Hello David,
Thanks for taking the time to write. Your question is, "Is there any way to keep my dog quite on track?" Well David, your one of half the hog hunters out there that likes a quiet track dog. Im the same way. I dont like a lot of barking. Theres pros and cons of barking on track running dogs, but it comes down to what you like and if the dog fits the mold you want one to that your going to hunt. You did mention some good things about the dog, so you evidently like him except for the one flaw in your eyes. Heres my 2 suggestions, weither they work or not ENTIRELY DEPENDS ON THE DOG!. 1. Just keep hunting him and ONLY WITH quite dogs. A dog 15 months old is still a puppy to me. My #1 dog took two years to get him quiet and on LOTS OF HOGS. Hes half plott and half catahoula cur. For the first two years of his life, he was only using the hound side of his brain as far as barkin on track goes...haha Now, what Ive got him to doing is hunting deep like a hound, but running a track with the speed of a cur and QUIET! I cant ask for much more out of a dog than that. 2. I have been fortunate enough to get some hounds (mostly plotts) to run quiet and think they are a cur dog. Theres one way it can be done from puppies and the other way for grown dogs like yours. Heres what I have done. I have a gyp that was a full blown finished coon dog. The owner was extremly pleased with her for about 2 yrs. Problem was, he shot every coon out for her to maul. So after a couple of years, she got to where after treeing the coon she would wait for it to be shot out and began not treeing properly. I had seen the dog before she ever saw a coon and was interested in her but the price was way out of my league to TRY to make a hog dog. But to make a long story shorter, I traded and got her. She was and still is a barking idiot especially near feeding time. She was now nearly 4 yrs old. What I did was this, I got her interested in hogs and she was a barking on the track idiot.....EVERY STEP. I liked the way she hunted, she hunted hard on a track....nose on the ground till she got close enough to wind the hog and then would wind and run with her head up..... but that dang barking was about to drive me crazy. So what I did was do somethinking...... HOW DO I STOP A DOG FROM BARKING ON TRACK? What I had to do was shorten the sentence a little and say.... "How do I stop a dog from barking and when she wants to bark make her think this is not a good idea?" What I did was this.. I got a good barking collar and it became part of her wardrobe here at the house for about 6 months. Every time she wanted to bark, she got an automatice no no sinsation...... The only time I took it off was a recharge or when I went hunting. When I went hunting, I put the tracking collar on her and I guess in her mind, she figured it was still the bark collar. She got to where she ran to catch there for a long time,,,, no bark, just catch. After a while and the size of hog changed her mind. She did like the rest and bayed. I no longer have the bark collar on her, shes gone back to barking here at the house, but not while hunting. The one thing I DONT DO, is let her run with an open mouth dog!!! Most of the time, if you run them with an open mouth dog, they will go back to barking on track. The only time she will bark on track and it isnt much is if she hasnt been hunted in a while, and usually after a little bit, she will go back to normal. Ive done this with several dogs, I would guess I run about a 70% success rate on succeeding.... But it doesnt always work. Ive had some (in my opinion) some dang good hounds over the years that I tried every thing I knew, but couldnt get them quiet. So I usually let someone have them that didnt mind a barking on track dog. Hope this in someway helps ya, good luck with your dog.....
Jim