communicating with your dogs in the woods

1.) and 2.) I don’t think being able to control your dogs in either way will increase or decrease our ability to catch hogs. Some places we can cut them and some we have to kill them. Nothing really dictates what we’re doing with the dogs in either situation. On one hunt you just take your knife and on the other you stock up on 1/2” tie ropes. Anything smaller diameter is going to cut circulation off to the feet of any potential Barr’s we kick back loose.

3.) & 4.) I’m going to lump these in together. Because if I’m calling a dog off now a days. I’m generally using the tone and shock system.

When I started hunting with Big E, it was a beep-beep telemetry system. You casted the dogs and pretty much listened and waited. It was and still is, a pain to haul those antennas out and get everything squared away to get your readings and find the dogs out of hearing range. Seeing the dogs that grew up hunting with that versus now and the garmins. I would say those old dogs had a lot more natural stick and bay to them. I’m talking like stayed bayed half the day or all day til we get to them. Now a days we know right when the dogs sit down bayed even if it is at a mile or two. I do believe getting to the dogs a lot faster has led to our dogs now that don’t not have as much stay as the old dogs did. But man you can stack the number with the garmins and that’s kind of become our thing.

Big E always told me make them a hog dog first and then a pet next. I’ve tried to follow that for the most part as handling and everything else went. We never really broke anything off deer, we just would give them a good whipping and go on. Generally by 2 or 3 they had seen enough hogs they would just walk through deer. My black gyp now is 3, she’s never been shocked off and she was a deer running fool. She won’t mess them with at all now. I do have done young pups that I’ve begun shocking and toning off. It certainly does break their spirit a little when you burn them down but I do believe they are learning. I don’t hunt nearly as much and don’t have the time put quite the numbers in front of them so I’m going to tone break these. I’ve seen both sides and can see how toning and shocking them can effect development some at a younger age. I think a good dog will be a good dog in the end. Most of those deer races in the beginning always turned into pork at some point so I can see where it’s less hogs early.

As far as calling dogs out. We almost never did when I began. We always hunted “as long as the dogs wanted to” which turned into some helleacious hunts. Erik had an old dog Roscoe that would finish 99% of any hog he started and would go for hours. He would either finish what he was running or he would be dumped on something else. He was always one that you had to go in on at the end of the hunt and designate one or two people to catching him and the rest on the hog. Boogie was the same way. He quit when he wanted to, which was pretty much never.

I’ve seen both sides of the argument. I think the dogs were better back in the day with less handle, more go and just true heart. But I could just be nostalgic right now I’m thinking about all the old good ones. We still can catch trailer loads of hogs but the quality and style of the dog we are hunting has certainly changed with the times.