Applying common sense to pig dogging, dogs, and hogs

[Black Streak]

         So much is seen but not recognized or understood or just assumed do to lack of understanding.         Sometimes ego impedes rational thought and analysis and sometimes emotion prevents it.        I seem to bring this to the surface in several people on here.     Nothing is magical about form following function.   When this is allowed to happen, versatility, efficiency, and effectiveness is what results.     
         How come so many people think just because a dog is seen holding a pig on a crop field means its limited to crop work?   I see the owner of this forum will post pictures of pigs his dogs have caught in rice fields yet those same dogs hunt the brush and catch pigs in it.    He proves this can be done with the commonly used bay dog and commonly used pit.   Yet when a different type dog appears on here holding a pigs in crop fields, woods, and occasional thicket, they are nothing but crop dogs.                   Why is it a big fast hard 1 out rcd that can smoke a fast pig down in a field isn't fast enough to do so in the woods?   Why is it that a dog that can wind a pig on the back side of a  field  is thought to not be able to smell them in the woods?       Why is it that a lot of people that can't consistently catch pig's in crop fields because they are getting out run, suddenly have dogs that can outrun pigs in the woods?    This is actually because the pigs will stop and bay or fight in the woods.               Why is it sooooo many people will hunt in or around feeding areas such as crops, start the pigs their then end up bayed and eventually caught in a thicket and think its some sort of big accomplishment and grand thing that their dog catch pigs in the thickest and nastiest of places when in fact that's not where the pig was originally started.     You started on a crop field or feeding area and ended up somewhere else.    Because I start pigs the same way and finish the pig right where its found, suddenly this translates for many as a crop dog or some dog that has mystical powers.   Thats so foolish.                    Another thing I find foolish is people that have dogs that can only catch in the brush.  I mean if your always catching on the pigs terms and getting forced into the brush,  is there really anything interesting or special about that?                      I like all types of pig dogging. I enjoy an occasional invite to a bay dogging hunt where I then use these so called crop dogs as lead in catch dogs.       I can appreciate a dog with "bottom" but let's examine this dog for a minute also.     This dog found a pig then goes 90 minutes and 2 miles before bringing the pig to bay or maybe the dog eventually  can't.    Either way the dog showed a lot of "bottom" .     This dog was with the pig for miles or 90 minutes and went to someone else's property.  Is this really glorifying to people?      I mean a hound that takes a track 2 miles before finding the pig, now thats awsome and an accomplishment to be proud of but starting the pig and taking it 2 miles, come on.                Always getting drug to the brush  and  thinking your dogs are awsome and versatile because they went from one terrain to another before the pig was caught doesn't equal versatility, it equals inefficiency and demonstrates ineffectiveness. 

