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Of the dogs I considered great, mine and the first one I hunted with were the only two that I ever saw offspring from. The first one was only bred once as far as I know. In my opinion, the gyp was subpar. The best of the pups turned out to be on the lower end of average. My old dog wasn’t bred a whole bunch but he did produce well. The first gyp was a registered black mouth gyp. She was junk honestly. Her and her previous litter were given to me. None of the previous litter turned out. They had zero hunt and only some of them would even bark at a hog. Her and Clyde had a 50/50 litter but they all would at least bark. The one that stayed close turned out to be a really really good dog. Another black mouth gyp was bred to him and they had a small litter. She wasn’t mine so I don’t know how they all turned out except for the two we kept close. The male started a little slower (almost a year old)but when he started it was like he’d been doing it forever. He never was scared just immature and puppyish. The female was a Cracker Jack and was a super nice little gyp. Both finished out nicely. Then I bred him to a couple tight bred cat gyps that were related to him. That was really good. I think there were two out of several that were lower end average dogs. I don’t know if they were lesser or just never got the opportunity that the others got because both of them stayed cut up. Both of them died in the line of duty. I actually forgot about two of those. You might consider them great dogs. Man they got it done in style every time. Other good dogs would look silly hunting with them. Every now and then another dog might be there with them on the initial bay but never before. There were at least two more gyps out of that litter that were awesome. They didn’t have the bite that I like is about the only thing that keeps me from considering them great dogs. They were quick locators that hunted hard start to finish. They didn’t over run hogs. They drove a track really fast. If they started it they were going to finish it. Literally stayed bayed as long as it took for you to get there. Good noses and would grub cold tracks or wind either one. Super intelligent and didn’t just hunt but knew where to hunt, hog minded. They were real easy to live with too. I do know for a fact that the old man that had the male and female that I consider great, turned down a brand new truck for the pair. He was guiding for a guy that owned a dealership and after a few hunts the guy offered to buy the pair. This old man had money too. He turned the offer down. Finally the fella said look, I’ll give you a brand new truck, go down to the lot and pick it out what you want for that pair of dogs, he still declined. He said there wasn’t anything wrong with his truck lol. So I guess I’ve seen it both ways Cajunl. It absolutely affected my mind set towards what I kept puppy wise. To this day I’m picking females 90% of the time.


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Yall talking about great dogs over here.....and Im just trying to get a good one?!


In all honesty. Ive had some very, very, very good dogs. BUT
Ive yet to have my great dog. The closest thing I had got crippled up young. Still was a very very good dog.

That said Ive only seen 1-2 truly great dogs. Of those ones I have seen.....when bred always seemed to produce  below average dogs, even when bred to good dogs. Dont know if the expectation was too high on the offspring or discouragement from the owners? But it is funny how that works sometimes. Do yall see the same?

I think that is a very good definition of a “great dog” Cajun. When I had what I call  my once in a lifetime dog, I hunted him with a lot of dogs that people said were top tier. It wasn’t to embarrass them but to measure my dog. I wanted to see if he was as good as I thought he was. A good buddy of mine that I ran with in high school called me one time. He said hey, I heard you have a bad
a$$ hog dog. I said I have a dog and I like him, he finds me hogs. He said well bring him over here and hunt with us. So we set it up. I had an square body Chevy 4x4 at the time. It was cold and misty the morning I left and went over there. They had catch dogs so all I hauled was Clyde. When I pulled up, my buddy came to the truck and immediately looked over in the bed of the truck for my dog. He said I thought you were bringing that bad a$$ dog. I said I did. Where’s he at he asked? I pointed to the floor board and grinned. He looked and said I wouldn’t let no $hit eater ride in my truck. I just chuckled and said ok. We get to the spot we are going to hunt and I asked if this was where he was going to cast? He said yeah go ahead, he ain’t gonna hunt no way. Lol if you can’t tell, the trash talking was very much alive and well. I cast ole Clyde and we waited. Their dogs came back but no Clyde. He said what’s that SOB doing? I said hunting but we can move if you need to move for your dogs and we did. About 45 minutes in he said where’s your dog? I pulled out the old wildlife and just could get a beep. I tracked him a couple more times in the next few minutes and he was in the same direction and the same signal strength so we headed his way. We stopped about 5-600 yards away to listen and sure enough he was hitting like clockwork. Of course my buddy asked what he was doing and I laughed. I said trying to show your dogs some pork. We let his dogs go to him and ended up catching several out of the group. I think Clyde bayed every one of them except one. When we got ready to leave my buddy said “ ya know I wouldn’t let no dog ride in my truck, but that SOB right can ride in my truck anytime he wants to!”, lol. He made lots of believers like that. He never let me down. He was good on his worst days. I sure do miss him. I see a whole lot of him in my Outlaw dog. I think it’s one reason I like Outlaw so much.

I think I have hunted with 5-6 great dogs and a whole bunch of really good dogs over the years. All the great ones were hound and cur or hound and cat crosses. I think one of them was pretty much a straight cur type dog. He wasn’t pure anything and if he had any hound in him it was extremely minimal. He was a hog dog though. Of course great is just like good when your asking opinions. It’s all in the eye of the beholder.


