Young dogs catching pigs?

[PLP]

Yeah bmc delivers em to hand like a good bird dog hahaha! They just ain't got much life left in em. I got a plan to get em straightened out. If it don't work then I will just live with it. I like the little dogs other than this.

[LoftinCattleCo]

That's a fact believe it or not 

[jhy]

We use the term hog hunting, but actually the folks who use cur dogs are not using a hunting dog, but a stock dog. When you use them to find hogs they are actually working loose/ feral livestock do there should not be that predatory instinct of hunt for the weak. Now of course you will have slip ups with pups but that should get worked out pretty quick. If you were using a pack of curs/ stock dogs on cows that got out and they kept catching out on the calves you would not be happy and that is how I feel about the hogs. I don'tind it every now and then but if they continue to do it after you have given a good effort to break them of it then they are culls even if you are killing the hogs that you catch. The reason curs make the best hog dogs is because hogs are livestock and it takes a stock dog to work them properly especially when you bay up a sounder. They should do nothing but circle and bark to hold them in place and do nothing to break them. If they do break they should stop the lead one and bunch them up again, not catch out on piglets and camp out with them while the rest of the herd gets away. If they do that then they aren't finished and could possibly be culls. That is just my opinion, but I believe a lot of cur dog men would agree with me 100%.

Reuben,

That is the exact method I told PLP to use to see if it would line them out after we hunted on Sunday.

[LoftinCattleCo]

We use the term hog hunting, but actually the folks who use cur dogs are not using a hunting dog, but a stock dog. When you use them to find hogs they are actually working loose/ feral livestock do there should not be that predatory instinct of hunt for the weak. Now of course you will have slip ups with pups but that should get worked out pretty quick. If you were using a pack of curs/ stock dogs on cows that got out and they kept catching out on the calves you would not be happy and that is how I feel about the hogs. I don'tind it every now and then but if they continue to do it after you have given a good effort to break them of it then they are culls even if you are killing the hogs that you catch. The reason curs make the best hog dogs is because hogs are livestock and it takes a stock dog to work them properly especially when you bay up a sounder. They should do nothing but circle and bark to hold them in place and do nothing to break them. If they do break they should stop the lead one and bunch them up again, not catch out on piglets and camp out with them while the rest of the herd gets away. If they do that then they aren't finished and could possibly be culls. That is just my opinion, but I believe a lot of cur dog men would agree with me 100%.

Reuben,

That is the exact method I told PLP to use to see if it would line them out after we hunted on Sunday.

Very well said

[Wmwendler]

We use the term hog hunting, but actually the folks who use cur dogs are not using a hunting dog, but a stock dog. When you use them to find hogs they are actually working loose/ feral livestock do there should not be that predatory instinct of hunt for the weak. Now of course you will have slip ups with pups but that should get worked out pretty quick. If you were using a pack of curs/ stock dogs on cows that got out and they kept catching out on the calves you would not be happy and that is how I feel about the hogs. I don'tind it every now and then but if they continue to do it after you have given a good effort to break them of it then they are culls even if you are killing the hogs that you catch. The reason curs make the best hog dogs is because hogs are livestock and it takes a stock dog to work them properly especially when you bay up a sounder. They should do nothing but circle and bark to hold them in place and do nothing to break them. If they do break they should stop the lead one and bunch them up again, not catch out on piglets and camp out with them while the rest of the herd gets away. If they do that then they aren't finished and could possibly be culls. That is just my opinion, but I believe a lot of cur dog men would agree with me 100%.

Reuben,

That is the exact method I told PLP to use to see if it would line them out after we hunted on Sunday.

I agree X 10,000

If you have a dog that is targeting the weakest, or hunting out of hunger, or so called pre drive. Your dog is working for the wrong reasons.  They should be working due to instinct that has been bred into them over 100s of years.  Dogs are a long way from the wolves they originated from.  Cutting horses have instinct to work cattle.   Trust me when I tell you that instinct might be rooted in some primal survival trait but it has moved WAY beyond that. It is much more than that now.  Same goes for working dogs.  

Not trying to call anyone out but most of the first page of responses I completely disagree with.    It was a breath of fresh air to read the response from JHY......

Shoat catching out of a sounder is a big time hog dog sin for me.  It is a serious issue that I do not want to get started in my pack.  The best way to deal with it is to start with stock bred dogs that have livestock working instinct.  That instinct will drive them to want to keep the bunch of hogs together, IE they wont want to catch the shoats.  Cur dogs have good strong livestock working instinct.  Bird dogs, bull dogs, hounds....all breeds that will water down stock working instinct if crossed into Cur dogs.  Since you are talking about dogs you already have, this is more valid for the future but perhaps worth mentioning anyway.  

