How many of y'all?

Both

I use a firearm when hunting alone and at 58 with diabetes and leukemia my system is a bit faded. and anemic I think I owe it to my dogs to back them up with all the resources at my disposal. I have seen the "no firearms" guys in tears rush up to me on my horse begging me to shoot that hog that just gutted both their catch dog and a bay dog.

But I hunt more with my handcuffs and hobbles and leave the firearm in the buggy for back up most of the time if I am hunting in a team. I do not want others shooting over my dogs, so I foregoth the gun and hunt as I would like ohers to hunt around me.. Besides, with almost 50 yrs of runnimg dogs on hogs I have seen far more top dogs killed by guns in hunts than by boars.

I would rather shoot one than get my catch dog and baydogs beat up in a catch lately. Like horses only have so many gallops in them, likewise I believe catchdogs only have so many bad boar catches in them. Last few years I save my catchdogs for catch and tie for radio tracking collar applications on research work and leave them at home for fun hunts with the younger crews. But I started hunting as a pre-teen with just a pair of pittbulls wearing sheep bells for tracking wearing homemade leather cut vests as the only dogs in the hunt and there is something missing these days with all the store bought stuff , GPS tracking and variety of dog breeds we use. That was bare knuckle hunting and we were as much a part of or even more of the hunt than the dogs. We had to sneak through the woods for hours, no talking, wind in our faces, reading the dogs body postures before we cut em loose. Most would quietly sneak and do as we did, crawl on our bellies, so the dogs did too. When the dogs backed up and put slack in the leash, looked up at us, we knew they could smell and or hear hogs and it was time to cut em loose. Maybe need to get back to that, it was a fever like nothing since.