Your perfect bay

[T-Bob Parker]

Lots of talk and good arguments on here over the years have been brought on by the topic of loose vs rough baying dogs. I think there's so many more variables to a great well settled bay than a dog being loose or rough.
For the purpose of exposing some folks to new ideas, let's talk it out. Once a hog or cow or a group of either decide to stand and test your dog, how would the perfect dog sound, act, react, and so on. Paint me a word picture or even post a video if you can handle the heat.

Keep it civil, as pawpaw said, if everybody liked the same thing mamaw wouldn't get nothin done!

[T-Bob Parker]

I'll chime in in a bit when I'm off the road.

[Easttex91]

My fantasy bay would be arriving to the dog having a tall blonde treed waiting on prince charming (me) to come save her.

[T-Bob Parker]

My fantasy bay would be arriving to the dog having a tall blonde treed waiting on prince charming (me) to come save her.

So long as she leggy and deep chested I'd be obliged to agree.

[TShelly]

A little something like this. Dogs should be sat back baying and the hog should be calm. Once someone gets to the bay, our dogs will generally tighten up and start really working the hog if they think they can catch out. If its a big one, they are smart enough to know to sit back until the CD arrives. Even on the big ones though they'll get rougher when I show up and then back off if he brings the fight to them. We usually catch most of our Barr hogs with just cur dogs because of this. I'll post a good video up as well

[Noah]

For me, the true test of a bay dog is not how he brings the hog to bay... but how he KEEPS the hog at bay until a catch dog can do what he does.

... some dogs can bay any hog... but try and send a catch dog to that hog and the hog eternally breaks and runs...

... some dogs require a running catch dog to be sent from afar... to do the stopping for them...

... then there are the bay dogs that sit a good hog down and keep him there... allowing even a pathetically slow catch dog to do his job... the quality of a bay dog can not be accurately gauged by any other means other than this in my opinion...

[TShelly]

VIDEOS

[T-Bob Parker]

there you go, thanks Tony. now that im sat up in the house for a while ill proceed with my thought process. The reason i thought about this is that i had a conversation with H.Wilson on saturday (we had dogs bayed in a hard to reach spot and were waiting for a boat ride) and i told him that people have asked me before if my dogs (2 particular ones) get bored with a hog and lose interest because their bark slows drastictly once a hog settles in. Hunter told me his do the same thing at times and we both being guys who know our dogs had come to the same conclusion.

One boy who didnt like they way my Ratty dog holds a bay has dogs who bay at probably 40-60 barks a minute. i dont know much about his so i wont adress those dogs or that style but what i know is my gyps will talk at them a bit while moving, talk at them alot while settling and then hush to a bark every 5 seconds or even slower once settled. In the case of a limit testing long term bay they dang near settle down and read him a bed time story. its fine by me as long as i can hear where to walk to. they both bay pretty loose and relaxed, definetly wouldnt be winning no contests for intensity. they both pay attention not just to the hog but to stuff around them. alot of my other dogs, ive seen get hammered up against a log or tree or run into another dog while baying a hog, these two pay as much attention to the dogs around them and look for me as they do looking at the hog. ive honest to god seen the younger one have a boar try her and she jumped a blown down oak run down the log and sneak up to his back side again.

i could go on but now yall knowwhat im after, no right or wrongs, just whats your style? what makes your heart skip a beat?

[H.Wilson]

Well t bob as you have said above my dogs while blow ones ear drums out if he is moving a lot but once he settles on down they will settle down to to a single bark every so often now when I get within 50-100 yards they will open up a little more once they can hear the catch dog coming they will go back into a full hammer time mode I like for my dogs to pay attention as well not only to the hog but me catch dog etc... Don't want them to close but not to far away either I like a little grit enough to keep a good boar settled in but not so much as to make him break  MAYBE NEXT WE WILL GET TO SEE A PERFECT BAY T-bob

[UNDERDOG]

I like my bays to end with a caught hog 

[ETHHunters]

I like my bays to end with a caught hog 

CANT BE PUT NO SIMPLER THAN THAT!

