lettmroll

Where I was raised we had open range there were about 4 family's that had a good size heard of cows and about 2 family's with both cows and hogs. Mine was one with both, all these family's had good stock cur dogs and over the years they got bred over each other so they were really all kin. Now they were hard headed and you had to put it on them to get there attention, so 22 years ago my uncle got a tri colored Australian Shepard gyp named Becky. He used her on cows and in hogs when he came hunting with us. She was easy handled and listened good from the start, do after a while my daddy crossed our old make Sam over her. He kept the shorter haired pups and got rid of the longer haired. It took a little off the roughness out but made them handle and listen a lot better at a younger age. My grandpa was good it took some of the roughness out because he wouldn't put up with a dog killing a pig or a old sow. From there on we just kept breeding back in to the family dogs, never went back to anything else. Now even until today they have a thick coat of hair, which the people that hunt with me swear it helps them handle these briar patches better, they are medium build around 50 pounds every now and then you will get one that's pretty leggy and around 70 pound. Just about every litter is going to have a solid black puppy or two and a couple black with brindle trim. Then a brown leopard and a blue leopard, sometimes a cream colored or a red with a white ring neck. At 6 months to a year old you can just turn them loose with your other dogs and they are going to go, bay and natural roll over. Their ground speed hunting is 4/5 and on a running hog 9/11 depending on terrain. The males hit a running hard good the females will but not like I like. They hunt hard and long and have a good nose if they are not to fresh you can put them on a cold track. There are all day plus some dogs. Medium bay, but when you get to the Bay your can get them to catch if you want but I don't do that unless it's a young boar. I mainly just use my catch dog. Now going back when I was young we use to have several in a litter with a good bit of white but Grandpa or nobody ever kept one he always done away with them, I never asked why but now I would have to say he was keeping from breeding hearing or seeing problem back into the blood. One more thing that a lot of people may not care about but I like a lot is after being out up all deer season the first day of hunting (unless you keep them on the ground) they are going to run their pads off but after that it don't matter if you go a month without hunting and then you go and they put 40 miles in that day they might pull some toe nails but want run their pads off. Oh and if you don't get a red or cream colored out of a little then you'll get a tiger striped. Now at the top I told you how you could start them but this is the way I started doing it and I can pretty much take a dog to the woods hunting for the first time and bay a hog. I've got a gentle pot belly that I can lead I take them out by him until they start being him until they lock in after that I don't let them Bay him in the pin by the house anymore. I put out feed on the other end of my field which is about 1000 yards are better, I let the potbelly out and he goes to the feed eats then for a few times I'll shut him up in a small pin there. I'll either do one or two puppies that evening I'll walk them by the pin were they have been baying him and 9 times out of ten they will trail him to the other side were I fed him and after that I give it more time between the time I let him out and the time I let the puppy out. Now I've got 3 little pins around this 15 acre pasture and one of them is behind a little briar patch that I let grow for my black berries and it's serves me good to because when I go too feeding in that pin they have to trail him through them. Longer sorry shortened in the end if I want to I'll have it were he goes by all 3 pins to eat a little and back to my main pin to eat a little more and I shut him up so they have to trail from the first little pin, by the other to back to the main. I usually only do this if I have puppies the right age and it's in the middle of deer season. And the hardest part to believe is usually 80% of the litter makes average to grade a hog dogs, I don't keep me too puppies. I know I probably forgot a lot of what I wanted to tell y'all, but I hope this answers some questions and hope y'all enjoyed reading it. Oh yeah if I had something bad to say about these dogs, is that you will usually get about two out of a little that are only cold weather dogs, they will kill themselves in the heat about 2 out of a litter want be able to handle it. But stamina isn't a problem. Also about 5 or 6 years ago I sold a man in Louisiana 2 of these dogs when they were just started and he had told me since anytime I have one to get rid of be sure to let him know first, do that's got to mean something.