Glad to hear she is working out well for you! She’s a nice looking dog. It’s good to see her being allowed to do what she was bred for. I’ve hunted most everything you can hunt with dogs and I never get tired of seeing them go. Of course they love doing it even more than I love watching them. ;)Good luck with her!
[QUOTE=supaflyskye;8222763]
That sounds so fascinating! I would love to try hog hunting some time, there’s a plethora of them down here; but I don’t know anyone who does it. =/ Do you go on foot or take ATVs or what? How do you keep up w/ the dogs?[/QUOTE]
Where is down here? I’m in north Alabama but we have taken trips to Arkansas and have lined up a new hunt in the Auburn area this fall.
We hunt national forest or management land, aka government property, most of the time so we cannot take any sort of motorized vehicle or horses into the forest (off road or designated trails). That hunting is done on foot which is why it normally takes so long to get to the bay. We may hike 5 miles a day up and down steep hills and around bluffs. But we use Garmin tracking systems so we (almost) always know where the dogs are and when they have bayed a hog. Then we hoof it to get to them as quickly as possible, sometimes it’s quicker to go back to the truck drive to another road then hike in from there. It’s remote but knock on wood we have yet to loose a dog.
When we get to hunt privately owned land we can use ATV’s or side by sides (we have a Ranger). And it’s much easier to keep up with the dogs.
We also used to hog hunt, but never killed the hogs right there. In Florida it’s more common to tie the hog and remove it for feeding and later butchering. Our dogs never really tore up the hogs, but we also didn’t use pit catch dogs - just slightly “harder” catahoulas that weren’t so great for working cows :). It was certainly a lot of exercise, but I wouldn’t do it now for a lot of reasons. My ex-DH is still a professional hog trapper and guide (his family still has the ranch but he has a state contract for removal of nuisance hogs). He makes a lot of $$ reselling them, since he has a legal butchering area and can guarantee meat quality.
[QUOTE=SouthernYankee;8222925]
Where is down here? I’m in north Alabama but we have taken trips to Arkansas and have lined up a new hunt in the Auburn area this fall.
We hunt national forest or management land, aka government property, most of the time so we cannot take any sort of motorized vehicle or horses into the forest (off road or designated trails). That hunting is done on foot which is why it normally takes so long to get to the bay. We may hike 5 miles a day up and down steep hills and around bluffs. But we use Garmin tracking systems so we (almost) always know where the dogs are and when they have bayed a hog. Then we hoof it to get to them as quickly as possible, sometimes it’s quicker to go back to the truck drive to another road then hike in from there. It’s remote but knock on wood we have yet to loose a dog.
When we get to hunt privately owned land we can use ATV’s or side by sides (we have a Ranger). And it’s much easier to keep up with the dogs.[/QUOTE]
Florida! And the dogs just keep the hog cornered for however long it takes you to get there? Thats awesome!
[QUOTE=SouthernYankee;8222703]
I knew there would be one… this is a different way of life for some, these dogs are being used for what the breed was BRED to do. That aren’t fluffy couch potatoes. They have a very specific JOB, if they do that job correctly then no HUMAN gets hurt.
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They aren’t tearing at the hog, they are baying the hog. The hog is certainly not downed, it is very much on all fours and in a defensive fighting position. It still has the upper hand at this point. Baying = barking. Bay dogs should not make contact with the hog, that’s how they get injured. It’s similar to a heeler working cattle, little nips and jives in all the right places to make the animal react in a desired way.
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They stop the hog by working as a pack and then hold it by barking at it. Once again they do not tear the hog apart. That would ruin too much meat, and we eat a lot of wild hog meat. In fact I’ve got a ham and butt marinating right now, I can’t wait to get it on the grill tomorrow.
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You can see us release the catch dogs, they are the ones with the heavy duty vests on so the hog does not kill them. They run in and catch the hog by the ear. They have the dangerous job. They do not have to hold the hog for long before we come in with a knife to kill the hog.
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We cannot just ‘get the dogs off the hog then shoot it’, that puts the people in too much danger. Not to mention the amount of wasted meat there would be when the hog was shot at point blank range. And a hog will continue charging even after shot, much like a bear will do. Hogs will attack anything in front of them, it is a very dangerous way of hunting. I realize that the thought of killing a hog with a knife seems barbaric, however it’s a quick clean kill and typically is a much cleaner kill than most gunshots. The whole dispatching process takes less than a minute.
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Once the hog has expired we remove the dogs and gut it right there so the meat does not go bad. Then comes the fun part of getting it out of the woods. It took us 3 hours to get that particular hog out, we have to tote it out on foot.
I’m not trying to start an argument, I put the disclaimer in there so people would be warned. I understand that type of hunting is not for everyone but in my eyes it’s not much different from Foxhunting (which I also do), I love to watch hounds work. It puts food on many peoples table that otherwise would struggle to afford beef at the grocery store, no hog gets left in the woods. The hunting dogs get great care, and in the case of an injury they are attended to immediately. We carry a first aid kit on us.
FYI- in Europe they still hunt stag and boar with hounds and most of the time they allow the hounds to finish the kill…
Thank you everyone else for the words of encouragement. It’s been great having another dog at the house. I’ve been around a lot of heelers and Daisy is similar in a lot of ways but I think she may be a little smarter and easy going… :)[/QUOTE]
You put up a video of the dogs holding and tearing the animal. A woman is running around filming it, and one man takes his dog out very carefully as if he is a little worried about it’s reaction. The rest are standing there, it is clear they have hold of the hog, after it is killed in the film of them walking back with it you can see chunks of flesh missing. My father hunted wild boar in Germany, he did not use dogs and he did shoot them and eat them. I am well aware of how they are killed. Bear are routinely killed by shot also so it can be done. I see the need for hog hunting, I just don’t see this method as necessary. These dogs are not holding that pig by the ear unless it has ears all over it’s body, I can see pretty clearly that about 4 - 5 dogs have hold of it. And for what it is worth since I am “the one” that you were waiting to hear from, I grew up in a hunting family, so I am not anti-hunting but I am anti cruelty and cannot imagine enjoying watching this scene in person.