[SCHitemHard]

i think it all determines the terrain there tbob

[T-Bob Parker]

i think it all determines the terrain there tbob

Ok, like I said, no right or wrongs, so how does the terrain play into the way a dog should bay?

[T-Bob Parker]

MAYBE NEXT WE WILL GET TO SEE A PERFECT BAY T-bob

Haha I hope I dont sound like a weirdo, I may not know how to put my thoughts to words very well like Noah would if I could just esp him my thoughts.

I don't intend that I make any claim of actual perfection, just want to know what folks like their dogs to do while baying a hog.

Some people see a dog intensely focused eye to eye with a hog, bark per second, slobering madly and showing teeth as well as within a foot or so of the hog and with front shoulders bowed low. That's what they think of when they picture a bay.

I actually think the perfect bay would be 2 dogs alert and focused on the entirety of the situation, bringing a sounder to a "calm submissive state"  and then one dog driving one dog leading the sounder towards me. Also in my dream perfect bay I could catch out a hog while those two dogs settle the sounder again and again till the work is done, then they could be called off. That's what I want to see one day.

[Wmwendler]

great topic T-bob........

Ok first let me say that, in my opinion, barking and baying are two differnt things.  Barking does not = baying.  A dog can bark at a hog and not even come close to baying it.  At most, barking is just a small part of what baying a hog is.  But its not even a necessary part.  A dog could certainly bay a hog without barking at it.  To me barking is something the dogs do which allows me to locate the bay, and it helps mask my noise when I slip in to shoot the hog......Or when the catch dog comes in.  Now when a hog settles to bay the dogs should settle down with it and when they do they will naturaly bark less.  I've seen old dogs that have been bayed across the river for hours and toward the end they may only bark once it a while like only a few times a minute.  For one thing they are tired and its a matter of conserving energy.  A dog thats barking very intensly will not be able to endure a long bay as well as one that slows down the barking.

Its a hard thing to put into words what my ideal bay is.  But I will say, really love to see groups of hogs bayed.  They best way I can describe it is to tell about some ideal bays that I remember.  There are a few particular bays that stick out in my mind.  Some of them have happened years ago and the fact that I remember them is a testament to kind of imprint they made on me.

The first one I will mention I was about 7 or 8 years old.  Which was almost 19 years ago  My grandpa had a ranch leased on the Burleson-Milam county line between Caldwell and Milano.  It was a big place over 2500 acres, with big brushy wooded pastures.  The lease was up and grandpa was cleaning the place out.  The cattle that were left were ofcourse the wildest ones, the ones that have escaped being gathere for who know how long.  The kind that you usually have rope and tie to get out.  He had some cowboys doing the clean up and I cant remember who it was but they had some top notch cow dogs.  I remember there was just two guys and two dogs.  Once they got the cattle located they let the dogs bay for a long time, it must have been over an hour.  I remember my grandpa becoming unpatient about the whole deal.   He drove up close to where they were honking his horn and one of them had to come out and tell him what they were doing.  He never really understood the dog thing, and always cusses the dogs saying the cattle would work better without them.   Funny thing is he always hires guys that use dogs.  Finally, they drove them out of of the brush, through a gate, into the open pasture that leads to the pens.  There was about a half dozen cows and a few yearlins on them.  To see the dogs work and lead the cattle to the pens was so amazing to me at a young age.  The two dogs knew exactly where they were going and they were leading the cattle right to the pens.  Watching from the passenger seat, it was like a half mile fury of hooves and horns trying to stomp and hook the dogs all the way to the lot.  Their wildness being used against them.  A wildness that usually served to keep them out of captivity was now serving to get them there all thanks to the top notch cow dogs.

Now, Hogs.

