Message #327427

[OWL Black Mouth Curs]

i agree on the range... 1/4 short, 1/2 medium, and 1 long, hunting for sign.

the one that always confuses me most when people describe dogs is bottom.

i've always seen bottom as how much a dog can take.

a dog that can hunt all day in an inhospitible enviroment and be just as strong and willing at the end of the hunt as he was when you turned him out, despite the abuse he took during the hunt. you take him home feed him and load him up to go hunting the next day and he is just as fresh as he was the day before.

on cowdogs i would call a dog that i can load up at five in the morning at the start of a hot, dry, day, ride ten or twelve miles to the backside of a rough rocky canyon pasture we will  be gathering, send him ahead, and he strikes hunts and bays cattle all day, only needs three or four drinks of water and is just as strong at the end of the day (and the next, and the next) as when you started that morning, as having bottom.

a horse that can take hard riding/hard use/frequent hauling day in, day out withut being phased has bottom.

a rooster that can take alot of punishment in the pit and win in the drag has bottom.

to me a dog that will stay with a hog on a chase doesn't define how much bottom he has.
it just defines his "stick", or how long he stays "hooked up"....

but, thats only my opinion of what i see "bottom" to mean, it kind of throws me off to see it used so carelessly interchanged with "stick" so often...