One thing I like to avoid is working young dogs on penned up or tethered shoats.  I know it is fun to do. I have done it allot.  But the more I do it and see it done them more I dislike the practice.  A man might get by with doing it a time or two but why risk it.  If you don't want them to mess with pigs or shoats don't start them on pigs or shoats.  If they are not mature enough to start on a grown hog they are probly not mature enough to start to begin with.  

The next step is to not run your dogs with dogs that are shoat catchers, just like you would not want to run em with dogs that are trashy in other ways. It is simple and easy enough to do if you are diligent...... but most people aren't.  That means culling the chronic shoat catching dogs you have, not hunting with people who run shoat catching dogs, and screening the dogs you allow other invited guests to bring on a hunt with you.  This can be hard to do.  Most people don't identify shoat catching as a problem,  They wont understand why you don't want them to bring ole so and so along again.   and its a tricky situation to tell your buddy you don't want him to bring his shoat catching dog along on a hunt.  Its even trickier when that buddy with the shoat catching dog is also your dad. haha. Trust me on that one.  I cant tell all I want but the listening part is not always there.  

Sometimes where hogs are pressured allot and are really spooky they will be conditioned to scatter as we all know well.  It is not their natural instinct, it is a learned behavior resulting from hunting pressure.  Their natural instinct is to bunch together.  Often times when they scatter, the sacrificial shoats are in the rear or straggling behind.  This creates a dilemma of sorts and sometimes catching that straggling shoat is unavoidable.  But ......Dogs catching a solo shoat, and dogs singling a shoat out of a group are two different things.  The trick is being able to tell the difference.  Usually there will be a race before the shoat is caught if it was running solo or if the hogs scattered before they were bayed up as a group.  However,  If you had a solid bay with hogs chattering and then next thing you know,  a shoat catching ensues, that is a bad sign.

I would not recommend killing the shoat.  The best way I've dealt with shoat catching is to tie the shoat, tether it to a tree, and make them leave it.  Don't be scared to whip them off of a tied hog....... unless they are sorry to begin with it wont ruin them.  This is also a good way to encourage them to roll out.

I've got an idea of a way to train against shoat catching.   Work dogs in a pen with one tame hog (big worn out boars are cheap at the livestock auction) and a bunch of wild shoats.  Let the dog work a bit and then walk though the hogs and when the wild shoats scatter and run around make the dog bunch them back up with the tame hog.  If the dog tries to catch a shoat, knock them off and make them bay and bunch the group again.  If they have even a trace of stock working instinct it should not take them long to learn the proper way.

Hope this helps, and don't be fooled into thinking you should be lucky they caught anything.  You will be much happier if you can get your dogs working properly.

Waylon  

[Reuben]

Waylon, Joey...I agree that stock dogs would be best for baying hogs...windmilling and only putting pressure to turn a hog back to the other hogs that are huddled...but around here it used to be that the stock dogs didn't have a nose and they gave up a track...they took a track if it was smoking hot...but when they had one bayed it was usually a caught hog when the catch dogs got there...

my theory back then was that so many of those dogs came from stock dogs that didn't need to prove that they had a nose and probably a dog that got out and hunted was culled...a stock dog that goes 1/2 mile on another ranchers property to bay cows was in danger of getting lead poisoning...

If I were a cowboy making a living just bunching up cows in open pastures and driving them to the corral I would probably like those dogs that stayed with me...several generations of breeding that type of dog and the  nose and range would be bred out just because it is not needed or not a good quality for the type of work I was in...

nowadays, there are quite a bit of stock dogs that hunt...either they came from ranchers that needed a long range dog that went deep in the woods to find and drive a cow, or, they have been breeding dogs that are born with both qualities...

without knowing...I am willing to say that there had to be lots of culling in the stock dog breeds to find those that hunted, trailed, stuck with a runner until bayed when using stock dogs as hunting hogs...

There are lots of hunting breeds that bay loose when hunted alone or with another dog...any more dogs than that and they become bay busters or possibly keep it stopped through being extra gritty/rough...but we can have 5 or 6 rough strike dogs on a hog but if the hog is running through thick briar patches the dogs will never catch up or have enough dogs to set up right to keep the hog stopped...

my hunting friend has an old mt cur that when hunted alone he will have one bayed in 5 minutes to 30 minutes after jumping it and he seems to know that we are coming and he gives the hog plenty of space to make him feel safe...and then a slug to the head and it is over...but the same dog with 2 or 3 rough dogs then he switches style and does what he can to keep the hog from running...

