EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

A friend is hunting with a pit and dogo down in South Africa, the pit is so HEATED even after the catch that he redirect after the hog is dead towards the other dog - literally jump on the dogo
(Which is a BAD move, since the dogo is not the one saying no to a fight either, but he wont start it).
It starts to destroy the other dogs temperament too, since he is ofcouse watching his back after the catch, so the situation develops.

He has to keep them appart for at least 30-40 minutes before the pit is down again. On some few hunts he had to quit after the first pig is down.

I guess this is not very typicial for a pit ?

The pitt is 10 month only and quite a catcher already. He hunts 4-5 times a month.

Any suggestions ?

B

That's what they were bred for, not surprising when that trait shows up.  Sometimes you can discipline that out of them, but most of the time people just cull when you get one that hot.  Not worth putting up with an animal that may compromise your other dogs' health and training.

cull

Cull

cull

If he is that way to the other dog he could very easy gothat way to his owner! Had one turn on me and catch me the dog was the same way you are descibeing this one But I did not give up on pits just payed more attention to what I got from then on. I agree cull.

One other note, that's why alot of hunters wait to use pits until they're a little older, and you've had more time to let them mature mentally. 

Not that this is how the dog in question was raised, by any means, but....All catch from day one and no social skills greatly improves your chances of having a problem dog......like raising Mike Tyson in a cage, throwing some food in now and then, then asking him to carry himself "professionally" when you let him out.... you're already dealing with something a little twitchy to begin with ;D

Has the owner been "really clear" to the dog that he is not allowed to do that?  Sometimes you've got to go to level 11 to make a point with those dogs. 

I don't quite understand this...the breed was selected for well over 100 years to do just that...what about that gives the breed a bad rap?

Also...dog aggression in no way shape or form correlates to human aggression.

Now can those dogs make woods dogs...for the most part, no. But, it doesn't mean that the dogs aren't stable and require being pts.

Most true APBTs that make woods dogs are at best considered "cold" historically speaking. Cold = never turned on regarding dog aggression.

What Scott said is correct.  Was going to type a simmilare statement but he beat me to it.

ok, so if he was socialized properly and shown that the handler is alpha, and still doesnt want to cooperate, he should at least be castrated, but i myself would take him to the vet for euthanasia.

your definition of "cold" in my eyes means properly socialized and disciplined.  most folks don't realize how smart pits are and how obedient they CAN be.  imo, dogs that are truly "game" (gonna fight regardless of what the handler is doing) should be eliminated from the gene pool, through castration or euthanasia.

there are way too many good, level headed pits out there to use a game bred idiot as a pack dog.

i never owned a pit , but if that stuff gets started it s dam hard to stop .  could get the whole pack to trying to figure out whos better than who and THAT is a disaster ! i ve seen it happen. and then your feeding several dogs and have to figure out who can work with who , and wind up short handed .if you cant stop it early , the best thing to do is eliminate the problem and hope its not contagious

one more thing

saying that all pits are game bred to the same degree is like saying any bmc can find pigs as good as the next.  JUST NOT TRUE.

Historically speaking, a properly socialized and disciplined APBT does not equal, nor is it the definition of a "cold" dog. The term game does not mean a dog is gonna fight...it means that it won't quit, even when given the opportunity, when it's having it's ass handed to 'em.

How do you think that all those "good, level headed pits" came to be that way? It was because of the over 100 years of selecting on dogs that were bred for combat in search of gameness.

Dog aggression is inherent with the breed...some dogs have more than others. We have had good success when raising them from pups to be catchdogs...and by letting them know as pups that any dog aggression whatsoever will not be tolerated. Does it always work, no, but that doesn't mean it can't be a stable companion...it just won't make a woods dog.


Please explain "game bred to the same degree". The reality is that there are very few, if any, game bred dogs today...the term game bred infers that the sire and dam of the dog were proven game...there is no legal way to do that. What we have today is dogs being produced from game bred lines. What's more, an old gamedog man once said..."don't be surprised when they quit, be surprised when they don't". That quote speaks to how elusive the trait of being game was.

Thanks ALL for your replies. I understand your points. I guess as in every breed there are extremes in both directions.
I am sure he will cull the dog after your replies.

He gave the dog until "11" every time he did it, it almost made it worse, and as some of you pointed out, could be dangerous for the owner too. A dog who loose trust to man is BAD.

I can only speak about the dogo,who also among other breeds have fighting dog in him.
Many dogos who are NOT used for hunting have a passion for fighting. We got one 3 years old, was a passionate fighter, seeked other males confrontation, after his agression was directed to the boar a couple of times, it was over. He now hunts with other males aroud him.
BUT at home, it is not possible to let him be around other male dogs.

