Message #61791

[Wmwendler]

I've hunted behind open dogs, semi-open, silent all the way to dont hardly bark at all.  I prefer silent dogs when you hear them open you know what it is.  I consider a dog silent if they Bark looking at a hog or right after a hog breaks then shut up and get the hog stopped.  Trail barking, opening on scent, ect., I don't care for at all.  Let me just say this what good does an open trailing dog do for hog hunting, it certainly would not benifit me to have an open dog, even if it did not effect the hogs tendancy to run.
Matt made a good point about the trail barking and how a hog moves when he is evaiding dogs.  Allot of times they will move at a pace determined by the ammount of pressure they feel behind them. If they hear dogs behind them the pace will be faster.  If they hear nothing they might slow down or even sqat and hide in the brush if he feels like he put enough distance behind him.  Where this really comes into play is thick brush where it takes a dog a while to manuver through while working a track a dog can fly in the open on a track or even in open woods but in larger expanses of thickets and brairs a dog is slowed down allot by the vegetation.  Because of that its my opinion that even a dog that is fast on a track can't utilize his full potential because of the vegetation so any advantage of track speed making up for the dog opening is eliminated.  Bring into play other factors that slow a dogs tracking down like heat, pollen, cattle scent, ect. then track speed might be slowed down to the point where stealth/silent dogs becomes very important.  Now sometimes I hunt places with allot of pasture and during the winter time I could use open dogs with good track speed and catch just as many hogs because they flat out run them down and make them bay no matter what the hog hears or sees or feels like doing.  But we dont expereince those ideal conditions very much around here and most of that is during deer season.  The Same goes for dogs pushing a standing hog, it might not matter when conditions are right and the dog has a good chance of shutting the hog down again any way.  But let the woods get thick with vegetation and hot and humid and the advantage gets tipped into the hogs hands a dog can blow the only chance at getting a hog bayed by pushing a hog that was otherwise standing at bay.  Thats a whole other subject, but the point is its the conditions that dictate whether the little things, like open dogs or pushy dogs come into play or not.  Just my 2 cents, but you would'nt have so many people beleive so strongly in it if there was nothing to it.  Now granted some people might be green off the vine and know nothing about hog dogs and say they only run silent dogs but chances are they are just repeating what they have heard others say without really knowing the reasons behind it.

West Texas Curs........I'd say a silent dog runs a track just the same as an open dog he just keeps his mouth shut.

Waylon