Lost another one today

[crackerc]

Lost my old Spur dog today. He had been going downhill,  hardly eating, rarely getting up and around.  When I got home this evening,  he was dead in his pen.
He and Monkey were a team to be reckoned with. When you turned those two loose together,  things were going to happen. Caught a lot of big hogs with those two. Maybe now they are off running hogs together again somewhere. 
I almost forgot to mention that Spur was  Monkey's son. He was going on 16 years old.
I will always remember the many good hunts we had together...and the wrecks!

[t-dog]

Dang bud hate to hear that but it sure sounds like those two lived good lives. You can feel good about that and the fact that I’ll bet your are spot on. They probably have a big one stretched right now.

How similar were spur and monkey. I’ve hunted with one of Monkeys sons. A great big, super ugly dude in Georgia has him, lol. From the description you gave of Monkey, ole Burley has a lot of similar traits. I’ve always liked Burley a lot.


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[Arkansashunter96]

I hate to hear that man it's aways hard loosing one


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[ca. hogman]

Sorry for your loss it's never easy.

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[l.h.cracker]

Man 16 & 17 that's a heck of a life for one that lives on the couch much less a couple of sure nuff rough dogs running around in FL swamps that long catching Boars.It show's that y'all all had brains and that you knew exactly how to handle them dog's.Sorry to hear they got old and moved on sounds like y'all were a heck of a team in the days of their youth.

[Clint Thacker99]

Hate to hear that always enjoyed reading your post bout spur and monkey.if I remember correctly you had a pup you was working with this year.how’s he doing?

[Cajun]

Sure hate to hear that. No matter how long they live it is just not long enough compared to how long we live. As long as they lived how old were they when you retired them from hunting?

[Judge peel]

That’s one hell of a lick out of two dogs. Sorry to hear that bubba


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[crackerc]

Thanks everyone.  Sad end to a bunch of good years. I have been fortunate to own a few good dogs in my 40+ years of chasing hogs...and a whole pile of potlickers!
To say that I am picky about what I want a dog to do in the woods is an understatement.  I have some things I will tolerate and some things I won't.  Seems there are way more..non hunting...hunting dogs...these days than there were 25-30 years ago. I have been through 18-20 young dogs in the past few years trying to find something to hunt. Only ONE....has even had the desire to get out and look for a hog. That's a lot of wasted time and feed on the rest of them.
Anyone else noticing the same thing?

[t-dog]

That’s the very reason I started raising these dogs I have now. I too spent a lot of money buying “good blooded” dogs and the money on gas and feed was aggravating to say the least. I’ve made friends with a couple of gentlemen over the years that lived a long way apart. Both were old enough to be my father or grandfather. Both asked me the same question the days I met them, it was nearly word for word. They asked do you have hog dogs or dogs that bark at a hog. I said I like to think they are hog dogs lol.  After the first time I hunted with each guy, they reacted the same way too. They reached out and shook my hand and said young man, I had my doubts about what your dogs were going to be like. Everybody says they have hog dogs and when it’s all said and done they dogs that will bark at hogs. They will bay if you walk them to a hog. If they bay a group they catch one and done. If hog runs hard then they quit 10 minutes later. They said those aren’t hog dogs to me. I myself want a hard hunter that is going to be there start to finish. It wasn’t easy to find it, more lucky than anything really. Mine are by no means the greatest and sure won’t please everyone, but I don’t have to do it for them and I don’t mind feeding them. I don’t think it’s intentional. I don’t think A LOT of people have had the opportunity to hunt with an honest to goodness bad son of a gun. They haven’t had anything to physically judge to know how high the standards can be set. It’s exactly the reason I tell beginners to hunt with as many different people as possible before they get loaded down with dogs. That way they can figure out what good is to them.


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[BA-IV]

Sure hate to see this! It’s been a rough year on the old dogs.

[crackerc]