Thanks,

B

the original pit bulls were butcher's dogs in england before they were selected for dog aggression.  they had enough prey drive and game to lock on to a grown bull's nose, cork screw their body, and put that bull on the ground for the butcher. that was before they were ever used for fighting.

i think we should work to take the dog aggression back out of them, while leaving the high prey drive and "gameness" in them.  the word "game" is used in different ways by different people. the way i used it i was referring to dog aggression.  if you ask a scum bag, i mean dog fighter, what game means.  he'll tell you the dog will still scratch even when he's almost dead.  A dog that will bleed out while holding a pig, but won't scratch, is not game in his eyes, but i guess it is in yours. i have a good vocabulary and strong command of the english language, thanks anyway.

you say dog aggression shows up in different levels in different dogs.  i agree, and i think a dog hellbent on fighting other dogs has no place in a hunting pack.

human aggression in NOT the ONLY thing that gives the breed a bad rap.

that's all im gonna say, ppc i apologize i was not trying to hijack your thread.

Just a couple of quick rebuttle points (as I, also, didn't mean to hijack the thread).

The original bulldog was a butchers dog...the original Pit Bull Terrier was bred and developed for the pit. Of course, it sprang from the butchers/baiting dogs that were then crossed with terriers.

I'll agree that "game" or "gameness" is a term that is utilized (or misused) in different ways...but, there really is only one definition of game. While we may find the historical practice of matching dogs distasteful, it is part of the breeds history and what made/makes a well bred APBT a stable, unfailingly loyal dog that can complete most any task asked of it.

I never questioned your vocabulary or command of the English language...just trying to understand your point of view.

IMO what gives the breed a bad  rap is that probably 90% of the folks that own/breed them have no business doing so in the first place.

No problem Jeff, this is very educating to me. It is the first time I see a honest and open disucssion about this.

Thanks Guys!

B

I agree with that, and your other points are also well said.

For the most part, I try to stay away from these HOT topics but, here lately I have been seeing a couple things that are a little uneasy for the most part and I thought I would give another perspective....

Some of us need to realize that some things that use to be accepted or not thought of in such a bad light just isnt the case anymore. Dog fighters are called scum bags. Chicken fighters are called scum bags. Some deer doggers in Tx are called scum bags and unethical hunters. Guess What....Hog doggers sometimes get called scum bags too.

The only difference between all the things I listed above is that hog doggers can still enjoy their weekend hobby for some, way of life for others, or passion legally, but the others were all legal and accepted at one time also, the same as we accept hog dogging and want other people to accept it. It may be suprising to some of us, but chicken fighting was legal , not that long ago. Alot of people thought deer dogging would never be outlawed, but it happened. I hope hog dooging never becomes illegal but with some of the idiots these days giving us such a bad rap. We may fall out of the favor of the public also. Thats really the importance of why you have to be careful of what you post on the WWW.
 
People brought their families to watch dog matches and chicken fights, just like we take ours to a bay trial. Again it was different times and a different way of thinking, we have to realize that some of it was as accepted as hog dogging is to us today.

Sometimes I asked myself, how long before hog dogging isn't accepted anymore and we have to become criminals to keep doing what we love to do.

Every group above has it's bad apples who give them a bad name. The ones who tresspass, do not take care or their animals, brag about how ruthlessly they cull, do not give their animals proper medical attention, those are the ones giving us a bad name and those are the ones that I would call scum bags...

 

Very good points.

i agree  (cull)  not because any other reasom than there are hundreds of pits who wont fight other dogs, all my hounds are a little growley after a hog catch!!! i compare it to a bar room fight!! after the fight is over your still mad at everybody, so i do understand, buttt all my pits ride in the same box and some in the same pen with other males and females----pits are good at what they do  fight or catch but the fighting wont work for a catch dog and the worst part of it all is________ if they do become human aggressive  its bad bad bad news  i culled the best catch dog  I have ever owned after having pits for about 30 yrs  for just getting a little aggressive with a client on a hog hunt but I still got 4  pits you just have to pick and choose and try and raise them right!!!!! any way  i say CULL  sorry for taking so long to get there

have i touched on a sore subject?  im not a bleeding heart liberal, and i personally don't care what anyone does with his or her dog, or chicken, or whatever critter he chooses to abuse.  i would just like for the general public to understand that pits can be wonderful dogs, if bred and handled properly.

i was merely referring to the quality, or lack thereof, of the majority of people who match dogs.  crack-heads, thieves, and low lives in general. 

notice i said MAJORITY, not all of you.  if you're not a crackhead or a thief, no need to take offense.

im really not trying to pick any fights here.  im just telling it like i see it.  i would like to peacefully back out of this thread before i get banned.  please don't respond to me anymore. my opinion don't mean much anyway.

