EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

It's almost been a year to the date that I lost my lil' Abby, and funny thing is there's not a hunt that goes by that I still don't miss her.  She was young...just a little over two years old but she was a real-deal hog dog like no other I've had.

The last few months before she died, I had gotten very arrogant where she was concerned.  I never said a word to anyone, but those that knew me well knew that Abby wouldn't be first to hit the ground.  What would make me grin ear to ear was letting everyone else turn out....wait until all dogs made a round and came back, then I would quietly slip back and let her out.  Time after time she would bay up in an area other dogs had been through.

She was a late bloomer, showed no interest at first, and honestly I hated her when I first started her.  Man, NO TELLING what I wouldn't give to have her back...

Anyone else have memories of perhaps one of those once-in-a-lifetime dogs?

(http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee138/bdavis1476/Dogs/abby1.jpg)

what a beautiful dog that is...sorry she is no longer with you.


i miss a few dogs myself...


bella
(http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f236/JaredJHarms/bella.jpg)


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jake...(the one that's rt side of my catchdog getting a paw full. lol..) heck of a dog...got an eye knocked out by a huge russian. since then, the dog wasn't near as good and didn't want to hunt as deep. the guy that has him now claims he's a jam up strike, bay, and all around dog. doesn't know why i sold him. he didn't know the jake i knew though...

rip...(ybmc) freak of nature dog....2nd dog ive owned named rip that died. ill never name a dog rip again.

(http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f236/JaredJHarms/DSCF0515.jpg)

a plott named blade  i had a few years ago . i could turn him loose in alaska and bay a hog . he was built right , listen well and knew how to put the brakes on one. i lost him to a huge boar that i never got to catch but i did see the hog . i had to track to him after it broke . i found him layed in the woods he never made it off the ranch but he died doing what he loved and luckily i breed him 2 months before i know have his daughter and 3 grandsons that i just started and let me tell you i can see their grandpa in them . i just hope they will be half the dog he was

I got his daughter's daughter right? :-\

that would be the blood i am talking about

(http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w234/got2catchem/012609hunt004.jpg)

The dog that I am holding on the right was my girl Maybeline. She was a medium range dog that had a ton of bottom and was able to produce some large amounts pork. I used her in the TDHA tournament and she took us on a hour long hog catching spree that helped our team place in the top 10. Some people also got to see her hunt in the SHNF with pretty good results. I sure miss her and will never forget her. She was a HOGDOG.

(http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w234/got2catchem/Hoghuntingpics.jpg)

My boy Maverick. He was a solid catchdog that I had when I was stationed at Camp Lejuene. He participated in his fair share of early morning PT and was always by my side. I knew at some point that I should've quit using him while I was ahead. He died doing what he loved and it hit me as hard as losing a close friend.

When its my time to go, I 'll have a helluva pack waiting on me.

Richard Im sorry to hear Maybeline is gone.  I only hunted with her that once but she was the DEAL!!!

that's a big ol' boy hobbled you got there, how much he go?

270?

Texas_Cur, Thanks for the kind words, that was a heck of a hunt. Seems like we walked 15 miles. ;D

I can't remember what he sold for, but I don't think it was quite 270. That pic is probably one of the only pics I've taken that actually does a hog justice. The rest of the time, I have to post pics on the scale, so no one will think I'm exagerating..lol  :o

I lost Banjo about 30 minutes ago and anticipate missing him much the same way that you miss Abby. At almost 1.5 years old, he wasn't a tenured dog but he hunted harder than any dog I have seen in a long time. Over the last 5 months, he struck the majority of our pigs and he was as consistent as they come. With a little refinement/experience, he would have been one of the greats. Hell, as a pup he was one of the best!

I guess that we can always hope to find their equal some day...

Steve

(http://s45.photobucket.com/albums/f93/KevinTX/lilly.jpg). I sure miss my Lilly dog.  I hunted her for 7 years.  She was about as good a dog as figure you could ask for.  Never sick, never made a sound at the house, great companion.  I think she only pissed me off one time.  Its definately obvious that she is gone from my yard.

