EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

I'm done giving dogs to anyone. 

Gave the dog to a cow man with the warning of how high the prey drive is in this line of dogs... I told him if I was gonna let him have the dog, he had to promise me he'd work him hard.  Well, the dog chewed through the chain kennel once and lost his tongue because of it... to which I said WORK HIM ANYWAYS.  It's just what these dogs have to do.

... But he wouldn't do it, kept sayin' he was waitin' on cooler weather to put him back on cows... well he waited too long.  Dog wanted to work so he found a way.  Got out and killed a couple dogs, and now he's dead.

NO more. 

Sorry Mako, I have only myself to blame.
(http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm192/aprilcmetzger/088.jpg)

sorry for loss Noah, RIP Mako

That's a dam shame man, sounds like the dog was ignored a lot. Sorry to hear the dog died I remember the post about him loosing his tongue. RIP

so sorry for your  loss noah  i seen the post on him losing his  tounge ..shame one the guy  that got him ,not giving him a chance and not for putting him where he couldnt get out of  RIP

dang shame noah, you should have told the guy you wanted him back. no dog should have to go through that

damn brother that sucks..

Good lookin dog and sorry for youre loss

This dog was one of my top picks to begin with...  I gave him to the stud dog's owner out of respect... who promptly sold him...  I managed to get the dog back, and decided to place him with a cowhand I "thought" would understand what kind of working dog he was.... He did work the hell out of him for the first couple months util the injury... Unfortunately, all he was used to was watered down, mediocre at best, cowdogs.... Mako was just more than he knew how to handle, plain and simple.

After the tongue thing, I asked him again to either work the dog or give him back... I know the trouble these dogs can get into when they don't have an outlet for the drive... He said he liked the dog too much, which I understood, because these dogs are very likeable... but likeable like a pet shark that hasn't eaten in a month...  Got to work these dogs, otherwise they cannot be pets.

... what's worse, is I'm good friends with this guy... was wondering why I haven't heard from him in over a mnth... his son slipped up today and told me why.

Sorry to hear it. We all know how you feel about your dogs.  :(

Dang Noah, I am so sorry to hear this and for the dog having to go through it....specially since you went through so much with him in getting him back.  Its a pitty some people just can't handle or do not have the sense to handle true working dogs.

Man thats a shame! Quit sending those dogs to cowmen.. Send one of your next ones to Texas, we'll put it on more hogs than it can handle ;) he woulda looked good in my pack.. Tough loss!

sorry for your loss!

what a shame. i guess your right, never break the old timers theory, breed what YOU need and cull hard. never leave you hard earned work for someone else to destroy or not appreciate because they will. they dont put in the thought and work behind these breedings therefore they prob wont try to bring the best out of the dog like you would, so my advice to you is move on and learn from it. r.i.p makko i sure was watching all yall pups from this shinner litter and wanting to see the progress.

Its sad that people like that ruin it for everyone.  Now I dont blame you if you dont give your dogs to peopl, because of stuff like that.  Its sad that good dogs go to waste because people wont work them.  I love watching dogs do what they are bred to do! and its sad that one more person with top of the line dogs has trouble, and quits letting people have a good animal like that.  I guess thats what the world is coming too though doesnt seem like a mans word means a thing anymore

It sucks what happened and all but.......

I'm looking at this from a different point of view. Noah, i'm just thinking how you told me your dogs killed your bulldog at the house, they were being worked then, right? This dog gets out and kills some dogs. Kinda sounds to me like these dogs that you have have some dog aggression issues. IMO

Thanks for bringin' that up bud, I really appreciate it.  But, since you want ta keep bringing it up, I have no problem accepting blame for what happened.

I was told by my mentors for years to be careful allowing this type of dog to be left alone with other dogs.  "They are working dogs" and they will work on whatever is available at the time when unsupervized.   I was arrogant enough to believe I could "out train" this genetic drive, but I was WRONG.  I lost a good family friend and catch dog that day while I was at work, but it happened.  I learned from it, and I will never allow these dogs to be put in this situation again.

As for dog aggression in this line of dogs, no more than any other.  Just REAL high prey drive that you gotta be careful with.

I'm not trying to place the blame on you.

The old men that I've known never seperated their dogs, just let them run loose and had self feeders. There was the occasional fight over food, they all get their pecking order in line. Every once in a while you will get one that likes to fight and needs to be culled.

I don't know your dogs that good so I don't really know if that was the situation.

Well the old timers I have been lucky enough to learn from have had bad stuff happen that I wish I could share on the internet but won't...

It is the reality of what raising working dogs is.  But it is not something that everyone needs to hear about.

It is a shame, because I would like to talk about it in order to share experiences and learn from it... our modern society, unfortunately, does not allow it.

To repeat myself, however, the blame does fall squarely on me for that incident... I was told directly by those that knew the bloodline not to put the dogs in that situation, but I ignored them. 

So it is my fault.

What upsets me in this case is after the situation, they took it upon themself to make the call that it was a dog agression issue and cull the dog... when, in fact, it was an untrained working dog being allowed to get into a a bad situation unsupervised and anyone who has been around high drive dogs knows what can happen at that point.

Oh well, lesson learned again.

Way too much schooling for you lately.  Good gosh, that's a pile of bad luck. Sorry to hear about all this stuff.

Yeah, that was not a good day in my household to say the least... 

Since we are talking about it anyways, here is what happened.