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I’d maybe agree to an extent. I’ve can think of a handful of dogs that if they’d had double the bottom. They’d have been in the upper echelon of dogs I’ve seen.


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  When I started this topic it was to invite people in on the conversation to maybe talk about the good to great dogs the have had and what are the traits that set them apart.
  I guess I have been very, very lucky to have had what I consider great dogs. Dont know if i would consider them once in a lifetime dogs since I have had several.
  I have had a boatload of dogs over the years that could get the job done, dogs I would call good journeyman dogs if you will. To me what separates the great dogs is simple. They simply make good dogs look bad and do it on a regular bases. They are all business, get gone and stay busy and they produce hogs when other dogs dont.
  T dog out of the five I think were great, one of them was a straight Catahoula.

Cajun I like the topic. Do you consider the “once in a lifetime” dogs to be the same caliber of great that you are speaking of?

When me and my buddy first started getting our own set of dogs, any breed that could bark was a potential hog dog and if they were free or a stray they got an opportunity. We hunted with all older guys because there weren’t any guys our age doing it then, not close to us anyway. We got to experience all sorts of styles and strategies and even a very wide range of breeds. Then we started getting more competitive about it and wanted to have better dogs than the older guys. We started saving money and trying to buy dogs that we thought would be the sure fire answer to stardom. That didn’t work too well. We spent a lot of hay hauling money on gas and dogs for nothing. Then we were fortunate enough to start going with my buddies great uncle. He was the best mentor in the sense of always being legal, but owned the first great dog I ever experienced. This dog was business minded and was getting gone as soon as he was released. He didn’t waste any time getting bayed. If the nearest hog(s) was 50 yards or 5 miles away, that’s where you would see him next and you didn’t bay hogs between you and where he was. He didn’t just hunt but knew where to hunt, hog minded as I like to call it. He was the same dog every single trip. As long as you would go to him he would relay. He was going to stay put and if he got a hog bayed they played he’ll ever leaving again. We drove up on him numerous times out in wide open pasture where the hog would be sitting on his head because he had ahold of his pride and joy, or the hog would sitting because one or both testicles were pulled out. I can remember the guy saying “well I’m ready to go home” after killing several hogs. The old dog would be gone and bayed again usually and he would leave him in the woods bayed. We’d say you aren’t going to go get him and he’d say “nah, he’ll be home in a day or two” and he sure would. He found hogs that you wouldn’t have thought were anywhere close. He could grub a track or wind them equally as good. At home he stayed on a chain. He was so quiet and easy to get along with you didn’t even know he was there usually. He would be the only dog that had grass growing in his circle. He was a Bluetick/Cat cross converted from a coon dog to hog dog. He set the bar for me. It was a couple years after he died that I got my once in a lifetime dog. I lucked into him and he is what all my dogs go back to. He was nearly a carbon copy of the first dog only mine was a lot easier to look at. Both dogs were also very fast tracking dogs. The dogs that I saw keep up with them on a track were just running with them, they weren’t trying to track themselves because that would cause them to fall too far behind. Mine was a Treeing Walker/Cat cross. I had put him on cold tracks with full hounds before and they either couldn’t smell it like he could or weren’t interested in it being that cold to push it. I remember once in the hot summer doing this and they were a half mile away before the full hound started opening and trying to push it. From that point though, my old dog started walking off and leaving him. He would be bayed 2-400 yards ahead every time. The full hound was a bay buster. I’ve had several since that I consider very very good dogs, but I don’t know if I would say they were the same caliber as the old dog.


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  I made a post on FB awhile back on what separates the good dogs from the truly great dogs. I had put I had 3 that I considered truly great dogs but after thinking about it I would say I have had 5. I have had plenty of dogs that had the same speed, nose and grit that my dogs that I had considered truly the Elite but the main difference boiled down to bottom. Those 5 dogs simply had the endurance to run a hog down no matter how long it took. I am not saying they ran every hog down because I caught them off more often then not but if left to there selves they would bay that hog somewhere. They also made baying hogs look easy. They had what I called the touch. They knew just how much pressure it took to keep hogs bayed. It is also hard to judge dogs of today to dogs of the past because you cannot run them together. One of many things I have pondered over the years.

Sounds like a great way to start the morning and a good catch for the young dogs. Real nice looking sow.

Good deal bubba I knew they would work. Few more catch’s and they will be on there way good job

Thanks WoW, yeah I always appreciate the easy, quit hunts that go well.

Thanks t dog, they’ve been getting out run lately so I was happy they had some success. I was hoping they’d prefer to bay, but after a few hogs it looks like they want to be running catch dogs, so I got them Aussie style running vests to try to protect them. I like that they’re getting on game they can handle, but I know it’s a matter of time before they tangle with something meaner. I hope they’re smart enough to back up and bay when that day comes, there are some bad hombres in these woods.