 I also miss Stoli.  She is still around though.  She just lives with a friend.  I have a lot of memories with those 2 dogs.

had a dog named duke. he was kind and real well mannered.  he was just a help dog till he was about 4 yrs old.  then something clicked in him and he was a hog finding son-of-a-gun. went huntin one night and got on a 150# boar with 1 1/2 in teeth.  i got to the bay and duke was laying on the bank of the creek and the other dogs were baying.  shot the boar.  it had gotten under his cut collar and got his jugular.  when i picked him up, he was light as a feather, he had bled out, but was still breathing.  my wife stayed w/ him and tried to make him as comfortable as possible while i went to get my truck.  by the time i got back, she was still holding him and said he had stopped breathing and was gone.  it was hard for me to bury him, i got real choked up.  i still talk about him.  he was a great dog i will never forget. RIP Duke. :'(

I miss Sweetie, great catuhoula dog i had, Lilly, kevins dog she was fun to watch hunt, and Shadow txhoghunters LAB ;) ;D, Those 3 dogs where prolly the 3 best i had the chance to hunt with.

I have one of those missed dearly dogs wished i had a picture of him,,, Snake was a demon on hogs and would hit them like a frieght train  and it  really messed up a great team of dogs.. he was  Trippz's brother and those two together was in my eyes unbeatable

I sure do miss my ol' Blue dog.

Mike, did yall ever get anything off of him. He sure was a good looking dog. I like how yall dedicated the "Blue's Page" to him.

Dogs I miss?

There's a lot of them but one stands out just a little from the rest of my fallen warriors.

"Rico" was a dog alot like Lil Abby that "Bryant" describes above. He was probably the best dog I ever owned and I was fortunate enough have him in my earlier years of hog hunting. I still hunt the same family of dogs and relatives of his 20 plus years later now.
Hunting buddies would get aggravated and ask me to leave him in particular at the trailer occasionally just so they could be sure their dogs could still find a hog! He was literally a one dog show but hunted the same no matter how many dogs were on the ground with him. The most trainable dog I've ever owned by far.
He was all heart, no quit, fast and smart as they get. I swear this dog could read my mind and he would catch anything but only after I commanded him to.
The only complaint I had about that dog was that he would load up with a perfect stranger and go find him a hog as quick as he would do it for me. He didn't discriminate against who was hunting him thats for sure! lol
He was and still is the best of everything I look for in a hog dog. I still miss ole Rico and he's been dead around 18 years now.
This is a great thread and I sure am enjoying the reading...............Thanks

What was it about her that made you not give up on her to soon?

I miss Hank. He died last year on October 9th. He was what we will probably never have again. He was like no other dog I've ever seen. He lived
 to catch hogs, if he ever got out of his kennel we knew where to find him....the hog pen. He was pushing ten years old and he still outran and found hogs
Before our young dogs. They knew not to compete with him. He saved a couple of dogs from choking themselves to death and my brother from getting his
butt torn a few times. Never trashed, you knew it was a hog he was baying. Would not let any dog get near a caught hog, whether it was dead or alive. I had
Raised a wild boar from when it was a few days old. He was two years old when one day I went in the pen to play with him and he pushed open the door and went
into the woods, I tried calling him but he was so excited to be loose he wouldn't come. I got worried about him running to highway 105 and getting hit by a car. I waited
for my dad to come home and he was like well we're going to have to use one of the dogs, I was like NO! I cried cause I didn't want him to get bit, he was like a big baby
and I didn't want to put him through that. My dad was like don't worry ill use Hank, so he goes into the woods and let's Hank go, I hear him bay Baby (the pig) and I hear Baby squeal and my dad call Baby and since baby was scared he ran to my dad. Then I see my dad coming back and I could not believe my eyes, he had Hank and Baby on the same chain walking side by side. We put Baby back In the pen and I was shocked at the fact that Hank knew Baby was not to be harmed. Just like when we would lose a dog and we would be calling them back he would howl and bark, but it sounded much different than his usual bark. It was horrible the day we had to put him down. He was ready to leave the vet with his nose at the door. We lost a family member and he will never be forgotten.
I miss you Hanky!

