Message #586514

[t-dog]

I’d agree it’s most likely being right on a hog, being able to see it. I don’t night hunt anymore. It was always a pain to me I finally just decided that I was done with it. My dogs are going to take the track however they can. They definitely aren’t track straddlers unless they have to. There is a time for that as well. As far as tracking or trailing goes, I want it to be pushed as hard as possible. That being said, if your dogs are making a lot of losses because they over run their nose, the time made up by speed is lost in trying to recover it over and over. I had a bird dog/ running Walker cross years ago and he was real bad about overrunning his nose. He was fast fast but we bayed a ton of hogs behind him because he wouldn’t get bayed until he was out deep. Had he slowed down a little and paid attention to his nose a little more, he would’ve found those hogs. My dogs are typically good about using the wind to their advantage. Scent is a funny thing sometimes. There are so many variables and depending on those variables as to how a dog can move a track or when and where they can smell it. They may have straddle it or like you said, they may be a good distance off of it paralleling it. I always thought it was kind of neat how a set of good bobcat hounds worked. I’m talking about the running dogs used here in the south and southeast.  If there’s 5,6,7 or however many dogs on the ground, they usually have specific thing that they are better at. Like one may strike better and trail to a point where the next dog takes the track over and really pushes it faster and gets the cat jumped. Then there may be a swing dog that doesn’t run the track as much as it cuts corners and anticipates the cat turning. This dog isn’t running over the track, he’s cheating it and trying to take slack out of the race. The team work is pretty impressive in a good set of those dogs. These are things that I enjoy watching, the reasons I love to dog hunt. Some people are just focused on catching hogs. If they don’t catch a hog or they don’t catch one quick, or several of them then they don’t enjoy it. I’ve came home without catching anything and been as happy as if I had, just because I saw my dogs do well and try hard. How they do whatever they do is more important to me. It sounds like your dogs have an awesome drive. That’s something I really appreciate. It’s a must, especially on running type hogs.


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