My deffinition without bein a smartarse would be a dog that generally hunts short range, if at all and is a dog that will on occasion find a hog but normally just farts around until another dog finds a hog and then gets to the bay quick fast and in a hurry to help out......just my opinion of course....
Bein a smartarse though the term "help dog" is a nice way to say a cull.....simply a dog that can't get it done by itself, plain and simple.
I don't care for them in my yard personally BUT i do know a couple guys that utilize them and do it rather well at that. One of the guys i hunt with quite often runs a pack of 4 dogs, 2 gyps and 2 males. The gyps are his allstars, they hunt their tails off and find him 99% of his hogs. He hunts these 2 gyps together and they hunt well, if they get on a hog that wont quite settle down he will send 1 of his males to them to help stop the hog or just to have a little more catch power at the bay. Both of his males we consider help dogs BUT his method works well for him and he catches hogs more often than not.
Guess its all in how you want to go about catchin hogs. In my perfect world i would prefer 4 dogs independant of 1 another that will hunt solo but will honor each others bay......i ain't there yet but im getyin closer
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