Dear Puzzled,
Thanks for taking the time to write me. Seems that
your strike dog has no quit in him, barks when he sees
the hog and wont stop one.
Well, for the first part, there are lots and lots of
hog hunters who WISH they had a dog without any quit
once he finds a hog. Sounds like a dog I would like
on a large area to hunt.
Next, the barking when he sees the hog. I think that
is something alot of hog hunters dogs do but they just
don't know it. It most likely comes from the hound
half of your dog. It is natural for a hound to bark
once he sees game, its unnatural for a hound to not
bark once he finds and sees game. I've written in
previous articles how to try and get a young hound to
think its a cur dog. Unfortunately, once they get a
little age on them, and they haven't learned not to
bark either on track or until the are face to face
with the hog, that other than the following
suggestion, I think your just going to have to learn
to live and accept his great quality of not quitting a
hog and put up with the barking while the hog is
running. My suggestion to you would be this... Hold
your dog back for several hogs, i mean like twenty
hogs, hold him back until the other dogs have a hog
started and THEN send him. but you must be real
dilligent and faithful on doing it once you start.
Its real hard to not turn the dog loose if the other
dogs cant run a track that you know the one with the
problem can... What the dog should do while your
doing this, is figure out by himself "there is no
need for me to be barking until I get there since the
other dogs have found the hog". If you really
concentrate on doing this and be CONSISTENT, it could
possibly work.
And last, he wont stop a hog. This is not a negative
trait for a great strike dog. The money dog in your
pen is the one that can find a hog the best. And as
Stone Cold say "and that's the bottom line"..haha Also
your dog that finds them the best is less likely to
get cut up or get hurt or worse. And will be able to
find hogs for many years. I've written before, that
the best strike dog I've ever hunted with (and he wasnt
mine) never layed his tooth on a hog that I'm aware
of. But the thing was, his owner ADJUSTED TO THE DOG
by learning his bark and with the use of stop dogs
being turned to him at the correct time.
A dog is either going to be aggressive and put his
mouth on one or he's not. You cant make him do it.
Only way would have been when he was a pup and let him
be trained by another one on a young hog. Other than
that, they have to have the WANT TO or breeding genes.
You mention sending the catch dogs. You don't
mention if you have stop dogs. When hunting a open
hound, you must really understand the hounds voice.
Kinda like when your out with a coon hunter and he
says "he struck" "he's on a old track" "he's
on a bad
track", "he's in a slough", "he's treed", "the
coon
must have jumped out" etc... You really have to know
a open running dogs voice. What you do is when YOU
KNOW, he's on the hog and right behind him, you send in
the STOP DOGS to get the hog stopped, and then when
you get closer to the bayed hog, at that time you send
the catch dogs in.
The main reason I can see people don't like dogs that
bark while running a hog is the other dogs wont honor
the open dog, and they feel the hog will run clean out
of the country. Usually this is caused due to a
dog running a cold track and when the cur dogs get to
the open hound, there's no hog. After a time or two,
the cavalry won't go to the sound of the bugle if you
know what I mean.
I don't know how much help I have been to you, but It
sounds like you have a good dog, but just need you a
couple of stop dogs to send to him after you have
figured out the sound of his voice on what he's doing.
Good luck and good hunting,
Jim