Message #61592

[Bryant]

I personally prefer silent dogs, because I like the "sneaky" approach.  The only dog I ever owned that was semi-open would only bark behind a hog that was bayed and broke, and would only bark while he had the hog in sight.  It actually proved kind of useful at times, because without having to get out the tracker I would know what general direction they were headed for just a little bit.

The problem as I see it, not so much lies in whether you prefer open or silent but much like my feelings over mixing a pack of rough and loose dogs, I think there can be problems when mixing open and silent dogs and especially ones that don't regularly hunt together.  A couple years back a hunting partner had the most beautiful walker hound wander up to his place.  He tried the dog in a pen, and he would flat sing to a hog.  Carried him hunting a couple times, and that dog would start bawling the minute his feet would hit the ground.  I could go into details, but the moral of the story is it really screwed the other dogs up for a couple hunts, then I don't think you could have begged a dog to honor him should he have bayed.

What I've always found interesting is hearing all the old-time hound hunters talk about how frequently they used to start a hog and perhaps run that sucker until sometime the next day (or perhaps longer)...then you hear people always talking about how the hogs have gotten dog-smart over the years and they just flat run now days like they use to not.  Hmmm......