Austesus, no disrespect to you or your mentor, but I'm glad I'm not a catch dog for y'all. I've been doing this for almost 30 years on my own. I have lead and hunted with more bulldogs than a man can count. I've hunted with about every breed used for catching and in every type of terrain there is in the states. It don't take years and it don't take near death to prove a catch dog. That's like saying you aren't a man until you've been shot a few times. I have a gyp right now that is super green. Her type physically is spot on. She will get ahold of a hog. Is she a catch dog? No, not in my opinion. She's still learning how to get to a bay. When an intelligent dog sees a few good hogs, he learns something everytime. Little pigs and shoats don't do a whole lot of educating. An intelligent dog doesn't have to get cut down to learn. I've got more witnesses than you and your mentor together have fingers and toes, I've got the pics to show for it also, but my Vegas dog was a CATCH DOG in every way. He died of cancer at almost 8 years old. It was about 14 days after I caught my last boar hog solo with him in the woods. I doubt he missed 20 hunts in all that time due to being cut. I caught hogs that literally, I couldn't almost reach around their legs with my hand. His worst injury was one that I caused because I dropped him in on a boar that was facing the opposite direction of what I thought he was. Granted if you hunt 1 or 2 times a month and all you catch are a couple at a time and go home, then it's going to take a while for a dog to become a seasoned dog. Vegas wasn't an exception, he was the norm of the family. There are also other circumstances. My nephew was getting pretty frustrated with his bulldog. He's young but straight ahead. It got to be that he was caught on the jaw a whole bunch or the hog would break just as he was getting there. He was ready to cull him. I told him to stop and think it through. Next time you go, only take a couple of dogs and leave those alligators at home. Guess what, eared up and no breaking hogs since. It's not always something that the catch dog can do anything about. The ones that run in and pray that they are able to get a hold of something, can't eat my feed. The ones that know where they are gonna catch as soon as they see the hog and then make it happen are the ones I want. The ones that learn to get out of the way after they are caught and know how to get leverage don't have to get cut to ribbons to prove out. Those are the ones I want to feed. There are a whole bunch of characteristics that go with the term "catch dog" just as there are with "hog dog". Being stupid definitely isn't one of them. Again, there are always special circumstances and options just aren't available. The dog has one way he can get in and catch the hog and one way only, he might have to take some punishment to get it done. He certainly doesn't have to be put in that situation to prove out to me though.
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T-dog, I think you may have somewhat misinterpreted what I meant. Neither me nor my mentor have intentionally tried to set a dog up for failure to prove it. In fact my catch dog has never been cut down. He’s had one small nick that I can think of, and that’s it. Same with about all of my dogs. Of course I’m also not catching trophy boars every single time I hunt either. My point was just that I’ve seen some dogs that would catch every hog they saw, perfect, until that one time they got cut down bad, and then they just didn’t have the hardness afterwards. I guess that could be considering proving gameness more than proving that a dog is a catch dog, but nonetheless some dogs will change after being cut. I’m sure you’ve seen this over the years. So yes, my catch dog does his job, he catches pigs. He has yet to fail me, to some he may be considered a finished catch dog. In my personal opinion, he’s not completely proven until he has had the bad luck of being cut down. Now to me this does not mean he does not do his job, it simply means that I don’t yet consider him 110% reliable. I do not know what he will do after being cut down. He may stay hung, or he may back off. Until he is put in that situation I will never know.
That is not saying anything towards an intelligent dog. An intelligent dog will not get cut nearly as often, of course. But occasionally even an extremely intelligent dog can get caught in a bad situation. We run one dog that is dumb as rocks. He hits pigs like a bulldozer. He gets cut a lot. But, I would consider him proven because he has been on 100’s of pigs, been cut down multiple times, and is still reliable and will catch any pig he sees. He’s not the best by any means, but he’s proven. This is of course all opinion, everyone has their thoughts on the topic. We also run RCD, not walk ins. So I’m sure that changes things as well. All of our catch dogs will catch a pig by themselves, but they have backup 9/10 times. Which also reduces the chances of them getting cut in my opinion. Normally the pig is completely controlled by the dogs. Huge boars can be an exception, but most pigs will not fight much with a head full of dogs. Everyone has their style, that’s just what works for us.
Keep the comments coming, this thread is getting good!
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