(http://b0.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/00863/09/93/863253990_m.jpg) (http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=29750606&albumID=764433&imageID=1940370)

this is my frist cd he was the real deal but het got drug by a hog for about 4 mi rip all his k9 teeth out pulled his pads off he did not make it  he was my baddy!!! :-\

Yeah, I bred him a couple of times... most were ruff as hell. Hogs got a few that I know of. My buddy has a son off of Blue over in Louisiana that around six years old and going to waste. He says I can have him... but he catches good as any bulldog. :o

I had a little gyp that hunted hard and I should have held onto longer... but she liked to run wide open.

Then he got brucellosis and lost his manhood... so that was that.

I almost hate to admit this, but I went against everything I (think) I have learned over the years from the very beginning with this dog.  Honestly, I held on to her for the same reason that I bought her from a known dog trader off his chain for a $100....because I thought she was pretty.  Prior to owning her, I don't think I had ever seen a light yellow brindle dog and although a silly reason, she really caught my eye.

The guy wouldn't sell her to me at first, but called me the next week and stupid me, I drove back 5 hours to pick up a $100 pup.  The guy told me she was started and would hunt pretty good.  When I had exhausted all efforts to make her even look at a hog or get 10 yards from me, I basically gave her to my boys as a yard dog.  A couple months later, she came into heat and I had to put her at a different place because at the time I didn't have a secure kennel and my other dogs were tearing everything up.  When she came home +/- three weeks later, I took her along for the ride on a hunt one day.  That morning she bayed a hog solo (prior to this she had never even BARKED at one), and from that point on never turned back.

I always joked that those couple of weeks in solitary must of made her mind get right!

She died due to an infection she contracted that was not even related to any type of hunting injury.

I wish I knew more about her or where she came from.  I was told she was Plott X BMC.  When she died, I was finally able to get back in touch with the guy I had gotten her from.  The story had changed, and this time he said he had gotten her from a flea market somewhere in southern Oklahoma.

I had a Catahoula named Skipper that my daughter (at the time she was 16 years old) arranged to get for me from Mr. Mason. Skipper was a surprise gift from her to replace a pup I lost to a snake bite. Skipper was not one of those high powered dogs. He was short range, worked well in hot sign, and would strike a hog from time to time. He was truly more of a help dog that would fly to a bay and get as nasty as needed to keep the hog bayed. What made him special to me (other than the previously mentioned gift) was he was all heart and he was my dog (meaning he would only hunt with/for me). On the last hog he bayed, we walked the dogs back to the trucks and put them up prior to retrieving the hog. We took an empty truck back to get the hog. I had Skipper clipped to the top of the dog box of a truck we left at our starting point. As soon as we were out of sight, he slipped his collar and followed us a mile to where the hog layed.

Ironically, I lost him to a snake bite earlier this year. While I miss him everytime we hit the woods...I undoubtedly think of him every time we get a whiff of skunk ;D

Skipper with his final hog

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v235/sdp685/hunting/22febhunt006.jpg)

Speaking of catahoula's....I bet some of you know this ol' boy and I bet he misses this dog! :-X

The dog belongs to somebody on here now I think?? Was a great dog..."SHYBO!!" :D



(http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f236/JaredJHarms/mason1.jpg)

Me and my 3 hunting buddies are still trying to figure out a way to replace this one, using different combinations of dogs.  Nothings working,  because he did what 2-3 dogs did and did it better, we did get puppies from him before he was killed, maybe one of them will eventually be the next Buster.

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(http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f248/8_shots/blondie2.jpg)