EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

I’m finally starting on my pack and have been looking for a walker pup but I found some July running walkers out of some deer hunting stock. I can hardly find anything on July hounds and was wanting to know y’all a opinion. I don’t mind trail barking

Not that I know a whole lot at all. And even less about running dogs. But I do know there is good and bad and great and really bad in every breed and strain. Here around south central Texas, alot of old lines of stock bred cur dogs have some old blood July crossed in them some where years ago. The right line of any running bred dog is gonna have plenty lung, nose, and bottom. All of which were very desirable traits when talking catching and gathering wild cattle and hogs. So rather than breed, to me it comes down from who are they coming from.


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Note. All the dogs we run are silent until they’ve jumped the hog but will bark behind a runner. If they shut up that hog is pretty well ahead of them. So open to me doesn’t matter. My # 1 trait is an intangible and it’s just knowing how to get bayed and stay that way. If I can’t see a dog sit down and bay and know I could go to town get some lunch and come back to the dog bayed. I probably won’t own the dog. The few straight running blooded dogs I have seen had a problem with staying bayed solo. They would get bored and leave looking for another track to run if no help arrived within a timely fashion


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I understand what your saying. And that’s what I’m afraid of but they will be trained with rougher dogs so hopefully they pick up. I’m not all that sure that deer will actually stop and fight either so sticking around and baying may not even be in their dna. I think they will have a ton of bottom and a good nose I’ve never hunted behind these dogs before but supposedly they’re jam up deer dogs. They’re only 5 weeks so maybe I can form them the way I need them if that’s possible. Thanks for the input

   The good thing is, they are from outside dogs and not pen dogs. The fox & coyote pens have just about bred the nose off of running dogs. I've tried Julys but like Slim said, coud not find one that would stay bayed by thereselves. I do have a buddy that has one and he uses it as a turn in dog after the hog breaks and runs. This dog will stay bayed so they are out there.

My gather on some July breeds were that they weren’t 3 day competition dogs... More of a dog that would give you their all in 4-6 hours. I don’t know a consistent strand that brings everything to the table needed to be a hog dog.

That would be fine to me I’m just a weekend warrior and may go during weekday once a blue moon. Hopefully they will put teeth on one and since they’re deer dogs fast enough to stop one. I’ll keep y’all posted someone told me today that walkers mature pretty fast compared to other hounds which I hope is true.

There are reasons why certain breeds in certain areas are used the majority of time. Everybody wants to re-invent the wheel and I am not saying there is anything wrong with that because that is how new things are discovered but..... My advice to you would be not to try and do that right off the bat with your first dogs. I would find some dogs locally or from another area similar to yours and try them. Figure out if you want open trail barking hounds or silent curs, you can find exceptions to both of these but that can be a long painful process.

July's can be nice dogs I have seen a few crosses of them used on hogs but never seen a pure one ran on them though I have heard of it. If for whatever reason your dead set on a July do some research and find someone who is or has used them on hogs and that might be you best starting point. Good luck either way.

Just about every dog I own has walker/July in them, like has been mentioned already, it’s not about the breed of a dog in general or even a line within a breed, it’s more to do with the individual itself, especially when dealing with running dogs, you have to take into consideration that your taking a dog to do a job that’s it’s not necessarily genetically wired to do, I have a gyp that I use to put into a jumped race because she doesn’t have to nose to push a cold track fast, I don’t need her for a jump dog, he reason for being in my pack is because of her trackspeed on a hot track, and the fact that she will bay all day long like a cur dog, even if the hog settles and lays down she’s stays with it, she’s bred for the speed and drive trials so trailing abilities aren’t bred for, I called a very good friend of mine that has an eye for dogs that I trust and told him what I was wanting and it took him about 2 years to find what I wanted, a guy that was getting into hunting and going with me, went to the mans yard that bred my female up and got a pile of nieces and nephews off my females brother an sister and they will not bay a lick, will run the hide off something all day but as soon as it stops they lose interest, same breeding as my female who bays better than a lot of curs but totally different type of dogs, don’t be disappointed or discouraged if your first few don’t pan out, tracking running is going to come natural with running walker/July dogs, focus on the dogs baying ability when selecting this type of dog, if it’s pups your getting to raise up try to find someone who raises gritty salty run to catch walkers, if your looking to get dogs reasonably local I’d suggest finding someone who bobcats hunts with running walkers, you’ll put yourself way ahead in a faster time than trying to go through a pile of dogs that don’t have it, now a days the majority of dogs bred in the south east are pen bred and don’t have the tools to make hog dogs, there’s always exceptions in everything but looking at averages the numbers aren’t good, if you don’t mind traveling I’d suggest finding some guys who have running walker coyote hounds from the northern states, these dogs are bred and developed to run down and catch coyotes in the wild and have the necessary tools in one package, to track, trail, run and bay big game...

