I think it’s a combination of several factors. A lot of people are using packs of rough dogs and they think just because the dog is caught when they arrive that it’s a catch dog. That is without regard to where he caught, or any of the other traits related to a walk in, such as how he goes to a bay, or how consistent he is with an accurate catch. I see a ton of people bragging about a catch dog or an RCD that they have but every picture or video you see, the dog isn’t even on the ear. As a pack that can/does work, but in my opinion it disqualifies the dog from being a legitimate solo catch dog.
I think another part of it is the part time hog hunters, meaning those that look at it like a hobby that they do when they feel like it, not a lifestyle. That type of person might only hunt one time a month. So their catch dog might only get 12 hunts in a year. Well they have it catch a few pigs and all of a sudden it’s the most reliable, rock solid catch dog they’ve ever seen and they just have to get pups off of it. I think that’s BS. If the dog hasn’t been tested, hasn’t been on big rank boars, how do you know what you’re really feeding? That dog might take a whooping and then decide he’s a bay dog.
So to add to the RCD and part time hunter element, I think a lot of it is also people that genuinely don’t know what a good dog is. I don’t claim to have great dogs but I hope that I’m on the way to getting there, and I’ve hunted behind some good ones and I’ve talked with quite a few dog men that are much older and wiser than me, so I try to learn from everything I hear and see. I’ve seen a lot of people that decide they want to get in to hunting and they link up with some other part time hunters and none of them have really met or hunted with a true dog man to teach them some of these things that a lot of us on this forum would probably look at as common sense.
The final part of my rambling is culling. I see it all the time on the fb groups and even other hunters I know. A dog needs to be culled for whatever reason and instead of humanely removing it from the gene pool they either want to try and make a dollar off of it, or they don’t have the will to cull it and so they pass the problem on to someone else. Maybe some of that comes with hard learned experience, I know a lot of people that will tolerate the same dog fighting over and over again. I had a dog kill my best dog and now any unwarranted aggression gets dealt with immediately on my yard, and I’m not passing an aggressive dog on to so somebody else’s yard. But, people do it all the time, or they keep that dog around making excuses until they learn the hard way like I did.
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Pride is the down fall of a lot of men these days.. And your last sentence reminded me of a guy I use to hunt with... We had a good bay goin yrs ago when he brought two catch dogs that day.. Surely two cds is enuff so I left ours at the house.. LESSON Bought for me too... He sent both of them to it and I knew the gyp would classify in my book as a catch dog but didnt know about the male he had just recently got. My male dog and his male was baying a good boar hog in some crp grass and we were blessed to be able to get within sight upon release. WEll,, the male dog was quick to catch alright,,, but it was my male dog while he was bayed instead of the hog that he was baying.. So now we had a dog fight and a hog fight.. Thank god my male dog had a cut collar on and I broke the cd off of my male without any physical damage to his throat..
Well,, needless to say I wasnt too happy with the situation and in some hard words I told my buddy to not bring this prize possession back and if it was me I would lesson the feed bill ,, immediately.. Well he didnt cause he wanted to give him another chance,, that chance cost him the next month as that dime a dozen cd got off his lead at his house and killed his #1 strike dog in his yard.. Lesson learned for sure..
