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Sounds like them dogs is working for you good hunt

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I got an invite to run the dogs at a friend from church’s ranch just north of the Red River. We get the buggy loaded and we’re off, we check a couple pastures that’ve been getting hit for nothing, then move to another area where they like to travel through and spend time in. As we approach our creek crossing the land owner spots a hog above us on the opposite side of the creek (this is the moment I realize I left my pistol in the truck), my initial assessment is he’s a big one and I don’t know if this young pack can hold him for me to stick. Too late, the sequence of events is unfolding and there ain’t no turning back now. If they can’t hold him I’ll be relegated to throwing rocks and sticks. He starts leaving and all I see is a glimpse of him going out of sight over the hill.

We get to where he was and the four older dogs take up the trail, and the young catahoula pup is doing her own thing before she joins the others. Things happened kind of fast so my recollection might be skewed a bit. They hit 400, then 500 and shortly after I hear barking. We drive back down the way we came in, cross the stream and get as close as we can to the action.

They’re 200 yards and the fight is on, they’re on the neighbors place and I get over the fence and am hustling to the action. My friend is calling the neighbor but I’m confident he will find us. As I get closer I can hear dogs caught and those who aren’t are barking, I pick my way through the briers and cedars I can see they got control of him. I can’t get behind him like I want because he’s backed up against some rocks and trees (I wait just a second to see if he tries to shake the dogs off when he sees me coming in). The dogs still got him so I make my move and run in front of him and get to the rear, grab his tail and finish it.

The old warrior had some bald spots from rubbing, scars from fighting and missing his bottom cutters, he still had his uppers. None of the dogs got hurt and the land owner was less one hog on his ranch. We go to another lease of his right up the road, this place is covered in honey locust, cedars and briers, I mean thorns galore. We drop the dogs and they’re going in the brush, it’s not long and we hear bacon bits getting stretched, bigger hogs grunting and general chaos. We get to them and find the baby they grabbed up, saw one little escapee run off and my plott brought one to us like a retriever. I see my Pete dog got cut right next to his McNuggets. I don’t know if there was a boar in the mix or if it was a sow attacking him in the rally, got him home and doctored him up.

All in all a great day for us.

Good looking dogs Clue and sure sounds like y'all had your work cut out for you. High as cows are I bet the owner was glad just to get 4 back.

  Thank you'all.

Good looking dogs for sure, sounds like a hard days work when I hear cedars and briers. That stuff is hard to get through.

I know color dont mean a lot. But its funny. In Florida a lot of the old ranch cow dogs are those two colors. Just about all the cowboys dogs are either yellow or the black and silver. Just interested to see.

 There are no discernable differences in their behavior or working traits, I have bred the black ones but never black to black. Best I can tell that is a color gene only, probably recessive and occasionally links to present as dominant.
  At the moment I have 2 black pups not old enough to work, they are from 2 different litters, one is all home breeding the other is a three quarter home breeding from a female that was out of one of my males and another strain female. That total outside female had 3 or 4 black ones when bred to my yellow male. When I get them at home there is usually just 1 or 2. Long term I usually have from 1-3 on the yard.
 I don't mind them at all but don't breed for them since that's not how I found them but don't consider it when evaluating them. Some folks that see them prefer their color.

They are nice dogs. Do you notice any differences in the ones that come black vs the yellow ones in any way? I know it’s not exactly an apples to apples comparison, but a lot of times in the game chickens when a family would get tightly bred, you would get what they call a sport. What they were was a throwback to something that was used to create them. For instance my dad had a family of Black Japs. They were tight bred when he got them and then he started getting solid white ones. The black and the white were different in many ways besides color. I’ve seen it many times over the years in different families. I’ve seen it in dogs as well. A pure this or that that was created by breeding more than one breed or family together to get them. We see it in the plotts for example. I was just curious as to whether you noticed it or not? Have you ever bred back to any of the black dogs?


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  To add to that I frown on the Curs and Plotts that don't hold up as well as their counterparts, IE some time back I mentioned a Plott female with all the traits and abilities that was culled because of constantly running her feet off. Nature culls all weakness in the wild, in our performance animals it is up to us to play that role.

 No, the only dogs I carry are one that is hurt too bad to walk. If they can't follow me all day and still catch I don't want them, to me that would be embarrassing for the dog. IE yeah, he will really catch but I have to carry him so he doesn't get too tired.