Cajun...I know that there is no sure way of knowing what the pups will actually become...but I kept note of all the qualities from each pup...I knew who had the best nose for tracking and winding and who was more accurate at locating at a young age and who free casted alone and who didn't...I also knew who struck first and who was consistent as well as which pup made the long distance run to put a hog on the other end of the tracks...and I bred those that performed above and beyond their siblings...
and you are right about the smart pups sometimes don't make hunting dogs...but in my book the once in a lifetime dog is one that is a top hunting dog and has above average smarts to go with it...
and someone having almost the exact same line as you and have totally different dogs has a lot to do with preference and probably terrain as well out of necessity...a buddy of mine has a line of dogs that is almost exactly the same as what I had at one time...he bred for smaller dogs with longer hair and loose baying and all are a nice yellow color...
I like 55 -58 pound dogs (males) that are gritty and slick coated that hunt extra hard and I don't care about color as long as there isn't much white on the dog (and I don't like a big dog but don't care for the smaller dogs)...so we went in different directions on the same line of dogs but he has good dogs...one of my dogs is grandfather to some young dogs of his and I already have one and getting the other because they took the gritty traits...
getting back to testing early...the new dogs I have now have started well at 10 months but they have tested different as compared to the dogs I raised for 20 years...I am not going at it for getting and purifying a line of dogs because it takes money and time... just trying to breed a few good dogs and keeping them as long as they are useful for hunting...when I first started I turned the dogs over quickly to get 3 or 4 generations of top quality dogs behind my line and then I started hanging on to my dogs quite a bit longer...when you know your line of dogs you can know by a year old if they will make top dogs and for sure by 1.5 years of age....but if someone believes in keeping dogs and hoping that they turn on in 2 years then I suspect that testing them as pups won't work...and if they turn on and make good to outstanding dogs after 2 years then they will reproduce dogs that turn on in 2 years...that to me is unacceptable...
I agree with the hi-lighted portion 100%..... I know i've talked about her before but Daisy, my lab was the best OVERALL hunting dog i've ever owned and she was smart as A whip in all aspects, not just hunting. I swear that dog understood the majority of the english language. I believe that if you get lucky enough to find a truely intelligent dog then you CAN train it to do what ever you want it to...... daisy never saw a hog until she was over 3 yrs old and I had her baying/ catching/ release and finding a hog in a pen in under 30 minutes just playin around 1 day.....granted I never took her hog hunting in the woods because she was truely to important to me and my family to loose to a hog BUT I don't have a doubt in my mind that had I decided to make her a hog dog that she would have excelled at the sport in a very short amount of time.
