I really shouldn't get in the middle of this one...because I will have to dodge some bullets...
a while back I saw a video of some plotts in open woods...they were not committing to catching or stopping the hog but were really putting enough pressure to push the hog...more like bay busting...and when a dog that bays more like a howl "hoooooow hoooow how" can't put his mouth on a hog because he is boohooing like that...but with enough bottom that hog will come to bay somewhere sometime...
lots of gritty gritty or as some folks call rough dogs don't have the bottom to stick for a long time...some will and still others will as long as a trail dog is leading them on the track...before anyone talks noise on this please...learn to read the dogs...yes there will be some that will do it alone but many will not...
I have seen many hard hunting dogs that don't do a good job of finding hogs and others that didn't range far but had the knack to find hogs...
Really the perfect hog dog is hard to find anywhere...because sometimes we need a rough dog and other times we need a loose baying dog...
sometimes that loose bay dog needs to put teeth on and won't even though he is in the wide open...other times the briars are so thick the rough dog becomes a bay buster...because he can't get in there to get it done
too rough and you will have dead or crippled dogs...sometimes dead due to heat exhaustion...
too too rough and they are RCD's whose life could be shortened...
I want gritty gritty dogs that will lay some teeth but have the sense to back off and bay once they know the hogs is not going to run any more...just put enough teeth to keep them stopped...
the bad thing about these type of dogs is that sometimes they will need to go home right after one or two hogs caught...because there is no such thing as a perfect hog dog...differet situtations will make the dogs work differently...
I do like a pack of dogs that when in a big big woods to have a pack or 2 of dogs go in ahead and when they come out to the other side you go in with your pack and strike and catch a couple in a short while...especially if there are very few hogs to be found...
very well said!!!