       If a dog casts, roads, or hunts a variety of ways where you hunt, why is it hard to believe the dog would take do the same elsewhere?         What is so magical about peoples places that their dogs are the only ones able to catch pigs there?    Are the pigs not pigs?     So pigs can live there, all other wildlife can live there, cattle can live there, your dogs can hunt there, you can hunt there but for some mysterious other dogs can't catch pigs there.   There is something weird in that area that only effects other peoples dogs and prevents them from catching pigs but, your dogs are immune to it and it only applies to dogs.  Every other living thing around there is able to cope including you.     So weird.   
        Somehow willful defiance has become a measure of a dogs hardness.   A pit that won't let go on command and must take 2 people working together and a break stick is as hardness rather than disabidience and willful defiance.    A dog willfully defying you means you aren't the pack leader like you think you are.    It means you don't have controle over that dog like you think you do.   
           I catch hundreds of pigs per year with just 2 or 3 dogs during the year.   Never once have I gotten a dog killed or lost one to infection.   Only been to the vet once for a bad injury over the years.     I use less protective gear, far fewer dogs,  catch more pigs, have very few injuries.  Yet somehow that equals mythical status because your bay dogs and pits get injured on a regular basis and death is something common among your kennels.          Excuse me for pointing this out but regular injury and occasional death doesn't make you an expert on how to hunt my type dog nor does it make my dogs mythical and neither does it mean my area is somehow easier than yours.  If you think that your missing something very big, equivalent to not being able to see the forest for the trees type big.        No I'm not saying you suck or your dogs suck, I'm just pointing out common sense and saying my dogs are not mythical creatures, only that form and function have more significance to me and is clearer for me to see that it must be for some.         
            Come on people, you can't breed a pit and greyhound together and come up with dogs that perform like mine and expect to judge my dogs by some ignorant breeding someone did that you got a pup from.   Thats about as far away from my type of dogs as your bay dogs are.        My advice to people is stay away from greyhounds and stags and bay blood if trying to produce dogs like mine.  Yes my dogs have a little stag in them but I fully admit that was a once in a lifetime stag both in the field and the one litter of pups he sired for me.  What I bred him to was aa wolfhound not a pit.        Stags aren't cut out for holding big boar.  They throw danty features and almost always result in diluting nose, stamina, hardness, size, skew the hunting characteristics of the cross to the stag side, , etc etc.        If you want really awsome all around very versital rcds, then stay away from stags and greyhounds.        Likely you want even get a consistent litter of dogs that catchnin the head if you use greyhounds or stags in your crosses.         For proper rcds that handle 300 pound boars by themselves for several minutes at a time you can't use junk like bay blood, or danty sprinting dogs like greyhounds and stags.        To control a 300pound boar with relative ease, you need 28 to 30 inch 100 to 120 pound dogs for starters.       This means the foundation dog used in the cross to produce such dogs isn't even on yalls radar as pig dogs but are really outstanding pig dogs in their own right.        This weird stuff like police service dogs don't cut it either.   Wrong structure and not big enough.     How can you expect a dog to control a huge boar for any length of time if its maxed out on a smaller sized boar.     
         Their is a huge difference between control and hanging on.   Example, look at your injuries compared to mine.   If your controlling the situation, are you getting hurt?   A 45 pound "pocket rocket" can certainly lug up on a big boar but it's not  physically capable of controlling it.     Just being attached to the pig does not equal controle.  Sure you can attach a 4 banger small toyota pickup to a 40 foot loaded down cattle trailer but just because its attached doesn't mean its gonna perform the same way as a full size diesel pickup.       Its just common sense.         
         If all you hunt is thick brush because that's all you have access to, thats fine.   I can hunt that stuff to but I choose not to.     To do that exclusively is a little different game than I play and is better suited for a  different type cd but, that don't mean my dogs can't catch pigs there.  It means yours are probably better suited for that extreme environment but doesn't mean your type dogs are exclusively the only dogs that can catch pigs there.     
             Close to half my pigs I catch are right next to the thick nasty Brazos river bottom thats grown up in salt cedar, briar, plumb thickets, Johnson grass and drift wood pilings.    Other pigs are are caught next to a huge deep creek that feeds into the Brazos thats in spots seemingly worse than the river bottom.       You don't see a hole lot of my pictures showing catches in this nasty crap because my dogs.catch on their terms, not the pigs terms.   The pigs are allowed to run to that type of cover eventhough most are caught less than 1000 yards from it.    You can't tell it by the pictures but again, the pictures really are proof of the dogs abilities to catch on their terms and not the pigs.     
        Should I be forced to go to every individual and prove my dogs everywhere they claim to want to see them perform?       What makes 1 person more special than another that makes them think I should go to them and not someone else?      Are people really that concerned?       I have gone to several peoples places that contacted me.from this forum over the years.     Some saying they would just like to see my dogs perform and are interested in them while others have said they have very rough nasty places and would like to see how my dogs would do on their places and compare them to their own dogs performance.         I can't do this to every person that extends me an invite.   Sometimes it has taken me over a year to get to far off places people have patiently waited for me to prove my dogs on.  All the while building a relationship with me.  As the relationship progressed so does my desire to take a trip.    I have reached a point where I dont feel the need to satisfy conceded peoples egos.        My dogs hunt all over the southern part of the United States now.    Granted a lot of the strictly crop doggers do get a large portion of my dogs or the competition guys because my dogs outperform their stags or their stag pit crosses.   That doesn't mean  my dogs I personally breed are nothing but crop dogs.    Common sense goes a long way. Also again, you can cross my dogs with a stag or a stag pit cross and find yourself with what I consider crap dogs very easily and strictly crop style dogs.              There is no magic to my dogs, its all about form following function, efficiency and effectiveness.        Breed for 1 out type dogs that catch 700 pound pigs and the 250 pound boars will  be easy for the dogs your producing.      Breed to catch and control monsters and  you endurance level will go up, your structure and size will change, you breeds your using will change.  Your injuries will go down and the fewer number of dogs it will take you to catch the average pig.   The average pig won't send you to the vet.        Catching on the dogs terms isnt just eventually catching a pig where the pig dictates.   Its catching it right where its found by the first dog that finds it.          Its catching it with a dog thats more than capable of controlling a bigger pig than the pig its holding.
       I hope this has helped some see things in a little different light.    No I'm not trying to convince people to change styles.  Only providing common sense to what is thought by many to be a mythical type dog.          There are enough myths out there.    I disprove them, I'm not creating them. 

[HuntingHeritage]

   Why not apply some common sense to your writing style?

   I have tried several times to read your posts but can't cut through the massive ego and poor paragraph indentation.
 If you are actually writing this for folks to read and not just to toot your own horn, I would suggest working on your English composition skills and developing a more subjective writing style.

  As a green hogdogger I make every attempt to learn from those with more knowledge, in fact just spent about $20 on Ned Makim's E-book on catchdog training.
It is well written and informative with a very personal yet PROFFESSIONAL writing style. I suggest you purchase a copy as a fine example of writing about hogdogging.

   If you plan on going on with your writing efforts I hope you can stomach honest criticism and take it for what it's worth...
 ...or you can just keep trolling the very people who would be your staunchest allies when the tree-huggers come to try and stop hog dogging all together.

 Stand together or fall alone, seems like an easy choice when you actually stop to think about it.


