got a ? on catch dogs

[KYBoy]

hey you all got a ? for you all I know most of you guys are hog guy but I was thinking maybe you all would know the answer to something I have been working on I am from the S.E part of K.Y there are a few hogs around here but not in my area I was looking for a catch dog for coyote and fox hunting most of the time the hounds well find when and run it into a big lop and the old times told us you could get ahead of them I was thinking a good catch dog could be turned loss when we got ahead of them and they came past to put it on the ground to make sure of a kill shot my uncles girl marred a boy that use to hog hunt and he told me that would they used the bulldogs for I was just thinking it would be easy to hit game on the ground instead of maybe one day making a bad shot on one running so what would you all say about it what would you use the land we hunt is most hills with a lot of trees and bruse with a few open spots

[T.R.]

I have no experience with hunting like that but i would thank a bulldog would be to slow to catch a fox or yote. I have heard of alot of people using greyhounds as catch dogs on hogs around here. I would sure like to try one myself.

[broncobilly]

I would use greyhound, or maybe greyhoundXbulldog or greyhoundXdogo. Some of the greyhoundXbulldogs would be to slow, maybe even most would be to slow, but I have seen some that would be fast enough. The greyhoundXdogo would be my first choice if I could find/afford one.

Good luck

Bill

[KYBoy]

that what I was thinking the problem here with a full blood greyhound is they just use there eyes and I was told in the hills like around here you need one that can use it nose I have read some about dogo and was thinking they mite be what I need if any one has used them how are they for speed in a full blood

[broncobilly]

in my opinion a full blood dogo is the fastest and most athletic of what I would consider the "catch dog" breeds, and they have by far the best nose of the catch dog breeds. But I think that in general a fullblood would be to slow to consistently catch a coyote. I have never tried to catch a coyote with a fullblood dogo, but I have run coyotes with greys and I have run dogos on hogs and I think they would be to slow. I could be wrong, but I would be looking for a greyhound/dogo cross. I think that some of the pups would get enough speed from the greyhound and enough nose from the the dogo, and enough catch from both to be functional. The other pups would get the nose of a greyhound and the speed of a dogo and would be culls for your purposes. The only way to know for sure is to try it and find out, but that is what I think.

Good luck, and let us know how it works if you try it.

Bill

[stevemac]

Look around and get your self a lurcher, bully / staghound would be my choice they are what I use and they are good enough tho find their own fox and they certainly could go to hounds on a hot run.

[HighlandHounds]

Id go with a good purpose bred lurcher, as Steve said a bull x would fit the bill, but you may want to lean further towards the staghound, like 3/4 stag or more, if your running big open land plough or prairie. But for smaller fields you often get closer slips, so a half bred is fine.

Heres an old half bull that I owned and worked all over Europe, was a great dog for hunting, had a fantastic nose, and an even greater will to get out there and put it to good use. He worked alone a lot, and could do the job from start to finish over rough open land, needed no help, no hounds, but he would hark in to hounds speaking.

Heres a couple of pictures of him as a keen young dog in his first season of work, ive got just hundreds of great memories of this dog in the field.

[T.R.]

Iv seen quite afew stags and cold bloods that will use there nose some when yotes get outa sight. There arent tracking dogs by know means but some do have a little bit of a nose. I dont know how much you know about greyhounds but id stay away from hot bloods for what your wanting to do or really anythang other then flat ground yote hunting or a track.

[KYBoy]

thinks you all just on the lurches with a bull x with a stag do they get there nose from them stag seam like I have read were they can take a hot track I ask because I all was always told that a hunting dog that had bull blood in it was put there for fighting and when you all say bull do you mine a pit bull

[broncobilly]

Because most of my experience with greyhounds has been with hunting bred greyhound instead of track bred greyhounds I tend to forget that there are more track bred greyhounds available. I would tend to agree with the above posters that if you replaced greyhounds in my above posts with staghound you would probably be happier. Stag crossed with any of the bully breeds(pit bull, Am Bulldog, dogo) would probably work for you but if I were putting my time and money into it I would probably go with a stag/dogo cross.

Bill

[HighlandHounds]

Absolutely, go with the staghound, not for nose in particular, but definitely if stamina is something you like in a working dog, greyhounds also have poor feet and coats.
the staghound is born and bred to run outdoors, and catch game... is plenty fast enough, and the body and feet are going to hold up to the abuse much better.
You can see in the pictures, my old yellow dog had an awful thin skin and coat, he suffered the bad weather almost daily through the season
Im very glad I owned the dog, but his greyhound blood was a handicap in the long run.

[stevemac]

Aye Highland my bully stags are at least 3/4 staghound x bull terrier and have excellent nose and drive and stamina.

[HighlandHounds]

I like the sound of them Steve... whats your land like out there?

[stevemac]

I hunt a lot of pasture but also dry swamps, open plains and sometimes in the forests.

[KYBoy]

just wonding stevemac how dose your dogs do in them forests that what a lot of the land here is with some pastures