I have taken some of the hottest blooded dogs out there and made GREAT catchdogs out of them.  Most folks just arent educated enough to fool with them.  I always keep an amped up dog away from any animal.  From what you described their is nothing that cant be corrected or avoided.

Joey

ok, so since im kinda slow witted, are you putting hog doggers in the same category as dog fighters and chicken fighters?

Shawn,

     I think in the eyes of many that we are grouped together in the same category.  If you don't believe that, you just need to go look at a duck hunting, bow hunting, or any other type of hunting board and mention hog dogging...See what kind of response you get. And that is from within the hunting community, it gets worse when you go outside of that.  The only way I know to combat the stereotype is to not live up to it...Try to be ethical, and educate the uninformed when the opportunity presents itself. 

Oh I hear you, and yeah the best way to combat that kind of thinking is to educate, also invite as many people to hunt with you as possible, I haven't seen one person that's went hunting with us that didn't have a complete blast.

I just found it kind of disturbing that a person on a hog hunting forum would compare us to dog and chicken fighters.

Shawn,
  Richard didnt compare "us" to "them".
     He stated that most people outside the box call each other out. My family use to fight chickens. I look down on dog fighters,plain and simple. I would have no problem turning in dog fighters. I would still watch a chicken fight if I had the chance. Different strokes for differant folks. But laws are laws. (for the record, no one in my family owns or raises chickens anymore)

    Back to the topic of pitts. I dont think noi matter how solid a dog it is, a bulldog(no matter what breed) that fights or is agressive to other dogs is worth it. o much time and energy is put into the curs I have to let one dog have a bad day and take it out on one of them. Same goes for my curs. I dont like dogs that fight.

LOL..Not at all, Only trying to point out another perspective, that there was a time when they were accepted. And I am sure they probally thought that their sport would not be outlawed, just as we hope ours will never be. If we don't stay active in whats going on in the poitical side of things and police our own bad apples that are giving hog doggers a bad name, we may be in the same boat as them. At least thats what I was trying to say. It was not aimed at any one in particular and I really did'nt mean for it to come out that way if it did, I posted it as just another perspective to be taken into consideration with an open mind on a public board. Either way I will also step out of this topic as, I don't see the point of getting into a WWW typeing match.
 

Don't looked so hard into it and make it into something that it is not. This is usually the reason I stay out of topics like this. You make someone's friend mad and things can get REAL ignorant quick. I'm out of this one for now........

CULL! ITS AS SIMPLE AS THAT.

This is very true. In sweden a dogo owner got busted testing his dog on a hog, lost the right to have dogs, dogs taken away, and now the dogo has a very bad name up there. It will now be impossible to get permission to even TRACK wounded game with a dogo there.

You are in USA, there is much more freedom than here, but if it is ONLY the bad apples that gets media space, it can easliy end very fast.

Here fx. the politicians are thinking about banning 4 breeds, since a lot of bad apples walks their dogs without leash and they attack small dogs on streets..etc..the dogo is among the 4 breeds, the dogo hasn´t  made accidents here, but only because of the pure fact that he is already banned in 2 countries near us.
So, we now takes this fight for the second time, with medias, politicians, kennelclub etc. The newspapers have had a hetz about theese muscled breeds for a year now, every day, and now the politicians follow them.

We are getting punished, because of the rotten apples who do not follow the rules.

cull it ain't worth the risks

Are yall saying that you should cull a pit because it is dog aggressive?

Joey

Hog doggers, deer hunters, we are all sportsman and i dont think many hunters see diffrent, i am on other boards and have had no issues.

As for the MAIN subject on this thread, i have never raised a pit, the ones i have used and have in my yard still were from the pound, however i looked for certain things when getting one, but i have had a few issues after the catch with them they do get wound up perty good but heck stick me on someone i hate and i dont wanna quit either and if someone get in the way,,, WELL sorry! But after the catch we always made it appearent to watch the pits close untill the blood eyes have went away.. That is just my experience, now if he is wanting to fight on a regular basis then yes what others have suggested may be the answer, BUT as for the breed i wouldnt trust my life with anything less in the woods. Bein 10 months old i would just give him an old fashion arse whoopin if he even looks at another dog after the catch he will learn.

Elliscounty,

Where did you come up with this?

     I don't see where anyone on this board agreed that we are scumbags, or that we are the same as them...it was stated that many others group us dog hunters as the same as the dog fighters, chicken fighters, etc.