T-Dog you called it right. I have gotten pups from people that have had dogs for years and none of them have worked for me. I don't raise a lot of pups because I feel to raise them right it takes a lot of time and effort.  Monkey was only bred to 2 females in his life and I never bred Spur.
But I have hunted with people who catch hogs...but really don't have the dog power they think they do. Most have really good private land to hunt with lots of non pressured hogs on it.  Makes a dog look good, but take him to a deer dog club where the hogs are scarce and hunted 365 days a year and see how many hogs they find and stop.
There are a lot of different types of dogs and ways to hunt them. But, after 40+ years of seeing dogs in the woods on hogs, I know what I like and want a dog to do. I always said, I don't want to run a hog, I want to stop him.
I liked Monkey as he hunted solo...I don't want to have to put a pack of dogs on the ground to find a hog...and he was fast enough and gritty enough to stop a hog. He had scars from it, but I just rarely had long races with him. That's why I thought so much of him. Spur wasn't as gritty but worked well with Monkey.  Spur was about the only dog I hunted with Monkey as he knew Spur wasn't going to help him catch a big hog, so they would bay.
But most of the young dogs I have gotten from people and gone through are pitiful.  Won't leave your feet to go look for a hog, even when turned out with a dog they know or are penned next too. Some wouldn't go to a bay, a couple wouldn't bark at a hog, and a couple were downright scared of a hog!  And these were bred from dogs people hunted.
So I just have to wonder why they turned out like they did. And often other guys with littermates to the ones I had, would cull theirs too. So it wasn't just me.
What I like is a 100% silent cur dog. I don't want it to bark, squeak,  yip or anything else behind a hog. Run to catch or stop it.
If it's 100 lb or less, just catch it. If it's a big hog, shut it down and bay until help arrives.
And do that regularly...and with no other dogs to help.
That is a tall order but I have had 2 dogs in my life that were just like that, so I know they are out there.
I know of one ugly black leopard mixed up dog that is owned by a LSU fan that is a pretty good dog and comes close to the above. I have hunted with him several times and he is my type of dog. Just don't let anyone know I said that about a spotted dog...
The little black and silver dog I am hunting now will get out and hunt. Winds well and can find a hog. He is not 2 years old yet so still young, but seems to be having trouble stopping these running hogs. Just not quite rough enough to make one stop, that doesn't want to stop.
Hopefully he will figure things out.

[Reuben]

That’s the very reason I started raising these dogs I have now. I too spent a lot of money buying “good blooded” dogs and the money on gas and feed was aggravating to say the least. I’ve made friends with a couple of gentlemen over the years that lived a long way apart. Both were old enough to be my father or grandfather. Both asked me the same question the days I met them, it was nearly word for word. They asked do you have hog dogs or dogs that bark at a hog. I said I like to think they are hog dogs lol.  After the first time I hunted with each guy, they reacted the same way too. They reached out and shook my hand and said young man, I had my doubts about what your dogs were going to be like. Everybody says they have hog dogs and when it’s all said and done they dogs that will bark at hogs. They will bay if you walk them to a hog. If they bay a group they catch one and done. If hog runs hard then they quit 10 minutes later. They said those aren’t hog dogs to me. I myself want a hard hunter that is going to be there start to finish. It wasn’t easy to find it, more lucky than anything really. Mine are by no means the greatest and sure won’t please everyone, but I don’t have to do it for them and I don’t mind feeding them. I don’t think it’s intentional. I don’t think A LOT of people have had the opportunity to hunt with an honest to goodness bad son of a gun. They haven’t had anything to physically judge to know how high the standards can be set. It’s exactly the reason I tell beginners to hunt with as many different people as possible before they get loaded down with dogs. That way they can figure out what good is to them.


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Yep…lots of trash out there…

[Austesus]

Cracker, it sounds like he lived a good life. To be around at 16 years old after a career of hog hunting, speaks to his intelligence.

I would agree with you Thomas, on a lot of guys not truly knowing what a great dog can do. I have only seen a few that I would put in that category, and to be honest they probably aren’t as good as I think. Some of the stories I’ve read on here are just astounding. I have some friends that catch pigs, and to them that means their dogs are the real deal. I’m not one to knock another mans dogs, if they make the owner happy then that’s all that really matters. But I myself am very critical of my dogs. Maybe it’s a curse because I’ll probably never own one that I truly consider to be great, and that blows my socks off.