I will stick to the hunting breeds because that is what I like...but it sure does not mean I will catch more hogs...rough strike dogs sometimes get sidelined or get exhausted from catching...the right stock dogs that have the hunt and nose usually don't have to go through all that...

having said all that...I know a man that bought a golden red colored BMC that was a cull because he was too rough as a cow dog or maybe a bay buster, it was one or the other...he had a good ear and built about the way I like a dog...he was one heck of a hog dog...yep...he busted up bays but he would have one stopped and then he would relay with 3 loud chops on his way out and then you could here that beautiful deep chop mouth about 3/8th of a mile away...he would have that hog backed up to a tree or log and he was steady chopping in his face...after 5 hogs we were trying to catch that dog before catching the hog...in the open I saw a hog sitting down cause he didn't like the heat on the back end...like a dummy I passed up on buying him for 325 back 25-30 years ago...

just rambling... 

[Wmwendler]

my theory back then was that so many of those dogs came from stock dogs that didn't need to prove that they had a nose and probably a dog that got out and hunted was culled...a stock dog that goes 1/2 mile on another ranchers property to bay cows was in danger of getting lead poisoning...

If I were a cowboy making a living just bunching up cows in open pastures and driving them to the corral I would probably like those dogs that stayed with me...several generations of breeding that type of dog and the  nose and range would be bred out just because it is not needed or not a good quality for the type of work I was in...

nowadays, there are quite a bit of stock dogs that hunt...either they came from ranchers that needed a long range dog that went deep in the woods to find and drive a cow, or, they have been breeding dogs that are born with both qualities...

without knowing...I am willing to say that there had to be lots of culling in the stock dog breeds to find those that hunted, trailed, stuck with a runner until bayed when using stock dogs as hunting hogs...

There is allot of truth to what you said.

Hogs are livestock just like cattle.  Stock dogs were always used on hogs its why they are called stock dogs not just cow dogs. 

But, with regards to your last post that is quoted. Stock bred cur dogs that hunt, trail and stuck with the job until it was done were not produced from culling those that didn't do it.  They have existed in that form from the get go.  It is from a  lack of culling that didn't do it that produced cur dogs that did not hunt, trail, or stick with the job.  In order for a person to really understand, they have to know that Cur dogs were developed during the free range days when livestock was pastured on natural rangeland. Not the kind of small, clear pastures you think of today.  To successfully gather livestock in those post oak and pine woods rangelands, it required a dog to hunt, trail, and stick with the job, and of course bay.  That is the essence of what a cur dog is and the primary driving factor of why they were developed in the first place. 

Like I said, it is the failure to cull which coms as a result of changing livestock rearing methods that created Cur dogs that lack in hunting and trailing abilities.  No one has free range domestic hogs any more.  Fewer and Fewer ranches use the methods, run the type of cows, or are large enough to seriously require the use of stock bred cur dogs in the way they were originally developed and used (which included hunting and trailing).  The Cur dog is slowly becoming obsolete for use on domestic livestock in the United States.  Many times on cattle they are used out of tradition or habit, or at best for the baying aspect which is only a part of the original purpose.  There are still a few places and people who run cattle on remnants of rangeland and have cows that are on the far end of domestication.  So there is still a small need for that kind of dog.  But even that is fading fast. Regardless of the rarity, that is where you find the few that are left, the true old school cur dogs that have not lost their hunt to the barb wire fence and bull dozer.  That or hog hunters.  If you can find dogs that are used both ways.  That is a win/win.  Which brings me to another point.  It is sad that land is so populated and fragmented but there is not much to do about that.  It is lucky though that cur dogs have found a place in hog hunting.  It is an almost identical use except for the fact that the livestock is feral and no longer domestic, a bit more wild, and hardly anyone claims ownership of them.   

Of course there was a bit of a gap in the timeline from when the true "need" of a Cur dog existed on a large scale in animal agriculture, and when wild hog populations and hog hunting became wide spread.  Allot of good old style Cur dog lines, that excelled at both hunting and baying, died during that timeline gap and its why they are hard to find now days.  Many times, even those lines that were preserved for the most part, spent their days during that gap, working relatively gentle cattle in relatively open pastures and may have lost a step or two in regards to hunting because they simply were not tested hard enough in that regard to keep it going strong.  They did not loosed the hunting, trailing instinct.  It was just not quite as strong.  When the guys that owned those dogs started hog hunting they realized they could used some of that hunt that they lost in their dogs over the years.  It took culling and selective breeding to step it back up to where it was before.  Some cur dog lines never made it back.

Now days, cur dogs are widely used in hog hunting where a Cur dogs hunting ability is frequently tested and easy to evaluate.  But they face a different challenge.   The stock working ability is often not full understood by the people using them.  Even if it is understood it is harder to evaluate in a real world hog hunting situation where catch dogs are sent often times sent in from a distance and hogs rarely accept the presence of a human to watch the dog work,  or they rarely bay up in a spot that even allows  a man to see the work.  That is compared to working on livestock that more readily accept the presence of a human and the work requires the stock to stay bunched, which allows a man to watch his dogs work and evaluate them.

