09/10/2024
Runnin Dogs
Over the years as a dog hunter, I’ve been asked a lot of questions about my method for hog hunting. There’s one question in particular that seems to be asked more than others though. Folks ask, “Why do you use dogs?”
If we go back to when I was still in diapers you can find VHS tapes of me playing with all my dad’s game bred pit pups in the yard and the mud including my own black and white pit “Big Boy.” I’ve always loved dogs since the day I could remember and always had a dog beside me on every adventure I had in the woods. It didn’t matter if I was hunting birds with my BB gun, squirrels and rabbits with my Grandpa’s old.22, or calling varmints from the back of my 12V Cummins, I always had a dog with me.
From my Pit pups to my Boxers, then to my Australian Shepeherd and Blue Heeler cow dogs, to my Catahoula and Black Mouth Curs, and finally up to my Argentine Dogos and Plott Hounds, I have loved and owned and hunted dogs in some way or another.
One of the main reasons I use dogs is plain and simple. I love dogs. I love watching them work, I enjoy seeing them do what they were bred to do, and I admire the courage they have to go flying full speed, face first, and without any doubts into the face of their prey.
When it comes to the sportsman side of the conversation I believe that there’s no better sportsman than a dog hunter. Before I explain why, folks need to understand that hogs are aggressive, durable, resilient, smarter than any dog, and have a nose 2,000 times greater than a human and better than any dog that’s ever been created.
So you have a man that’s invested well over a year into a single animal and trained him to the best of his abilities to go out and find him a hog. So the dog is already outmatched simply based on their God-given qualities. As well, during this process, the dog has to be taught every animal he is allowed to hunt and every other one he is NOT allowed to hunt. Let me tell you from personal experience that teaching a dog not to hunt a porcupine is my absolute least favorite lesson in the raising and teaching of a young hog dog.
So a man is taking this dog out into the hog’s home that he has been living in his entire life. This hog knows the land and knows exactly how to navigate it. He knows every creek, every canyon, and every bottom. The dog doesn’t. The hog has hooves and the dog doesn’t, so when it comes to rocks, cactus, stickers, and anything else on the ground, that’s just another advantage for the hog. The hog has a superior sense of smell and is smarter. Also important to mention is hogs have a very thick hide and boars typically have a shield. Hogs can also easily outrun any average dog. Lastly, a hog is running and fighting for his very life. He ain’t gonna quit. It’s all or nothing. A dog can quit whenever he well chooses to. There’s a few exceptions for some of us who have had the blessing of owning a truly great dog or two, and that’s a rare dog that will willfully give his life for his love of the hunt as well.
So the odds are stacked against a dog. Then you add in the climate, the terrain, and the temperature, and it gets even harder. So then your dog manages to find the hog now he has to stop him. This hog may run and never stop running, he may run a few yards and stop to fight, or he might just sit right where he is and fight anything that comes to mess with him. It all depends on the individual hog. Around our parts in Texas, 95% of the time a hog is going to run for his life if he even hears a dog bark. So stopping a hog after finding a hog in my opinion is the most difficult part.
Lastly, you have to catch the hog. So you have another dog that a man has fed and spent over a year or two developing that has to run in and physically grab the hog if you’re able to find and stop one. That dog has to hold that hog until you get there to either dispatch the hog or tie him. The dog also has to catch right. If he don’t have a good enough bite then all that work goes out the window when the hog slips out of his grip and runs off. Then that hog becomes educated and is going to be twice as hard to ever catch again if he isn’t caught immediately. Good and great catch dogs are hard to come by.
It’s even harder to make a dog that can multifunction and both find and catch a hog. I’ve found this is the most difficult way to train a dog but one of the most effective and rewarding. But it’s a double edge sword. It’s both great reward and great risk.
So the work that it takes to train up a good pack of hog dogs can be time-consuming, frustrating, expensive, and at times drive you completely mad. But when you see that dog you love that you’ve been training for years and developing going out there and burning up the woods and finding, stopping, and catching hogs there’s just not a better feeling of accomplishment.
In my opinion, running dogs is the most ethical method of hunting. As described above, you’re taking an animal that you own to go out in the homeland of another animal that bests him in every category and asking that dog to outsmart the hog on fair ground that he was born on and lives in with every opportunity to outsmart the dog, outrun the dog, outfight the dog, or even kill the dog. Pretty big and dangerous task to ask of a dog. But they’ll happily do it and not because they’re forced to do it. They do it because they love it more than we do. I’ve seen plenty of hunters who love running dogs give up hunting. Never seen a good dog who loves hunting give it up.
So people think I am out of my mind when I tell them I run dogs. But if they were educated and understood the value and impacts of dogs and how much work their owner has to put in, then they would have a different outlook. Because I’ll tell you right now, running dogs sure sounds a lot more ethical and respectable than standing on the edge of a farm field, dressed in full camouflage with face paint, 300 yards away, and using night vision to find and shoot hogs that never stand a fair chance. Or sitting in a stand waiting for a hog to come running to corn. Sure, somebody may shoot more hogs in one night than I can catch in two months but when it comes to being an ethical sportsman hunter, I believe a man who runs dogs is the best there is.
So that’s why I run dogs. They’re a man’s best friend after all. We ain’t all just careless abusive owners. Our dogs get to do what they’re bred to do and fulfill their purpose in life. They get to work and make an impact. And if someone thinks we don’t care about our dogs then go ask a dog hunter’s wife or family member what happened on the day that hunter lost his favorite dog. We love our dogs and with a stern hand we do our best to raise them. It ain’t easy running dogs but there’s something special about watching them work and do what they were born to do.
Go ask any dog hunter and he will tell you that he has lost more hogs than he has caught. If he tells you otherwise, then he is a liar!
God Bless.