I also have to remind myself that I’m currently in a situation where I’m running some younger inexperienced dogs and I know that they need a lot more time on pork. But I’ll give an example of one thing that frustrates me. Being in what I consider good sign, and the dogs just not making it happen. I have a deer dog club that I’ve been hunting this year, and I’ve probably went 20-25 times so far. I have not yet caught one pig on that place. Typically every time I go out I will find sign that is a few days old and can’t find anything fresh. That part of the club is about 2k acres and the hogs I believe are usually just passing through it randomly. Well last Wednesday I made a run down there right after dark. I let the dogs hunt in front of the truck I while I drove probably .5-.75 miles down one of the roads in to a tract that doesn’t get hunted as much as the main tract (there is a 200ish acre tract that splits this tract from the main tract). I see a little bit of rooting on the edge of the road so I stop and walk in there and it’s a block of land that is roughly 75 acres that has some small pines that are pretty spaced out, and everything between them is waist high grass. I see a ton of rooting where it looks like a sounder has been staying in there. Some of the rooting was pretty old but some of it was fresh. I picked up a handful of the dirt and it was still loose, no clumping in it. I guessed that the oldest it could have been was from that morning. I had my 15 month old Ranger dog and his mom with me, and I waited for 20 minutes for them to do something. They acted like they just couldn’t really hit on anything, then finally trailed off 185yds. I start hearing some squalling and thought they must’ve hit a boar that was whooping up on them, I run in there and Copper is trying to pull something out of a hole. I’m guessing that it was a fox and that the squalling I heard was from it, and not the dogs. I got her to leave it alone and then waited around for a while longer and they never could line anything out. To have some fresh rooting or sign and the dogs don’t line a pig out of it is one of my biggest frustrations. I’ve had it happen before and I’m sure it will happen again, but to me there is really no excuse for a good dog to not pull a pig out of that. It was probably a 15-20 acre area that had the majority of the ground tore up and when I saw it I fully expected the dogs to light out of there like their tails were on fire and I expected that we would have a hog caught in just a few minutes. Unfortunately it didn’t work out like that lol.


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[t-dog]

Don’t get too worked up, at least about this particular situation. There are so many variables to scenting. Having a ton of country that they could be bedding in is also another obstacle. If they weren’t hustling and trying then that is a problem. But not finding hogs that were there 12 hrs or more before and could be anywhere is a pretty tough challenge. If it was me and I thought they were staying close then I might have tried to circle the area. If they hunt hard and are smart they will pick up on things like that, especially if they end up
locating. By doing this, you put them in a position to wind from different directions and they also get out of all that sign to pick up which way they left. When the dogs are down in that kind of stuff,  what air that is moving down in there isn’t necessarily doing the same thing it is up above it or outside of it where you are. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one to walk dogs but if it’s young dogs that are hustling, I will try to do things to help them learn and I try to do it so that the dogs think they are responsible for it. I can be patient with dogs that is trying but Zero patience with one that wants to be begged.


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[cajunl]

I know of one ugly black leopard mixed up dog that is owned by a LSU fan that is a pretty good dog and comes close to the above. I have hunted with him several times and he is my type of dog. Just don't let anyone know I said that about a spotted dog... /quote]

EASY! Don't want people thinking I am feeding hog dogs over here

[Austesus]

Thomas, I probably should have tried circling that area a little more. That one area is a little tricky because there’s a sliver of land that separates it from the main tract. It used to be one big tract and the timber company separated that piece in the middle and we don’t have permission to go on it. I got to within a few hundred yards of the property line and then figured I best pick up and drive in the other side. I picked up and went to the other tract about a half mile away since that’s where I thought they were heading to (there should have been corn piles out on the roads in that tract, but they ended up all being eaten already). I agree with you about the dogs trying to hustle. That Ranger dog has kind of shortened up some, he was hunting around 300yds and now he’s hanging out at 100-150yds sometimes. It’s kind of hit or miss whether or not he gets out when there’s no sign. I’ve also had a string of bad luck and been dry holing him a lot so I think the lack of pigs may be a factor in that. I can’t stand a dog that wants to sit at my feet or just be lazy though. I’m not a huge stickler on range, as long as the dog is busy the whole time, and I prefer them to be independent unless there’s a good track that they all pack up on. Once deer season ends I’m hoping to be putting these young dogs on pigs 3-4 times a week.

On the topic of dogs of yesteryear being better, I had an old deer dog hunter talking to me about that exact topic Saturday night. I brought it up to him and wanted his opinion and he said that 40 years ago almost every hound he bought would at least make a decent dog, even if it wasn’t a great dog. Nowadays it seems like you have to go through 30 just to find one that’s halfway decent. As you know, that is why I am going down the road of breeding my own now. I think social media is a big factor. 30 years ago you only had so many people you could pawn a dog off on, and they likely would have known you and your reputation because they live fairly close to you. Social media makes it easy to post up a crap dog for $200 and sell it to some stranger that doesn’t live anywhere close to you. I think that has led to many dogs that would have been culled being passed around and they eventually get bred and then those pups are passed on, and then dogs as a whole have a lower quality on average. That’s just my opinion but it makes sense in my head. That on top of the hobbyist hunters that don’t hunt enough to actually make or prove a dog and so they’re breeding subpar dogs because they want one pup off of a parent and then they’re passing those other pups off as coming off of proven hog dogs just because the dog can stumble across one every once in a while.


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