communicating with your dogs in the woods

[TShelly]

1.) and 2.) I don’t think being able to control your dogs in either way will increase or decrease our ability to catch hogs. Some places we can cut them and some we have to kill them. Nothing really dictates what we’re doing with the dogs in either situation. On one hunt you just take your knife and on the other you stock up on 1/2” tie ropes. Anything smaller diameter is going to cut circulation off to the feet of any potential Barr’s we kick back loose.

3.) & 4.) I’m going to lump these in together. Because if I’m calling a dog off now a days. I’m generally using the tone and shock system.

When I started hunting with Big E, it was a beep-beep telemetry system. You casted the dogs and pretty much listened and waited. It was and still is, a pain to haul those antennas out and get everything squared away to get your readings and find the dogs out of hearing range. Seeing the dogs that grew up hunting with that versus now and the garmins. I would say those old dogs had a lot more natural stick and bay to them. I’m talking like stayed bayed half the day or all day til we get to them. Now a days we know right when the dogs sit down bayed even if it is at a mile or two. I do believe getting to the dogs a lot faster has led to our dogs now that don’t not have as much stay as the old dogs did. But man you can stack the number with the garmins and that’s kind of become our thing.

Big E always told me make them a hog dog first and then a pet next. I’ve tried to follow that for the most part as handling and everything else went. We never really broke anything off deer, we just would give them a good whipping and go on. Generally by 2 or 3 they had seen enough hogs they would just walk through deer. My black gyp now is 3, she’s never been shocked off and she was a deer running fool. She won’t mess them with at all now. I do have done young pups that I’ve begun shocking and toning off. It certainly does break their spirit a little when you burn them down but I do believe they are learning. I don’t hunt nearly as much and don’t have the time put quite the numbers in front of them so I’m going to tone break these. I’ve seen both sides and can see how toning and shocking them can effect development some at a younger age. I think a good dog will be a good dog in the end. Most of those deer races in the beginning always turned into pork at some point so I can see where it’s less hogs early.

As far as calling dogs out. We almost never did when I began. We always hunted “as long as the dogs wanted to” which turned into some helleacious hunts. Erik had an old dog Roscoe that would finish 99% of any hog he started and would go for hours. He would either finish what he was running or he would be dumped on something else. He was always one that you had to go in on at the end of the hunt and designate one or two people to catching him and the rest on the hog. Boogie was the same way. He quit when he wanted to, which was pretty much never.

I’ve seen both sides of the argument. I think the dogs were better back in the day with less handle, more go and just true heart. But I could just be nostalgic right now I’m thinking about all the old good ones. We still can catch trailer loads of hogs but the quality and style of the dog we are hunting has certainly changed with the times.

[Reuben]

Best piece of advice I could give somebody is if the only time your dogs are on the truck are too and from hunts, you are doing the dogs a disservice. I pack my dogs around from early on, fixing fence, fishing, hauling cows, going to the roping pen. Pick a dog, chain his ass in the bed and go on about your day. Whether he ever comes unsnapped or not, he’s learning a lot more than he would be sitting in that kennel at 6 months old my 2 pups have likely seen more miles and country than most peoples 1.5 year olds. My gyp pup will ride unsnapped with the big dogs, head in the wind rolling 70, outside of hearing a bay, she ain’t coming off unless I send the big dogs over the bed rail or drop the tail gate.


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I agree. I don't bring mine into town but I do start taking them for rides in the evenings after work in my buggy or truck when they get to 5ish months of age. the pups I raise are 100% chain/lead broke before they are ever placed on a chain or clipped to a lead in the woods because they are conditioned to being clipped in the bed of my buggy or truck and know the drill. Makes life easy when its time to move them from the puppy yard to the dog yard on chain setups, there is zero fighting the chain and barking/flipping out. Just one of 100's of little subtle shortcuts that can help you  and the dogs with relatively no effort........ my little girl loves going for buggy rides so we would be doing it whether I had dogs or not but being as I do i'm killing 2 birds with one stone....plus I enjoy riding too lol so call it 3 birds 

I agree as well...and like you said...there are many subtle shortcuts that can help us and the dogs with minimal effort...

[justincorbell]

1.) and 2.) I don’t think being able to control your dogs in either way will increase or decrease our ability to catch hogs. Some places we can cut them and some we have to kill them. Nothing really dictates what we’re doing with the dogs in either situation. On one hunt you just take your knife and on the other you stock up on 1/2” tie ropes. Anything smaller diameter is going to cut circulation off to the feet of any potential Barr’s we kick back loose.

3.) & 4.) I’m going to lump these in together. Because if I’m calling a dog off now a days. I’m generally using the tone and shock system.

When I started hunting with Big E, it was a beep-beep telemetry system. You casted the dogs and pretty much listened and waited. It was and still is, a pain to haul those antennas out and get everything squared away to get your readings and find the dogs out of hearing range. Seeing the dogs that grew up hunting with that versus now and the garmins. I would say those old dogs had a lot more natural stick and bay to them. I’m talking like stayed bayed half the day or all day til we get to them. Now a days we know right when the dogs sit down bayed even if it is at a mile or two. I do believe getting to the dogs a lot faster has led to our dogs now that don’t not have as much stay as the old dogs did. But man you can stack the number with the garmins and that’s kind of become our thing.

Big E always told me make them a hog dog first and then a pet next. I’ve tried to follow that for the most part as handling and everything else went. We never really broke anything off deer, we just would give them a good whipping and go on. Generally by 2 or 3 they had seen enough hogs they would just walk through deer. My black gyp now is 3, she’s never been shocked off and she was a deer running fool. She won’t mess them with at all now. I do have done young pups that I’ve begun shocking and toning off. It certainly does break their spirit a little when you burn them down but I do believe they are learning. I don’t hunt nearly as much and don’t have the time put quite the numbers in front of them so I’m going to tone break these. I’ve seen both sides and can see how toning and shocking them can effect development some at a younger age. I think a good dog will be a good dog in the end. Most of those deer races in the beginning always turned into pork at some point so I can see where it’s less hogs early.

As far as calling dogs out. We almost never did when I began. We always hunted “as long as the dogs wanted to” which turned into some helleacious hunts. Erik had an old dog Roscoe that would finish 99% of any hog he started and would go for hours. He would either finish what he was running or he would be dumped on something else. He was always one that you had to go in on at the end of the hunt and designate one or two people to catching him and the rest on the hog. Boogie was the same way. He quit when he wanted to, which was pretty much never.

I’ve seen both sides of the argument. I think the dogs were better back in the day with less handle, more go and just true heart. But I could just be nostalgic right now I’m thinking about all the old good ones. We still can catch trailer loads of hogs but the quality and style of the dog we are hunting has certainly changed with the times.

great post Tony, alot of what you said strongly resembles my past experiences as well. back 12-13yrs ago we didn't have any kind of system and we had to hunt the dogs, me and the guy that I started hunting with back then still talk about it to this day and we both agree that we have smarter dogs now and better stock overall but our old dogs were hunted so much more often than our new ones are that they were better in that sense and just like you and Big E, ours had no handle to speak of back then, they got turned loose and we hunted them until they were done. They for sure had more stick than what we hunt now but it is a true double edged sword as we still catch as many or more now than we did then but the garmin has completely changed the game for us and I also do agree that over time it has molded our dogs in a different direction than what we hunted back then.