It was a Saturday, I was on call and ended up havin' ta go into town(an hour away) and work...  As many know, I used to keep my dogs together in an acre pen.  They learned their pecking order, and for 5yrs I never had any issues with fights.  Well, that day, my female catchdog A.J. decided to jump on my Shiner dog and her son Whaler(not even breeding age yet) decided to take A.J. out, and did.  By the time I got home it was too late.  Whaler saved my Shine gyp, but I lost my A.J. who was near and dear to my family.

Chit happens.  This could have been avoided, but I was too hard headed to take advice from those that knew better. 

Learn from my mistake.

I would like to give my opinion, only by observation of our dogs here.  I do not know your dogs directly or the exact situations but they sound similar to what I have went through in the past with our dogs when I was here by myself.

Dog aggression to me is when you let one out and they stretch him out immediately, no warning / posturing nothing just jump on him as soon as the gates are opened no matter where you are or what is going on....my husband my husband hunts with a guy from here in town he refuses to turn his dogs out with this guys because they have 'dog agression', they will stretch your dog out no matter where or what they are doing.

Now, our dogs have a DOMINANCE issue which comes with some of them being put up while others are allowed to roam the acre we have fenced off.  I (notice I reference myself) can turn them out and immediately our Tana gyp starts posturing to our Lucy female who stays out….I am a ‘let them figure it out’ kind of person but since there are several out it gets carried away quick because the ‘prey drive’ kicks in with the ‘pack mentality’ and nothing but bad comes from it with no lessons learned except a fueled ego.

I know the dogs that are left out have their own pecking orders with my 15 year old toothless gyp being on top, she is the first to eat and guards the food bowls until SHE is ready to abandon them and no one challenges her.

In the past I was able to turn all the dogs out and they just hung out laying under the trees, we actually used to receive compliments on how well our dogs behaved while they were out together and it is still achievable so long as certain ones are put in the yard vs. in the pasture and my husband (ALPHA) is home….I gave up long ago on letting them out unsupervised when Allen isn’t home.

We have came close to losing our Charlie dog, who when let out his nub goes up and he is asserting his dominance to everyone – NOTHING has stopped it and I mean nothing  ;) I went to town one day not thinking anything about the dogs being out only to come home and find him stretched out by three other dogs….the only thing that saved him was he went and got underneath the steps on the trampoline….my husband was gone and this was the first time anything like this had ever happened so I didn’t  give it much thought.

Two other times I went to my mom’s who lives on the other side of the fence line.  This time with young dogs out and one ‘victim’ being Nitro (who is hunting a pecking order within the pack) and the other being Psycho the CD (I still haven’t figured out what started it) who outweighs everything we have here and is mild mannered as the day is long.  The ONLY reason I knew they had stretched either one of them out was because of the hound that was barking and Tana sitting at the gate wagging her tail with the ‘it ain’t me’ look.

It was almost too late for Psycho because it was 100 degrees and in a shed while Nitro when I first seen them I thought it was my husband’s old man Goober (heart attack in the making) but he was at the dog pens. 

All dogs made it and it was a dog pile situation all times it happened with the main factors being:
 A) Allen wasn’t home
B) Certain dogs weren’t separated appropriately
C) Dominance / Alpha attitudes definitely played a role in all

It is most certainly bitter sweet lessons learned and thankfully we didn’t lose any dogs in any of the past incidents but I do not consider any of our dogs as ‘dog aggressive’ because if you put them in the box or in the woods and they are not worried the first bit about fighting but on their home turf they all want to be ‘king of the hill’ and IMO there is no ‘training’ of any sorts going to get them out of it.

You just cannot put dogs with a extremely high prey drive / pack mentality together and expect them to always get along or work out pecking orders while not becoming full on dog piles…..it just doesn’t happen that way and if does I want to hear it....culling true dog agression is one thing but not acessing the entire situation before doing it is another - do any of you cull for dominance?

Noah, sorry to hear about the Mako dog. It just goes to show that real working dogs are not for everyone. As for the bulldog losing its life, sometimes we just have to see things yourself before we really believe it. It sounds like that was a one time deal and I bet it never happens again if you can prevent it.

Thanks tmatt, I beat myself up for a long time about that.


"You just cannot put dogs with a extremely high prey drive / pack mentality together and expect them to always get along or work out pecking orders while not becoming full on dog piles…..it just doesn’t happen that way and if does I want to hear it....culling true dog agression is one thing but not acessing the entire situation before doing it is another" (hogaholicswife)

Miss Ashley, good to see that you see what I have learned to see... excellent description... You, out of most people on this site, probably hunt the most similar type of dog to what I am working with, so I appreciate your input.

At any time, I still can turn out every dog I have together with anyone else's dogs and have no isssues... it is not dog aggression.

....Believe it or not, I actually had this last litter of puppys about kill one of their own at 4mnths old... I heard them baying their head off to find one dog singled out and, trust me, when I say they meant to kill him...  DRIVE, genetically hard wired.  Had to go through some hard knocks to really understand what that is... but I know now.   Who knows what I will know in 20yrs... I may actually know somethin' by then  ;D

Real prey drive is hard to explain to folks that have never seen it for themselves. You shouldn't beat yourself up about it, we all make mistakes. Live and learn and prevent it from happening again (when possible) is all you can do.

x2...most folks that are given a high quality pup do not recognize the value of said pup...been there done that more than a few times before I saw what was happening.The way I see it if a person does not put much effort in getting a pup then that person does not need to have one.

now if someone drives a good ways to get a pup and calls for puppy updates on a regular basis...now we are talking about a different kind of person...