Waylon

   

[Reuben]

Of course there was a bit of a gap in the timeline from when the true "need" of a Cur dog existed on a large scale in animal agriculture, and when wild hog populations and hog hunting became wide spread.  Allot of good old style Cur dog lines, that excelled at both hunting and baying, died during that timeline gap and its why they are hard to find now days.  Many times, even those lines that were preserved for the most part, spent their days during that gap, working relatively gentle cattle in relatively open pastures and may have lost a step or two in regards to hunting because they simply were not tested hard enough in that regard to keep it going strong.  They did not loosed the hunting, trailing instinct.  It was just not quite as strong.  When the guys that owned those dogs started hog hunting they realized they could used some of that hunt that they lost in their dogs over the years.  It took culling and selective breeding to step it back up to where it was before.  Some cur dog lines never made it back.

Now days, cur dogs are widely used in hog hunting where a Cur dogs hunting ability is frequently tested and easy to evaluate.  But they face a different challenge.   The stock working ability is often not full understood by the people using them.  Even if it is understood it is harder to evaluate in a real world hog hunting situation where catch dogs are sent often times sent in from a distance and hogs rarely accept the presence of a human to watch the dog work,  or they rarely bay up in a spot that even allows  a man to see the work.  That is compared to working on livestock that more readily accept the presence of a human and the work requires the stock to stay bunched, which allows a man to watch his dogs work and evaluate them.

Waylon

   

Waylon, I agree with all that you said and that is also my belief...and the olden days is a perception as to who is describing it and the main reason has to do with the age of the person...

I quoted what I thought was of the most importance in what you said from your post...if you ask a 30 year old or a younger person about the old days they will probably talk about the 1980's or 1990's...if you ask me I will say the 1950-60's and that has more to do with my age but I believe it was a slow process and it started before then...I believe we had more of the big places in the 1960's than the 1980's and so on...so, we had that gap you are talking about and back in the 1980's I saw a lot of cur dogs that didn't cut it because they didn't have the nose, hunt or stick...back in the early 1990's I asked a friend of mine why he quit the yellow dogs and switched to plotts...he said that he got tired of culling 8 or 9 dogs out of ten and he said it was the other way around with his plott dogs that came from the best bear dog lines...and like with any other breed (different breeds different issues) he had to deal with different issues and that was a dog (plott) that sometimes pushed a hog and would not give it up until the job was done if it took 16-24 hours...but like you said... with modern times and the changes that come with them, would have doomed the working cow/stock dogs...but luckily the hog population has exploded and there has been a need for this type of dog...with just some refinements of course because a hog is not a cow and the reality is that as the dogs improve the hogs that get away are those that get to breed another day...

There is no doubt in my mind that if we were hunting dogs of the stock dog kind yesterday we would have caught several hogs or more...the place we hunted is thick all year long and in late April it gets even thicker...Some large places we can't walk in and can't bust our way in with of 4x4 wheelers...these spots I am talking about don't have big trees but the vegetation is that tough...

I like hard hunting gritty dogs that probably more often than not will bust a bay in this hunting spot and other places like this because of how bad and thick they are...now you get these dogs I like in semi open places that open up even more in the cold months...and those dogs will catch hogs...because the dogs are all right there and/or enough dogs get there quick enough to over power a boar hog...we all know that the hogs first instinct is to run to the thickest of thickets...

[jhy]

You and I are definitely on same page Waylon and Rueben you are correct. I went through the mid 90's on a few unproductive hunts and all the folks I was with could talk about was hounds being a key to getting a jump at all. Same way when I started back around 99-00. Few and far between but when we got in them anything was a victory except the old man who usually led the hunts he had catahoulas and he had worked hogs all his life and he didn't like it all if they grabbed a piglet. (That man is Odis Weems and shortly after taking me on several hunts he quit the woods all together and went to the bay pen strictly because pseudorabies wiped his old woods dog stock out and we were bringing ABs, Curs x with hounds, hounds, Pit x Curs, etc. and he refused to hunt with them dogs on his hogs)  Later I started hunting with some good yellow blood ( probably not 100% but they look like BMCs and hunt like they are on fire. They are all fairly rough when it comes to a single hog but they get into a sounder they will bunch them up, circle and bay like a stock dog should. They are smart and the blood with worked well on both cattle and hogs. They seem to have the instinct to only get as rough as needed to get the job done, but of course that comes only with experience in most cases. There are some that are flat out just rough or not at all, but the consistent medium is definitely there and like I say the only complaint I have heard on their hunting is they have too much range, too much bottom and are hard to catch of they are not ready to go, which the last part can be fixed
If they wanted too.