Independence / me-too dogs.

You learn the true quality of what your feeding when you drop them alone. More dogs would be culled if we demanded they do it alone consistently. It requires a confident dog to consistently find & stop hogs alone. No blaming other dogs for busting bays. Nowhere to hide. Faults become apparent. Most of us prefer pack hunting due to limited hunt time. 2 to 4 dogs working together have a better chance of stopping/baying hogs. How many of us regularly load 1 bay dog and 1 catch dog and go catch consistently? I’ve done it with inconsistent results. I think mee tooing is more of a handling/man made problem due to our preferred tactics. The one out approach is very difficult with educated dog wise hogs.

Agree 100% with Cajunl that starting young dogs alone is the best way to make independent dogs. It works very well if the dog is naturally confident & independent. I know a couple guys who live out in the country and let their pups run loose. These pups usually start themselves. These guys won’t mess with them if they don’t start on their own by 7 or 8 months old. It’s a nice set of circumstances. I wish I had the time and places with enough hogs to do it this way.
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Joshg - our situations sound similar. Both of my bay dogs will find and bay hogs alone when dropped alone IF I get them into sign pretty quick. They don’t hunt nearly as hard alone if it gets tough.
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I accept some of the blame for this. I don’t get to hunt as much as I would like. I don’t have real big places full of hogs either. I catch myself dropping them both too much particularly when it’s hot and I only have a few hours to hunt. I think both dogs would get better hunting alone if I asked them to do it more often or if I had started them alone. None of my dogs are good enough to breed.

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