If you can find you a couple of well bred busher bred mountain cur pups out of the larger type mt cur lines...you will get the nose for trailing and winding...they can be taught fairly easy to wind off the wheeler or truck (rig), road them or cast them...
some might be too long range and can stay bayed for hours...just make sure you don't have to work the next day...
I don't really know much about mountain curs but from what I've read about them a lot of lines are very gritty, is there anything that really sets them apart from other cur types?
I would pick the right type of mt cur over the average stock bred dog for several reasons...having said that there are way too many mt cur dogs bred with fiest dogs for a smaller dog with less ear to them...also these dogs are hotter nosed and closer ranging so it will be harder to be happy with one of these for hog dogging...there still are some out there that are of the larger size with colder noses on them that are used for coon and squirrel, these tend to make hog dogs as good as any and most times better in my opinion...
I was on a waiting list for a female and male pup from these type of dogs but a plott gyp was offered to me after I placed an ad...to use for breeding with one of my males...I had thought long and hard on how to go about getting some good dogs to hunt and breed once in a while...because of the many issues I see with the mt cur I was also open to the idea of mixing plott...because of their long history of big game hunting with them...hence I went that direction and placed that ad for a plott gyp...I will probably get a female mt cur of the type I like and breed her back to the best 1/2 plott pup I have and then go from there if she is what she should be...
The mt cur I see that will work the best day in and day out are the busher bred dogs...but even then you have to be careful as to who you buy pups from because all breeders are not equal when breeding better dogs...Busher Sam was the original mt cur that this line started from years ago...it was rumored that he was a plott/mt cur cross and that rumor was denied for many years...then I read where the original owner came clean and said it was true...so some plott blood runs in the veins of these busher dogs...
You ask about grit...these dogs are like any other...I have had them be as gritty as a bull dog that will not let go even when the hog was dead and laying on one...or a pup that is laid out next to a hog where both have over heated from fighting the hog in the heat...and some that are gritty with 2 or more dogs...very few that were stand back bay dogs unless alone...hunting one or 2 dogs of this type will work pretty good...but one good one is probably better than 2 dogs because one will put enough teeth to try and stop one and then will back off and bay...that was my experience with the pack I bred at one time...
With one dog I would see bunched up hogs bayed...with 2 dogs it usually was one hog because these dogs will bust bays...they do not have that stock dog mentality...but the good ones don't have quit in them...plan to be off the following day if night hunting unless hunting early in the morning...because sometimes they will go where you can't get to them...