A good friend of mine has an outstanding established line of running walkers that were bred for bobcat hunting, I crossed that blood over two cur gyps and the results have been way above my expectations...


If your not stuck on having full running walker/July’s then I’d suggest finding a good running walker and crossing over a good baying cur and weed through the whole litter to find what you want...

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These 3 are full siblings and are half running walker, I have a 4th one on another guys yard...


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This is my Kate gyp, she’s half running walker and half plot, this is a picture this past summer,(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20181227/352f759957451c3ff2c37b38d4c457b6.png) this is her mother she’s full running walker...

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 These two females are full siblings and are half running walker and are off the same male the three above are...

Goose those are really nice looking dogs! Can you describe their style? Like their range, track speed, nose, baying style, bite, silent/open, etc....Too, can you say where they got the characteristics from? I guess what I mean is which breed contributed each characteristic? Another question is, have you tried the cross both ways, hound on top curr on bottom and curr on top hound on bottom? I was raised with a certain train of thought and just curious if you notice or got the same results.

Good looking dogs Goose, as you know I am a fan of these crosses. I like the direction you are going with them.

Goose I am glad you responded to this post.    I know you are familiar with the crosses and running dogs. This Gyp I have is 1/4 July if I am not mistaking right Goose?

Goose I will have a long talk with the owners if they decide to sell one and see if they think they will match up. Honestly they’ll probably be pleased if I decided to pass on them. I don’t think they’re into the selling game. I like how’re they’re built like a grey hound they definitely look like they have endurance. I’m not set on getting them I definitely want to take my time and find a good one, but it seems like all the dogs are in Texas lmao. I just know I want hound or cur crosses maybe a little pit mix. We have a lot of thickets and hardwood openings around here with river bottoms. So something that can give good short spurts on speed and some teeth would be appreciated

T-Dog I can only give you a detail of the 3 above being as their the oldest and have the most experience, their track running style is exactly what I was after when I made this cross,once they have a track they can smell good they are relentless in pushing it and once they get a hog up and running they can get up on him quick, they have a real keen sense of track running and don’t make many losses and run with their head up, if they make a bobble in the track they start making loops where they lost it at and it’s usually not long and they have it back up, I can’t really say how far they range out because they’ve struck hogs literally as soon as their feet hit the ground out the box and have gone upwards of a mile before opening on a track, I’ll say this, finding a hog is on their mind when casted, they’re not naturally as rangy by themselves as my other curs are, their baying style is really my only concern about them, they all bay good and bay tight when in company but individually bay loose, my big male is actually the loosest baying off them, Christmas Eve we got on a flat out bad boar and Ben was one of 2 dogs that didn’t get wrecked, I’m going to breed Ben back to his mother this year to bring back in some more bay because she bays with a vengeance and later on down the rd breed him back to his sisters and go from there, they are f1 crosses and I’m afraid if I breed back toward the sire or dams side I’ll lose some of the vigor and not bragging at all but they are some of the nicest dogs I’ve ever hunted with and there wasn’t a single dud in the litter of 5 I weaned and got to the woods, one male was hit by a log truck running a coyote behind my house when he was 10 months old...

