Evaluating a young dogs "bottom"

[Randy_P]

For the guys/gals that expect a dog to have alot of bottom and who are bringing pups up.......AT WHAT AGE DO YOU EXPECT YOUR DOG TO SHOW U THIS "BOTTOM" OR "STICK" WITH A HOG??

[waylon-N.E. OK]

With hounds I had 9 months and my Abel dog ( BMC ) started to really show bottom at about 13 months and has got better with age. I think the line and type/breed would effect that a lot myself

[halfbreed]

x-2

[Reuben]

With hounds I had 9 months and my Abel dog ( BMC ) started to really show bottom at about 13 months and has got better with age. I think the line and type/breed would effect that a lot myself

x2, it depends on the strain and breed. The mtn curs I used to keep usually were hunting good with the pack by 10 months old and some struck on there own at that age and would stick pretty good. Some would drop out at 10 months old after 15 minutes but I gave those a few months like until 13 or 14 months. I would remember this so that It didn't matter how good they were after that...they did not get to breed. I always made sure it was the early starters that were the breeders.

At 1.5 years  of age they better be striking and sticking or they do not stay.

[Randy_P]

At 1.5 years  of age they better be striking and sticking or they do not stay.
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Kinda what I was thinking.    

[uglydog]

I for one do not like a ton of bottom or let me re-phrase it I admire the hell out of it but it is not an option for me to have in my own dogs and have always had to trade off dogs that i have had that have had good long solid bottom on a hog. I think "recognizing" signs in a young pup you can start to see it at 5-6 months, but thats not going to be on a hog but other things.  We have a young dog we bought and raiseda s a pup that impresses me at 5 months which I do not expect or care if they show intrest at this age but this pup did go to hog pen, and stay at the pen running around until get too hot and would stop go get cool and go back without another dog around for long periods of time  until I came and made him stop. His focus was and still there that usually not in a pup of that age. attention spans on dogs this age are usually short, very short. However i believe with conditioning and letting this dog go and by trackining to him he will be a dog that will and can stay with a hog much longer than I am prepared to go. He will be conditioned in another direction.
If the dog is born with it, its there, its just knowing its there, and not "hoping its there" I guess. I don't breed for it like some folks do, so maybe not the answer you were asking for, but still I agree within 18 months to that question. Although  I have known a couple dogs around 4-5 years of age begin to become condition when owners changed that they always follow the dog with the tracking system and the dogs could keep going further, the dogs conditioned into being rangier and working a track further and putting a hog at the end. where as owner before would not follow the dog, could not hear a dog that far out and after getting lost a few times I believe caused the dogs not to range or work as far.

[ole shep]

Don't think I could tolerate a dog with out it. Would never know why they quit.No nose,no heart or actually smart enough to know it was time to quit.

[djhogdogger]

I think that it depends on the dog. We have one that has more bottom now at 3 then he did at 2yrs....but then again we have one that has had crazy bottom since he was around a year.

[Randy_P]

Thanks Dinah.  I also can not stand a dog to come back after only running after a hog for a few minutes. 

Krystal-   From my experience bottom is not a bad thing and doesn't always mean the dog is gonna leave the country. I have seen hogs break bay and run 50-100 yards and bury up in some of the nastiest stuff you could imagine.  Took dogs a bit to locate the hog again because of how thick it was.  In a scenario like this It would piss me off if a dog quit looking after just a few minutes knowing the hog is right there.

[uglydog]

Randy, you are correct all things have their place, I am not talking about a dog that quits something in a scenario as you described, I too would call that a cull in most situations.

We have to get hogs started and shut down or go find another hog in the area but don't trail a hog ten miles, don't stick with a runner ten miles.
Thats the kind of Bottom I am not interested in having in a dog.
 There will be other hogs closer and it may please me to think my dogs may have been on that same hog a really long time but in reality I am big enough to own up that most likely they started another one that they could bay and hold, and thats fine by me as long as they are producing hogs then I am happy they are doing their job.  Starting hogs and not producing that ain't gonna make momma happy and hen momma ain't happy well ain't nobody gonna be happy. It happens to everybody every now and then, I am not gonna feed dogs that don't earn their keep either

[make-em-squeel]

I like to see it by a year, maby not consistantly but enough to make me feed them for another yr.

As long as the conditions are good for tracking....my good dog is having trouble finishing tracks in this Tx. heat. They sure did well after this wknd rain though 

I have seen a good gyp that quit a few pigs around a yr while my pups stuck with them, at this point she has as much bottom as any of them