Message #104820

[crackerc]

skoalbandit, I think you and I are on the same page about dog breeding. I never breed a dog that doesn't perform in the woods and often times I won't even breed a dog until they are 4-5 years old. I want to see what the dog is capable of, what its faults are, etc so I can try to breed to a dog that "hopefully" can help correct what I don't like (i.e. if a dog is hot nosed I will usually breed to a dog with a better nose hoping the pups will have better noses).

Of course, it rarely works out this way, but thats dog breeding!! But I don't have "brood" females and I don't breed unproven dogs.

I hunt one dog a lot of times, or one old dog and one young dog. Right now my Monkey dog is my main dog, as my JJ female got her bottom jaw broke and I just never got my Red female back in shape from having her first litter of pups 9 months ago. She got a tendon cut in her front leg a few years back and gets gimpy after a day of hunting, so I don't push her. Both of these females were hunted pretty hard the first 4-5 years. They turned 6 years old last Oct (they are littermates). Each has had one litter and I am just waiting to see how the pups turn out.

The old Dixie female I have suited me better than any dog I have ever hunted with. She was just the complete package. Unfortunately she got cancer, had to be spayed, and I never got a pup from her. I would have loved to have had a litter of pups from her, just to see if she could produce anything close to her.

I agree that a GOOD dog is open to opinion, but if you have a top dog, I feel he should be able to hunt, find, stop, bay and keep a hog bayed alone...consistently....or to me, he isn't a top dog.

You will NEVER see me with 4-5 of my dogs on the ground...ever. I want to know what dog is finding the hogs, so I hunt 1-2 dogs max. That way I know who is doing a good job.... and who is screwing up!!