The pictures of the last two are off the best female I’ve ever owned or personally hunted with, after seeing the results in the first cross with that line of walkers I took my gyp and bred to the same male, the red tick looking one got her chest cavity punctured Monday, these two belong to my two closest friends and I have 2 more myself and one of the same guys has another sister and this will be their first season on them...

As far as the crosses go I’ve seen it done with a full brother and sister that were curs and each were bred to two full brother and sister that were plotts and the results were completely different types of dogs in style and body build, years later I found out that a dog only inherits it’s mitochondrial DNA from the mother, this isn’t theory or speculation it’s FACT, that goes for all mammals, I had always been told that the caliber of the female being bred is what needs to be focused on and that a great female will make a mediocre male look good in the brood box but a great male cannot fix the faults of a mediocre female, and them men who always told me that all had yards of top dogs, I’m not talking about hog hunting but men who were bird hunters, squirrel hunters, cat hunters, and bulldog men, after researching mDNA, it finally clicked with what those men had unknowingly been practicing for years, I’m still unfamiliar with it myself but have discovered some info that makes all the sense in the world...

What are your thoughts on it?

Yes Scotty she’s 1/4 July or walker can’t remember, I thinks it’s walker, her mother come from Ford and Lane Fortenberry...

If I wasn’t so deep in this project that I’m in and was just getting into hog hunting I’d have a yard full of bird dog and bulldog crosses, those seem to be effective in whatever region they’re hunted in but don’t have a long shelf life, I surpassed along time ago the need to catch hogs at whatever cost, nowadays I like to do it a certain way with a certain style of dog, no different than a guy fly fishing for bass or pitching crankbaits, just different preferences, if your heart is set on having walker dog crosses and you don’t have many resources to choose from find some guys that run coyotes in the pens and tell them you’ll take their dogs that are to rough on a yote, in the Fox/coyote pen world a dogs that runs down and kills game in the pen is seen as a cull and cost the pen owners game and dog owners money having to pay for that game, those dogs usually make pretty good hog dogs, all throughout the years I’ve owned several fox pen killers that made some nice dogs and never had any problem with them baying...

Goose I think we like and are trying to raise the same kind of dog. I was raised with that same teaching about the female emphasis. I have found it to be exactly true. It's one of the biggest reasons I hunt mostly females. Everyone likes a male for obvious reasons. I place my pups so that I get to see them hunt and make my own judgment about them. So I have the females and can breed back to the males of my choice. I REALLY like the looks of your dogs, definitely my flavor.

When I get a little more tweak and tuning done on them, some will be headed west

Goose what about the redtick? Redtick is not a running dog color nor a curdog color.

Her sire is a red and white running walker and her mother is a tri colored cur dog with some ticking on her legs, two out of this litter come black white and tan like most walkers, 3 came red and white like the sire, 2 males came ticked up but were black with some small tan patches and eventually faded out, and this female was red ticked...

There's an English dog somewhere in that woodpile, maybe back down the line in the Bobcat walkers they done that to help with the treeing and it just showed back up , once something is in there it can show generations later. But you'll have to agree Redtick is not a Running Walker, July or Cur Dog color. No harm intended she just stood out and I originally thought she might be a different cross.
I've saw lots of running dogs, growing up they were big in this country for red fox and or coyotes, they ran them at night, usually older fellows, built a fire then cast dogs and listen all night. They never gunned them it was all about the race, they did catch a few but not many, thick country. Generally the group had 2 or 3 "jump" dogs and fed the rest in to them to be sure of the game they were on. Heard many a race out my bedroom  window and  sometimes on my way home from coon hunting or having been out carousing around would stop in at their camp and listen and shoot the bull awhile. In those days the running was all outside, no pens yet.