     

Ok everyonce in a while i make a mistake and read it wrong i checked and i did, it seemed like yall were agreeing that we are classified as scumbags to others and had no problem with that, were i DO, i dont think we are one bit, Sorry my fingers got a little fast on that one ;) ;D

Ellis- One thing they hammered into me in the Marines was " Sometimes wrong, but never in doubt''  ;D

I say it every time I overlook something....lol

Yep sounds like me 110% ;) ;D

 Joey,
    Yes. In my eyes anyways.

  Ellis,
     When I was looking for a catchdog a while back I called one guy to talk to him about one he was selling. He told me she was solid but I would have to watch her after the catch. She would get alittle "grab happy" after you broke her off. I told him thanks and hung up. I dont expect a driven dog to go from 90 to nothing but a pit has to know what they can or cant catch. Like I said, too much damage can be done. Too many dogs out there that dont act a fool.

  Shawn,
      Stay classy.

 I AGREE WITH GOT2CATCHEM    EVERYTHING USE TO BE LEGAL AND NOW ITS NOT  I HAVENT EVER DOG FOUGHT  BUT I HAVE RELATIVES WHO HAVE RAN DEER AND HAD CHICKEN FIGHTS  AND THEY ARE GOOD PEOPLE  WHO ABIDE BY THE LAW AND DONT DO IT ANYMORE  SOMEDAY WHEN HOG HUNTING IS ILLEGAL WE WILL BE CRIMINALS AND SCUM BAGS  ((((((((( I GUESS   ))))))))) I KNOW I WILL BECAUSE I OWN MY OWN TRAINING PASTURE  AND THEY WONT KEEP ME FROM RUNNING HOGS!!!!(((( EVEN IF I HAVE TO GET SILENT DOGS SO THEY CANT FIND ME!!!!!!)))))))  HAHA    GOOD LUCK

stay classy?

My leopard curs are way worse than my bulldogs. Never had my bulldogs jump a dog but my hounds after the pig is dead will without warning jump my bulldogs without hesitation so im not shere if you can blame a bulldogs breed if they are worked with proparly.

please dont take this personally, but id discipline those leopard curs too.  if it didn't work, id cull them just as fast. no dog is gonna start a fight in my pack, regardless of breed.

another good way to avoid fights is to make them leave out and go hunt some more. they shouldn't be hanging around trying to claim the pig.  while you're making them leave, make sure someone else has the bulldogs leashed up and separated from the pack until it's time to move on.

Culling a 10 month old pit bull for fighting after it is turned on is about like culling your curs for baying cows at that age.  You just correct the problem.  A good way is too take the dog away from it having sight of the hog, make it sit' and calm it down with long strokes down its side while praising the dog.  Sometimes they may need an attention getter but it isnt something that can be fixed faster than getting another dog.

I gotta question if yall dont mind.. I have a catch dog that i started and so far i would say finished.. I got him from a pound, they said he was an inside the house kinda dog. (inside dog) i guess you could say guard dog. He will show his old traits sometimes if he doesnt know a person. Just a small growl and once a guy walked up to him and he ran under the truck and growled.. lol very vicious.. just playin but anyway i was just wonderin what yall thought about it. I holler at him and most of the time he stops

i havent read the whole story but i say cull. or neuter and train it out of him. pits like that are what give them a bad name. just like our good bred hog dogs are natural hunters some pits are natural fighters because they were bred for that in the past and some still are. i would try to hunt him with a very good shock collar and when he shows aggression towards anything but a pig light em up and make sure its something he wont forget. but cut the balls off for sure

Caddo I raise mine from pups usally alway raise them with cur pups I never let one fight or growl over a food bowl.nor at my kids but your dog being a older dog might just be protecting your home just let him know you don't approve of him being mean.                          I also agree with jeff don't let any dog fight over a hog not just a pit!

Although some of the cd i have owned never did this the ones that did seemed to be the better ones, heck i have been around ALOT of good cur dogs that did the same thing after the catch, they claimed the hog to be theres and didnt want another dog around that hog, although the curs may not do as bad damage i sure as hell aint gonna hang up on some of the dogs i have seen do that if they were for sale. And it aint like they jumped another dog and went to town it was more of a quick growl bark and then they realized what they were doing was wrong... But to each his own in this circumstance i WOULDNT CULL at 10mnths old just a good old fashion whoopin ;)

Shawn is one of the classiest hog hunters i have had the chance to meet he would give the shirt off his back anyday of the week. ;) ;D

He has no dog aggressions at all.. He only growls at people he dont know..

"Too many dogs out there dont act a fool."  Thats because they are not properly trained.  Dont cull a pit for getting stirred up at a young age especially if he is getting the job done. Just doesnt make a bit of sense unless you are scared of them.

Joey