BigGameHoundsmen.com

Gang,
I live in Louisiana and hunt a ranch in Old Mexico. I have 2 male ten month old Leopard Curs from Ricky Love.(line Rex Bowers) I got then about 3 months ago. These are my first hunting dogs. We have done a good bit of fox pen hunting and some cat work. I feel they have a good idea of what we can run. The ranch is full of havalinas. Last week I found a guy with a hog pen used to bay. My thought is to have a hog breaking session in the morning and go to the fox pen in the afternoon.

How should my hog breaking session be formatted?

Well first how ever you do it should work for breaking them off hogs. Not javalina they aren't the same critter. They don't even smell the same to me so I'm sure the dogs also differentiate the species. Along with the fact I know of a couple hog hunters whose hounds are broke from javelina. I don't normally have a huge issue with the hounds chasing them although the males seem more inclined to run them then females. It best to get it taken care of quickly though as javalina are just as apt to hunt up your hounds. The damage can be lethal quickly. I've had dogs manage to kill them but its usually messy. I tend to do this in the morning and with a broke dog and one pup at a time the broke hound helps get the point across the only safe place is with me and not to lolly gag get back quick! Otherwise a pup may hang up just long enough for them to circle it and catch it in the blind spot.

Well Sierra Madre we are blessed not to have these little Stinkers in AR or FL. Years ago in South TX Dad and Mr. Billy Swan had a round with the Little Guys...and the Little Guys won!

Taking your dogs to the Hog Bay pen and breaking them off the Hogs is sure good to do. However due to the Legal Issues now found with the supposed "Rare" Javelie I would wait till you get to Mexico and see if they become an Issue. If they do you will already have a "Handle" on your Dogs and they will know what the Tri-tronics is all about and you can stop the Issue before it gets out of hand.

As South Texans was saying the Javelinas will break a smart Hound from messing with them, themselves...either that or Kill them!

Good Luck!


PS check your email for some good info!

pecari the best meat lol enjoy hunting them. you only need good dogs, smart dogs.

Artodex give me some details on your javelina hunts I'm not sure how it works for you? Are the javelina herds small groups or large do they show aggression how much? Will they track down your baying hounds? I know here you just need the dog to make himself heard to some of these herds and setback and wait because they're coming. In a large herd its almost impossible to keep hounds from being hurt. Two things come to mind to explain the difference in temperament. First we aren't allowed to hunt them with hounds and second these have been in contact with wolves and coyotes for thousands of years. Ill admit if your shooting them off the dogs it makes for a marked increase in longevity of your dogs. Also if its just three or four javelina it isn't nearly as serious

x2 with pegleg. 17 years ago when i first came to arizona. i did not carry a gun ever while running the hounds. it only took me 3 to 6 months to under stand that i would never run them with out one. i have had them so close that i could almost poke them with the gun barrel. when your in the middle of that kind of mess they are not just hunting the dogs they are hunting you also.

slowandeasy wrote:x2 with pegleg. 17 years ago when i first came to arizona. i did not carry a gun ever while running the hounds. it only took me 3 to 6 months to under stand that i would never run them with out one. i have had them so close that i could almost poke them with the gun barrel. when your in the middle of that kind of mess they are not just hunting the dogs they are hunting you also.

I've had to get them off of my dogs a couple of times so I always have a firearm with me.. it gets really serious when they have young ones with them.. One afternoon I was roading a couple of my stag hounds out of my UTV and we came across a bunch of them.. this one stag I have is pretty rough and he ran a small one down and grabbed it and all hell broke loose. My first instinct was to run down and try to help him because once he grabs a hold he won't let go and he was being shredded up.. it didn't take long for me to realize that was a mistake.. I did get them off of him, not by running them off but by them coming after me.. never thought I could run that fast.. I made it back to the buggy and jumped up in the back of it.. never got hooked but I had to doctor that dog for quit a while.. now even when I road the dogs I have a firearm with me.

Thanks for the info guys,
I can see the havalians may be a problem. The ranch is covered up in them.
The good news is the training session went well. They now know what a hog is and its not what I want. When they get the juice in hunting scenario it won't be that hard of a concept to grasp.

Big thanks to Cajun from this site for the use of the pen.
I think we need a couple more sessions to drive the point home.