Goose what type of cur was the red ticked pup out of? You said the gyp was tri colored with some ticking. I thought maybe there was a chance of some hound influence in her side prior to the introduction of the running dogs. Don't really matter either way. It doesn't change what you have. They are still really nice.


Old man, you are exactly right about once you put something in your dogs that it can show up waaaaay down the line when you least expect it and usually when you can least afford it. I tell that to my buddies all the time when trying to determine how to breed.

I agree with there being something else in the woodpile I’ll post a pic of their mother, she’s as cur as cur can get but her looks say other wise lol, if y’all want you can zoom in and check out her sisters legs, they are ticked up as well...


The main reason I give her to my friend Billy is because he has always liked a red ticked dog, and she looks like she could be a full sibling to one he has that half blue tick and half BMC...


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Her sires full littermate brother looked just like a glass eyed treeing walker, he would’ve been the sire to RBZ_offroads Diva gyp, I’ve always been convinced that there’s some walker in there that came from her grand sires side and background but after talking to Mr. Mackie Strong of north La a couple years ago at Uncle Earls he showed me pictures of some of the old Sam Mason stock and a lot of them were walker patterned coats, so there’s definitely some foxhound influence in today’s Catahoulas, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t some English dog bred into them because the man who developed her grandsires side used to run a pack of hounds years and years ago way beige he had cur dogs and would get fighting mad if somebody assumed his cur dogs had hound bred into them, either way it doesn’t have any impact on where I’m headed from here with them and what they are and reproduce...

Clue your description of the old foxhound days brought back a lot of memories, I can remember being a little boy and my daddy dragging me to a fox race every weekend and a lot of times if he ran during the week he would run in a pen and would always build me a fire in a wood heater in a tin sided makeshift camp and I went to sleep many many nights listening to a pack of walkers burning a coyote up, I was brought up literally around the last days of the free range running in our area...

Goose I have a pup that looks Walker in his markings as well. He is Cat/Walker and the Walker is only 1/4. That being said, his daddy was marked exactly the same way and he was only 1/8 Walker. I usually get at least 1 pup in every litter if not more that have the hound markings or coloring. Some are Walker tri color some are white with red, lemon, or brindle patches and a lot of them tick out more and more the older they get. The Walker blood in mine was Lipper (treeing walker). I think the catahoula has something to add to the ticking as well. I'm betting your ticking is from her side and not the running dogs. One of my mentors always told me that the Catahoulas started out as two basic strains, a Louisiana strain and a Texas strain. One bred bulldog into theirs for more bite the other bred hound into them for nose. I absolutely  believe this. I have seen numerous papered cats that looked half to almost pure bulldog and I've also seen some papered dogs that looked like hounds in a merle wrapper. As said before, once it's in there...

My gyps sire and one of his littermate brothers looked identical, mostly white with some lemon/light brown and a little Merle  patchwork, whenever either one of them was bred to my gyps mother there was always a walker patterned looking one or two in the bunch, there's not a person alive that can tell you what makes a catahoula, same as the black mouth cur, there's individuals who can trace their dogs lineages back for many many generations but can only go so far and even then the majority of that information is going off a human beings integrity and word and when it comes to dogs I've seen more than one instance of upstanding right living citizens get a little crooked when it comes to a dog, by no means am I calling anyone out or a liar, just stating the obvious when dealing with dogs, it doesn't make a hill of beans to me what's behind them, my only concern is where they're headed, not just my dogs but dogs in general, there's glass eyed running hounds with Merle coats and glass eyes have been seen in treeing walkers (which themselves came from running walkers) and blue ticks, and back when dogs were mainly bred for a necessity a man had to breed in and add what was missing and needed to get the job done so only God knows what's actually behind all our dogs, I wholeheartedly believe what you said about the two different strains of catahoulas because I've seen it as well, I sent a gyp to Mackie Strong, whose sire was one of the males mentioned above and her mother was a half sister to him, the mother to that gyp was by far the coldest nose cur dog I've ever laid eyes on, on more than one occasion I saw her put her nose in a track in a road and throw her head up and bawl and do the same on the next track, all the while there were other so called cold nosed dogs all standing around on their tails, these instances weren't just flukes, she was just way above the grade in the nose department, and then I've seen some that were straight catch, I owned one when I was a teenager, my dad got him for me when I was in the 7th grade and he died when I was 20, he had absolutely no bulldog looking attributes about him if anything he looked like he was part lab, he was off some old stock that had been used to first settle this area and the old timers just always kept a pair of them and every few years one of them would make a litter, his parents were around 10 when he was born, he would literally catch a 2500lb bull by the nose, set any boar hog on his ass, but had enough finesse that he slept inside every night and was my sisters guardian, he would lay for hours letting her do whatever she wanted and would walk in between her and the water and nudge her back up on the bank when my parents would bring us to the creek, just as soon as he saw me with a leash in my hand he went in business mode, I used him as a catch dog and even competed with him regularly at the catch dog trials we used to have around here, definitely a different type of cur dog than what I have today...

