Dear Sam, 

Thanks for taking time to write.  Whats the best breed of dog to hunt hogs with?  Well, thats the millon dollar question that i guess millions of hog hunters around the world are trying to answer.   I could sit here and tell you my personal view of the breed, but not everyone would have the same OPINION.....   And thats the key word, "opinion",   Its to each his own in reguards as to which breed is the best.   I personally dont think there is a best breed.  I think its the dog, not the breed that proves the best.   And its the hunter that hunts the dog thats OPINION that means the most. 

 

I could take you hunting with me and you could watch me turn my dogs loose and you would eiether Love them, hate them or think they were not that good.  But to me, I Love how they work.  And since Im the one who owns, feeds, trains and takes care of them, its my vote to me that means the most, not the other man.    When I first started hog hunting, it use to bother me that not everyone thought my dogs were as good/bad as I did.    But a strange thing happened, I started hunting with other hunters and other dogs of other breeds that they had bragged about or others have told me about or I had heard about, and low and behold, some of them I thought were great, where as some of the others weren't worth the price of a 22 shell to me.  

 

  After all these years, this is what Ive come up with.   1.  The more an owner brags about his dogs, the less likely they are to be as good as he says they are.    2.  If the ultimate hog dog is out there, I havent seen him yet.   3.  If there is an ultimate breed of hog dog out there, I havent found it yet.   4.  If theres a hog out there thats to big and bad to be caught, I havent bayed him yet.     5.   a hog is a hog,  but some are a little faster and some have a badder attiude than others  6.  A hog dog is a hog dog, some just find em better than others and some bark more on track.    7.  If you dont have a tracking system, your gonna loose a dog sooner or later and it will be one of your good ones.      8.  Some hog hunters are some of the finest folks you could ever pray to meet in life, but some are some of the worst.   9.  If you take different other hog hunters with you all the time that you dont know very good, sooner or later they will will come back and hunt your spots    and 10.  I love good hogs and good dogs and hog hunting and wouldnt trade it for nothing.......

 

I dont think you could go wrong in getting you a blackmouth curr dog, or a catahoula or catahoula cur to start with.  But theres some awfully good hounds or mixtures of hounds/curs out there.   But if your just starting, dont get to much dog for your ability. Its kinda like when we raised horses for showing or rodeos. Just because a person is able to afford a high powered horse doesnt mean the rider thats riding him can HANDLE him or KNOW HOW to understand the horse so he can be worked to be able to win with.

 

Good luck in your search,

Jim