 

[t-dog]

First off, Hunting Heritage, this is a redneck ramble and redneck rambles don't have correct punctuation and paragraph structuring so don't judge me, I've been dealing with that all.my life lol.

"Sometimes ego impedes rational thought and analysis and sometimes emotion prevents it. I seem to bring this to surface in several people on here." I personally think it's you that has this nerve struck. I'm not writing this to bash you or your dogs or your style. You yourself should read and listen to your own writing. You don't like the fact that people say your dogs are limited to crop work. Your first reference was the dogs catching rice field hogs as well as in the brush. First off, this individual has more than a few years of experience. Second, he doesn't claim to have the best or only dogs that work in either place but he obviously catches his share of hogs in both places and they are different in type and style from yours. Next is he doesn't knock anyone else's style or dogs. "You can't use junk or bay blood", "this weird stuff like police service dogs don't cut it either", "these 45 pound pocket rockets can certainly lug up on a big boar but it isn't physically capable of controlling it", these are your words in just this thread. It comes across as insulting and all knowing. This is why people find you offensive, not your difference of opinion. It's about like telling a man his wife is ugly when he thinks she's gorgeous,  difference of opinion. He may think yours ought to have to walk backwards. I'm not saying you have an ugly wife if you have one. Just making a point as to difference of taste and opinions. The police dog wasn't said to be the best or greatest just that he caught that hg well and had a lot of desirable qualities. That he may or may not prove out and there may have to be some tweaks made. There's a right way and a wrong way to to disagree. One causes a defensive response and the other brings out discussion. Both parties can come to and agreement whether it's one or the other changing their opinion or agreeing to disagree. Either way they walk away respecting and not feeling disrespected. The way your writing reads, YOU are saying that everyone that isn't doing it the same way as you is dumb and that they get lucky and catch hogs here and there. The Aussies that you adopted your style from don't even know what they are doing. They use stag, greyhound, and even whippets in their crosses and it's been working for quite some time. Different percentages and different seed stock make big differences ad even you admit to in your writing about the one stag in your dogs.many of those guys are going to bay dogs (bailers). They are having pretty good success with it. There's always more than one way and the best way is relevant to the individual doing it. I have my reasons for liking and using what I use as do most.  Most of our references come from things we learn from experience. A hog is one of the most intelligent animals around. Anytime anyone catches one its something to be proud of, it's a win. If that individual enjoyed it and is proud of the efforts put forth then who is anyone else to knock it. If its isn't your way or seal to you then do it differently. We start 99% of hogs in the woods. I'm not gonna spend hours busting bays to try and get it to hit the open field so I can say I caught him on my terms. After 30 years of having my own set of dogs, I've learned some things and still learning. Not only that, the men that mentored me were very successful at pretty much everything they did including hunting game of all kinds with dogs. I know for fact they were common sense smart and book smart too. There are hunters, enthusiasts, and true dog people. True dog people know how to care for their animals, how to train and breed, and what works for the job at hand. The number deaths and injuries has several variables not just breed and style. Sometimes there isn't anything they can do to avoid it, just facts. Terminology is something that has been discussed on here before. Hard doesn't mean hard headed but references the mental toughness of the dog (gameness). If a dog never faces adversity then their hardness can only be speculation. Everyone hunts for their own reasons. I do it because I love watching dogs work( bay and catch dogs) and I enjoy my hunting circle. It seems you do it because you enjoy catching hogs. That's fine if that's what you like but that too has affect on the style of dog that you use.

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[Muddy-N-Bloody]

Good post T dog

I wrote out several things this am while deer hunting but deleted it - just gone do like lotta other smart people on here and maybe just read and have an opinion and move on


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[HuntingHeritage]

First off, Hunting Heritage, this is a redneck ramble and redneck rambles don't have correct punctuation and paragraph structuring so don't judge me, I've been dealing with that all.my life lol.

 There's a right way and a wrong way to to disagree. One causes a defensive response and the other brings out discussion.

I like the way you Ramble T-dog

[WayOutWest]

Well put Thomas

[Reuben]

Well put Thomas

X2...

This I will say about black streak...he has stepped on many toes on this forum including mine...he seems to be a little short on tact and some folks are born that way...

[Judge peel]

I ain’t chimed on anything in a while. So here goes. Dean aka black streak is a nice guy face to face. But being a one sided egomaniac rubs people the wrong way. No matter how much we know or learn some one knows something you don’t. The humility needed to know this I don’t think he possesses. Is he a good dog man I would say yes does he know what he is doing yes. All in all he is doing good he just wants some one to say hey guy your the best and you  know everything. There are a lot of people like this.


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[Fixitlouie]

boy have i missed yall !!

[t-dog]

Lol Judge I surely don't dislike him. I do think he has a vision of what he wants in his style of dog and doing a good job of getting there. The phone conversations I've had with him, he's been really nice and hasn't came across at all like he does in his writing. He's just gotta understand that you can disagree without insulting or disrespecting. Everybody isn't going to like everybody but ad mentioned before, we are all in the same boat. The Swinetanic is gonna sink with no survivors if we don't stay united. No need for division of troops over simple differences of opinions.

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