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From what I have seen alot of people have one dog that will find strike and bay his own hog. Then they have dogs they turn out with the strike dog to help him. Or they have dogs that don't track but will bay really hard. Personally in my mind I want all my dogs to be able to do it all by themselves. Is there a purpose for help dogs? Could someone please explain?

I believe it is because good bay dogs are easier to find than good strike dogs. In a perfect world they would all do it from truck to bay. The hardest baying dog I have ever been around will find a hog if he has been there in the last hour, but I like one to be able to find him if he has been there last night. This is just my opinion.

all of our hog dogs will run, bay and catch but they dont realy trail. they are silent on track and not realy cold nose trail type dogs. it depends a lot on the area you hunt wether or not you need cold nose dogs. most of our dogs will take a track thats from during the night before, we have one cattahoula that will run a little bit colder track.

is it possible your refering to catch dogs?

just remember a good dog will eat as much as a bad one will lol.i want own a help dog unless its a pup that im training

i like the idea of help dogs. IMO the better the nose the less grit 8X out of 10. but if you got a real soft dog that can show you a hog "every time" you turn it out, well you can always pick up a young gritty dog to run w/ them and stop it. the thing i like in help dogs is they don't care to run thier own & they'll stay right w/the dog w/ the nose but are more aggressive and keep the heat off the better finding dog. if you can get that they are worth feeding and you don't have to worry too much about split races getting dogs killed.
my ideal hog pack is one soft top notch finding bay dog & one help dog that tags along holds the hog in place & then catches when i get there.
but you know ideals tend to come crashing down when they run into reality.

Not talking about catch dogs. I understand the purpose of help dogs. But where we hunt we normally just put the dogs right on the track. In my way of thinking every dog we run should be able to take that track and stop that hog. I don't want my bay dogs to catch at all until my catch dog gets on the hog. I still don't understand at all why someone wants to feed a dog that doesn't do it all. But I guess to each their own. Its their feed not mine.

What some of you are calling help dogs and what I am calling help dogs must be different. I'm not saying that they can't find their own hog. A help dog to me is about what Pops said, one that will get rougher than your find dog. I would rather have my strike dog bay 30 feet back. I can send enough yellow dogs to get rough and stop him, not catch him. I guess I'm calling a help dog a hotter nosed dog that can't find them quite as good as a strike dog.

I have never seen a pack of "strike dogs" before. Probably we are differing on the definition of one. A dog that I call a "strike dog", you will be lucky to own one every 10 to 15 years.

On another note, I have bayed hundreds of hogs with what I am calling "help dogs", not having a "strike dog" at the time.

A pack of dogs is no diffrent than a construction crew. They are all working on the same job site, but doing different tasks. You have bay dogs, find dogs, catch dogs, and pups in training. The problem I've seen in having more then one MAIN find dog in a hog dog pack, is split bays. For the most part there is almost always more than one hog and you will get more than one bay going if your pack isn't working on the same one bay. The problem with that is dogs getting hurt if it takes you too long to get to the bay and the hog wants to have a go at them. But like you say, to each their own, it ain't your feed. I say hunt what you don't mind feeding.

that's a real good analogy. i like the football team analogy, if you have 11 quarterbacks who the heck is blocking? who's running the screen? who's running the post? heck who's freaking snapping the ball?
even if it's only two dogs a pack should be a team that works together.
if the whole pack is made up of dogs that do it on their own they will do it on their own. they won't run together. they will run the track they want at their own speed and then you have more chance of problems because you can't be in two places at one time.
i am firmly convince that each dog doing it all themself is a huge contributing factor in the wolf problems in the west. they can & do pick the "packs" apart because they are strung all over doing their own thing.

We got two this morning with "help dogs". My Uncle's strike dog trailed, jumped, and bayed one till about 10am. In the process of getting to him, we bayed the other two at seperated bays. Just proves my point, help dogs can do it by themselves. By the time we got the first two and found the strike dog having a walking bay it was hot and I eased in and caught him. He is twelve years old and it was damn near 100 degrees (he gets treated a little different than most of our dogs).

Some good help dogs can turn in to a strike dog with time.

My Uncle put the old dog on a track at daylight, he jumped him at 830, bayed till 10am, I went and caught him. We put on other tracks in the road that came from where he was trailing and caught the other two hogs. All the other dogs were hot enough to die. That is why I went and caught the old dog. (I knew he would have run the hog till we caught him or he would have died trying). That is my definition of a strike dog. The help dogs did great, they just couldn't smell the original track that he put the old dog on.

I like the comparisons to a work crew or a team. Not all dogs are going to be super dogs in all catagories. Some dogs are very good in most categories, and most dogs are super or at least very good in one or two categories, but every dog I have ever seen had a weakness or two. Every dog I own can do it by themselves, but they also all do better in a pack. I don't currently own what I would consider a super dog, but I would put 3 of my very average dogs up against anyones super dog anytime. The super dog might occasionally catch a hog my three couldn't, but day in and day out, on average my three would catch a higher percentage of the tracks they started.

Having said all that I consider all of my dogs to be lead dogs in training, if I ever conclude that a dog doesn't have what it takes to be a lead dog they are not here long.

JMO

Bill