The Dogs You Miss

[Cristina]

I miss Hank. He died last year on October 9th. He was what we will probably never have again. He was like no other dog I've ever seen. He lived
 to catch hogs, if he ever got out of his kennel we knew where to find him....the hog pen. He was pushing ten years old and he still outran and found hogs
Before our young dogs. They knew not to compete with him. He saved a couple of dogs from choking themselves to death and my brother from getting his
butt torn a few times. Never trashed, you knew it was a hog he was baying. Would not let any dog get near a caught hog, whether it was dead or alive. I had
Raised a wild boar from when it was a few days old. He was two years old when one day I went in the pen to play with him and he pushed open the door and went
into the woods, I tried calling him but he was so excited to be loose he wouldn't come. I got worried about him running to highway 105 and getting hit by a car. I waited
for my dad to come home and he was like well we're going to have to use one of the dogs, I was like NO! I cried cause I didn't want him to get bit, he was like a big baby
and I didn't want to put him through that. My dad was like don't worry ill use Hank, so he goes into the woods and let's Hank go, I hear him bay Baby (the pig) and I hear Baby squeal and my dad call Baby and since baby was scared he ran to my dad. Then I see my dad coming back and I could not believe my eyes, he had Hank and Baby on the same chain walking side by side. We put Baby back In the pen and I was shocked at the fact that Hank knew Baby was not to be harmed. Just like when we would lose a dog and we would be calling them back he would howl and bark, but it sounded much different than his usual bark. It was horrible the day we had to put him down. He was ready to leave the vet with his nose at the door. We lost a family member and he will never be forgotten.
I miss you Hanky!

[texas_hog_hunter04]

this is my frist cd he was the real deal but het got drug by a hog for about 4 mi rip all his k9 teeth out pulled his pads off he did not make it  he was my baddy!!!

[Mike]

I sure do miss my ol' Blue dog.

Mike, did yall ever get anything off of him. He sure was a good looking dog. I like how yall dedicated the "Blue's Page" to him.

Yeah, I bred him a couple of times... most were ruff as hell. Hogs got a few that I know of. My buddy has a son off of Blue over in Louisiana that around six years old and going to waste. He says I can have him... but he catches good as any bulldog.

I had a little gyp that hunted hard and I should have held onto longer... but she liked to run wide open.

Then he got brucellosis and lost his manhood... so that was that.

[Bryant]

What was it about her that made you not give up on her to soon?

I almost hate to admit this, but I went against everything I (think) I have learned over the years from the very beginning with this dog.  Honestly, I held on to her for the same reason that I bought her from a known dog trader off his chain for a $100....because I thought she was pretty.  Prior to owning her, I don't think I had ever seen a light yellow brindle dog and although a silly reason, she really caught my eye.

The guy wouldn't sell her to me at first, but called me the next week and stupid me, I drove back 5 hours to pick up a $100 pup.  The guy told me she was started and would hunt pretty good.  When I had exhausted all efforts to make her even look at a hog or get 10 yards from me, I basically gave her to my boys as a yard dog.  A couple months later, she came into heat and I had to put her at a different place because at the time I didn't have a secure kennel and my other dogs were tearing everything up.  When she came home +/- three weeks later, I took her along for the ride on a hunt one day.  That morning she bayed a hog solo (prior to this she had never even BARKED at one), and from that point on never turned back.

I always joked that those couple of weeks in solitary must of made her mind get right!

She died due to an infection she contracted that was not even related to any type of hunting injury.

I wish I knew more about her or where she came from.  I was told she was Plott X BMC.  When she died, I was finally able to get back in touch with the guy I had gotten her from.  The story had changed, and this time he said he had gotten her from a flea market somewhere in southern Oklahoma.

[Scott]

I had a Catahoula named Skipper that my daughter (at the time she was 16 years old) arranged to get for me from Mr. Mason. Skipper was a surprise gift from her to replace a pup I lost to a snake bite. Skipper was not one of those high powered dogs. He was short range, worked well in hot sign, and would strike a hog from time to time. He was truly more of a help dog that would fly to a bay and get as nasty as needed to keep the hog bayed. What made him special to me (other than the previously mentioned gift) was he was all heart and he was my dog (meaning he would only hunt with/for me). On the last hog he bayed, we walked the dogs back to the trucks and put them up prior to retrieving the hog. We took an empty truck back to get the hog. I had Skipper clipped to the top of the dog box of a truck we left at our starting point. As soon as we were out of sight, he slipped his collar and followed us a mile to where the hog layed.

Ironically, I lost him to a snake bite earlier this year. While I miss him everytime we hit the woods...I undoubtedly think of him every time we get a whiff of skunk

Skipper with his final hog

[stoked]

Speaking of catahoula's....I bet some of you know this ol' boy and I bet he misses this dog!

The dog belongs to somebody on here now I think?? Was a great dog..."SHYBO!!"

[shawn]

Me and my 3 hunting buddies are still trying to figure out a way to replace this one, using different combinations of dogs.  Nothings working,  because he did what 2-3 dogs did and did it better, we did get puppies from him before he was killed, maybe one of them will eventually be the next Buster.