them. Really all you need is one good bay dog & a Catchdog and you can catch plenty of hogs but then, I would never hear a race.
Also, if you see any of my dogs malnourished or starving to death, I will give you 1000.00 a dog. Most of my dogs that I run are extremely fit, but not skinny. The other reason I have so many is that I like starting dogs and it is my decision on how many I want to feed.