I use to have a gyp named Lana.  She had a little sqeaky bark that was hard to hear at a distance.  One hunt, she had been gone a while and I was trying to locate her.  When I finally found her it was over an hour later, and she was bayed in a milo patch which was about neck high and almost ready to harvest.  When I got close I crawled down the row to close the distance and saw she had a boar hog bayed.  The hog was lying down facing away from me and Lana was lying down on the other side baying from about 10 yards  It was around late June and hot.  I did not want to shoot the hog in the but, and could not take the shot anyway with her being on the other side.  So here we were, all 3 of us laying down in a hot milo field, wating for something new to happen.  I was lying thier, sweating, and pondering my next move, when I realized this could go on for a long time if I just layed there.  But I could not make a move or risk spooking the hog.  So I just layed there.  That was the moment I really became aware of and came to understand how a hog and dog could settle to a bay.  Eventually, Lana must have noticed me and moved around and got inbetween me and the hog at which time the hog stood and turned to face her.  But I still did not have a shot due to her being in the way.  Lana is a small dog and most much to hide behind so I was worried he would see me and spook.  But he just rooted a few times and layed back down.  I crawled up to her thinking she would move to the next row over when I pressured her to get closer, but she just stood there so I raked her into the next row with my gun barrel.  And Mr. Boar hog was supprised to see me draw a bead on him  .

Another time Paris and Joe came bayed on a group of hogs.  Paris and Joe have two different baying styles, but seem to compliment each other when they are hunted together.  Paris is very loose baying, and Joe bays very tight.  When they are together they seem to meet in the middle, Paris will tighten up and Joe will back up a bit.  Well they struck these hogs on a creek bank, very near where I was and when I got to the bay Paris was looping out wide and Joe was baying the few sows with pigs.  He was bayed tight on the lead sow.  Paris had crossed the creek and I wondered what she was up to.  Then she opened up again like she was looking at hogs.  In a bit I heard some splashing in the creek and here came another sow with a half dozen shoats and Paris in tow.  Joe looped out to bring/let them in and my bay just doubled in size. .  Paris then took up post at the lead when the new hogs piled in.  Joe looped a few times around the whole lot.  They then took turns, one dog out front while the the other windmilling I let them bay a while and the hogs settled.  After a while, one of the sows rooted a fat boar shoat out of the pile, like she was offering him up for scrifice.  So i shot him.    What happened next was less sucessfull, they rolled with the hogs but never got anything else shut down.  There are a hand full of things I like to see at a bay and it all came together on that one.  That sort of of awarness of the "herd" that stock bred cur dogs have and the desire to get them all gathered up is something I love to see in dogs.  Paris' tendancy to loop out from a bay if she knows more hogs are there and Joe's tendancy to bay tight showed true.  But at the same time Joe showed me finess, more than I thought he had at the time, by looping out to bring the other hogs in and looping around when Paris took lead.  Seing the teamwork between the two dogs baying a group of hogs that eventually settled to a nice bay was about as ideal as it gets for me.   The fact that they bay grew was a bonus.

Waylon

[BA-IV]

That's some good stories Waylon.  I'm sorry to say I've never seen dogs work hogs like that, cows yes, but not hogs.

I've bayed rallies, but my dogs were baying tight and focused on one or two lead hogs.  Never the looping out, and settling a bay.  The hogs were always looking for their chance.  Next time I see a rally, I might have to let the dogs work it a long while to see how it plays out.

[KevinO.]

Don't have these dogs anymore, they had 1/8th bulldog in them somewhere down the line.  Didn't suite my needs as far as the way they ranged out but they caught hogs and wouldn't let many run very far.

This is what happened if they got on one they couldn't handle without a catch dog.....they got rolled. 

Same hog about 5 seconds after they tried to catch him.

The cur dog in this picture was what I call a "one dog" show.  She found, stopped and bayed more hogs for me than I can count.  95% of the time she was all alone.  Best dog I've ever owned.  She was rough on a smaller hog but knew when to step back and bay. 

I think I'll just piggy back on what Waylon said for the rest of my post.  I need to get back to work.   

[KevinO.]

The cur dog in this picture was what I call a "one dog" show.  She found, stopped and bayed more hogs for me than I can count.  95% of the time she was all alone.  Best dog I've ever owned.  She was rough on a smaller hog but knew when to step back and bay.

Forgot the picture....

[KevinO.]

Where did the "edit" button go?  I'll try this one more time.

[Kid7]

I want the dogs to stand back about 5-10 ft away and bark every breath. When the hog breaks i want ONE dog to go for the nuts.