I bred hog dogs for almost 20 years and this is the subject that constantly was nagging my brain...I had dogs that could find one pretty quick, stick for as long as needed...oh but sometimes in the heat of the summer the dogs would get outrun due to several factors...I never was one to hog hunt 3 or 4 days a week so the dogs would not be in top shape. So the heat and not being in top shape combining with the big killer, the thick summertime jungle vegetation...the thick vegetation in the summer gave the big advantage to the hogs...the hogs bust right through it like a hot butter knife cutting thru butter and the dogs just fall further behind...the hogs know to head for this stuff the minute the dogs strike the hog track...
so we lose dogs to heat exhaustion, alligators, maybe get one shot or stolen...cause these are long range dogs...not to mention that we might be trespassing...and possibly crippled or killed.
over the years i hunted 5 gritty curs and in the summer sometimes came home without a hog in the back of the truck...but wintertime was a different story...from the time they started a track the hog was bayed within a mile or 1.5 miles. They dogs would catch and release as they got tired and anytime the hog tried to run they would catch again. Used to be when I showed up they caught and I stuck the hog...but in this minute of action a dog could be crippled or killed because the dogs thru caution to the wind...I then started carrying a pistol and trained the dogs to back up when I showed up.
these same dogs, if hunted alone about half the dogs in the pack would back up and bay and the other half would pressure the hog to run...
but I liked hunting my pack...to me it was more about hunting and observing my dogs and catching pigs was icing on the cake...I had to look at it that way or I would have quit hog hunting...
right now I am starting a new pack and half the pack will eventually have at least a quarter pit...I am leaning toward shutting them down with a tad more grit than what I had before.
sorry about the ramblings but in my mind this is the biggest challenge... when talking hog dogs...
