Reuben when you were breeding your line of dog's in the past were dog's that hunted different than the original one's culls?I know a few men who have bred the same tight line of dog's for many years and they don't all hunt the same some are rougher ,some range further,some rig better,some trail better but most make dog's.I know you can have pack diversity in a single line of dog's as well.Just curious if you did as well?
I read your post several days ago but I have been very busy...I only worked 50 hours this week because I cooked 12 briskets for a fund raiser at an elementary school...then an all day hunt Sunday and had to go find dogs after work on Monday...
My old original line after many culls of other breeds...started out pretty good...have to give the credit where it is due...one old man from west of San Antonio and another a little further west...both men are dead now but theyhad some excellent dogs...the old man from San Antonio had dogs that opened more than I liked on track...the other old man had a line out of a famous dog named Texas Smoke...those were the bigger mt curs that hunted hard and fast with a lot of gritt...he had an old 3/4 Texas Smoke bred gyp that he sold to me and I got two litters out of her...
the open dogs were great hunters but were somewhat smaller...I added bmc one time to those that were smaller to give them size and a quieter mouth and then I bred back to 15/16 mt cur and trying to keep some of those traits of the bmc...also used a old line of kemmer curs of the bigger type that were known for cold noses and excellent winding ability...bred those dogs together and then never bred away from the main dogs...every single pup I kept performed...they all basically did what I expected and some did have more gritt than another at times...toward the end I was getting dogs that ranged too far or hunted themselves to death in the heat...I got a few dogs that were almost like bulldogs...lots of times it can be the easy going pup or the one further down in the pecking order that has that gameness..
at the beginning had more open dogs...the gritt was sometimes not there...size varied some but it got better over about 3 to 4 generations...
the variance was the biggest reason why I tested and kept so many pups because I wanted the very best...those with natural ability...even that is not 100 percent but any little bit helps...