What you said is true about these cats having hound and bulldog in em...I'm in California and have saw both myself....tall skinny long eared chop or bawl mouth and I've saw the block headed short legged no bark all bite. Either way I'm pretty sure there is no such thing as a pure bread dog anymore.

No no no Goose, True Blackmouth Curs Got off the Ark with Noah and his family and were straight from heaven.

They are even more blessed than Florida Curdogs in the history of things.

Ain’t what I heard, I was told that spots came before solids, but the man who told me that said the ringnecks came before both of them, lol...

i just wish ta hell noah had dronwded them first 2 ticks , fleas  and mosqiotoes!






and the goats and sheep too  >:D

Well they all started from the litter of pups I just had cause we had all 3 of the sorts.


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Best post of 2018!  ;D

now your talking lol, i didnt even know hounds could catch hogs ... lol jk

for what my opinion is worth, which with hounds is very limited, is that july hounds make one of the best for hogs b/c what separated them from the normal fox hounds was they ran tracks much faster and quieter than other fox hounds and would catch their prey quicker. The full july hound gyp ive hunted behind is totally silent and as good as any cur. not sure it thats the norm or not ...

Cscott had a half July half running Walker named sassy. She was legit as they come if you want to talk about bottom. Silent, loose, and couldn’t stop a hog very quick but she would sure hump up and run the air smooth out of one. Better pack a lunch if you were loading her up.


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We catch hogs steady with Plott Dogs, and to quote an old Cur Dog friend of mine, "if he's a hog dog you can tie a siren and a flashjing blue light on him and he will bay hogs" haha.

I like what you said... :)

the best dogs I have hunted with tend to open some...

True statement.

Slim is she not alive any longer?

Only on paper ;D

That’s right, I say to folks who are stuck on the silent dog theory that an open mouth dog ain’t no different than an MMA fighter, as long as he has the goods to back up that talking he can talk all he wants...

That used to be the general rule of thumb and standard that July’s were faster on track, tighter mouthed, and had more grit to them, that’s also when there were foxhounds in every county from Texas to the Carolinas, most of today’s running dogs no matter the “breed” are all bred for the exact same traits and those are traits necessary to win in a pen and not what it takes to catch game outside of a pen, unless you find a purist who sticks to the breed standards of the different registries they all look very similar in color and confirmations, as well, nowadays it’s more about the man breeding them and what he’s using them for than it is their breed...

A man who just passed away a year or so ago around here had established his own line of dogs based off some July hound and cur crosses and his main reason for using the strain of July’s he used for the start was because they were tighter mouthed, the picture I posted above of my son standing in front of the saddle back gyp, she is part July, not sure of the % according to her papers, but when I first switched her from coyotes to hogs I used to let her bay yearlings with my cur pups and started her with my two cur gyps and she was dead silent for a while until I hunted her with my buddy’s plotts and Mother Nature took over lol...

I do not believe so.


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