What’s In Your Cur Dogs

Lol, I agree with you on the mental maturity goose. I am 7 to 8 generations deep on this family of mine. I make every breeding with the breeding after that in mind. It's always subject to change of course either because of things that happen beyond your control or you find something that needs tweaked. What you said about the scatter bred gyp makes sense too. I hunt mostly females. One because I like hunting females lol, and two because I believe the females are the biggest part of it. One of my very successful mentors once told me that you can breed a super dog to an average female and you would more times than not would get average dogs and poorer. You can breed average dog to a super gyp and you might get a couple real good dogs, a few average, and a couple of culls. I have experienced and witnessed this exact thing in my nearly 30yrs in this sport. The other thing I live by with my dogs is the average. If when I evaluate a litter come time to breed and the siblings to mine aren't good enough for me to feed but mine is a whirlwind, I won't breed mine. The odds of that one reproducing well aren't very high. I don't take anyone's word for what those dogs are doing either. I want to see and evaluate for myself. If 5 people watch the same set of dogs work, its probable that they will have 5 different evaluations. Example: A very good friend has several dogs out of my stuff. Their 2 lead dogs are 5 or 6 and 3. Both dogs flat get it done. They have another one that is about 1 1/2yr old. Everytime I have been with them this young dog hits the ground hunting and is non stop busy busting brush. He's found a few hogs and will always put one up after you catch and bust out a sounder. They made the comment a couple months ago that they just know if he was going to make the grade. I asked why and they said because he just don't strike enough hogs like I want a lead dog to. I told them that he's not much over a year old. If he is cast at the same time as the 2 older dogs and he's beating them to the first strike and bay, then those were the 2 that would need to be questioned. He isn't going to beat 2 dogs of that caliber to a hog first rattle out of the box on a consistent basis. Cast him ahead of those dogs and give him a chance to be lead dog. If he don't bay anything then cast them. His want to is there. He needs a fare chance to get better. This is a good hunter and friend, they just don't quite see the same picture that I do and since I'm breeding for what "I" want, I feel like I need to form my own opinion. Another example: I raised a litter of 6 pups. Kept 2 females, gave a male and female to one friend, and the other 2 males to 2 more friends. One of mine got out and got run over and killed. One of the males was just a country dog. He ran loose all his life. Started himself on hogs. He was always gone hunting and coming home cut or packing baby pigs that he caught. The pair are real nice dogs. The female is the best but the male gets it done too. The last male was a hard hunting, stay put nice dog. He was the only dog they had pretty much and was already becoming a pretty reliable find dog at a year old. The last time I hunted with him, him and my old gyp took almost 2 hours of hard hunting and digging to find a boar hog. When they finally located at .75 from us, they kept that hog within 30 yards of his bed. He was the only hog around for a good ways. That male got killed soon after that by a freakish little cut. He wasn't stupid or rough, he just got caught. That is what I expect from a litter to be breed worthy. Those dogs are young and as long as they keep seeing hogs they are only gonna get better. Most people like hunting males because they are more attractive to most people plus they don't have to worry about heat cycles etc. It's a lot easier to find a good male to breed to for that reason. A person that has that special gyp isn't as likely to let you breed to her unless your male is "that" dog. Plus I'm in control of what happens to the litter.

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