Just my two cents not trying to offend anyone. I have never seen a Ridgeback that looked good in a pin. The dogs have a lot of sight hound to them and it just doesn't turn them on. The hog has to run before they get turned on. If you noticed yesterday your dogs only got interested when the hog turned its back to the dog and started walking away. This is the sight hound showing up and if that hog would have had room to run from the dog it would probably be all over it.
No worries L3, no offense taken. I asked for feedback... so it would be hypocritical of me to get offended by a sincere and polite response. Thank you for that by the way. I'll admit my perspective is different, but that doesn't give me any right to get mad just because we might see things a bit differently.
It's my understanding that L3 has been in Ridgebacks for good while, atleast a decade or two. I certainly respect the opinion/observation of anyone that has been in their chosen breed that long. I would imagine that in that time you have seen and learned a lot about the breed.
For my part, I've been in the breed just over ten years now. So while I have never been to a bay comp before, it's not exactly my first rodeo either. I've been with lots of Ridgebacks with lots of different backgrounds and pedigrees. I've observed these dogs in training round pens and wooded pens; on penned game including raccoons, coyotes, hogs, and black bears. And while I'll freely admit that I've seen lots of them that never get gamey, I've also seen plenty that do extremely well and instinctively begin to attempt to bay em up. For some it takes several exposures, for others they seem to "get it" the first time out. So I guess what I'm saying is that I actually
have seen lots of Ridgebacks that looked good in a pen... just never in a bay comp pen.
My Ridgebacks have all been straight catch, but they will not run in and hit a bedded hog. They always make it run first and hit it after it runs a few feet. All the other breeds I have worked with will hit a hog laying down in its bed and never wait for it to get up.
Yes indeed some ridgebacks are gritty enough to be catchy, but some Ridgbacks show discretion and will bay:
If they get distracted with that do you want to hunt with dogs that may loose focus if something isn't right when you come into the bay? Not trying to offend its just my take on them after hunting and training a lot of Ridgebacks.
I guess would tend to disagree that it's a breed specific issue for a couple of reasons, but here are the main two:
1) I agree that there is a good amount of sighthound behind the breed but I wouldn't describe them as sighthounds, in fact, the U.S. registries are the only registries that classify them this way. In both europe and in south africa they are classified as FCI group 6.3 - related to scenthounds. see:
http://old.fci.be/nomenclatures_detail.asp?lang=en&file=group6#section3So are they a sighthound or a scenthound? Who knows? Personally I feel they are more like a cur-dog than either a true sighthound or a true scenthound.
2) I saw lots of dogs, of lots of different breeds turn in three different types of performances at that bay comp. Some were good bayin dogs, some caught-out, and some acted the fool. Mine acted the fool for sure, but so did several BMC's, cats, lacys, and crosses. If it was really about the breed, then there shouldn't have been any other breeds that acted the same way, but there were plenty that acted just as confused or distracted or were as lacking in focus at the bay and/or only showed interest mostly when the hog moved or was being pushed around by the attendants (and they weren't sighthound related breeds either). Again, there were plenty of dogs of different breeds that gave similar performances to the two girls I entered, so I'm just doubtful that is was a breed specific issue.
That said, it was my first bay comp, so I don't really know yet. Me thinks that I need to get to a few more bay comps this year and try to get it figured out!
