How does pack hunting work?

edited February 2011 in General
@shishiinu and @TheWalrus I know you guys hunt, so I was just wondering how does pack hunting work? Lets say if I take 2-3 dogs to go hunt wild boars and I come across a group of wild boars. How would I get all of my dogs to go after one particular boar? Would the dogs naturally just gained up on one boar? I've never hunted with more than one dog so I'm just curious. Please let know about your thoughts on this. Thank you!

Comments

  • Anyone who have information on this you're welcome to give your thoughts on it as well. Thanks!
  • There is a concept when hunting with dogs known as "honoring" which means that when one dog is "engaged" with prey, the other dogs will respect that and engage as well. With pointing breeds, this means that a dog will go on point behind another dog that is already pointing prey. With big game dogs, this means that a dog will begin to bay or attempt to catch prey that another dog has already starting baying or catching. Most of the time this will happen naturally with big game dogs. Remember, they aren't stupid. They have a self-preservation instinct and they know there is strength in numbers. With only 2-3 dogs, your pack is small enough so as not to divide. Often times boar hunters using curs or bulldogs will hunt with 10 or more dogs. In those cases, honoring has to be reinforced through training as sometimes a pack that large will split.

    Like your dog will bond with and hunt for you the more time you spend in the woods with it, it will also bond with and hunt with the other pack members the more practice they get together.
  • Thanks @dlroberts! That was really helpful and made a lot of sense. Thank you!
  • I agree with Dave. Its really important that younger dogs honor a older trike dogs bay. I have never hunted with more the two or three dogs at a time so I have no idea what it would be like with 5+ dogs. I do know that a friend of mine with 4 curs/catahoulas, and two bulls will some times end up with two separate bays.

    In Japan you'll have a group hunting type that uses a good amount of ogs and many hunters. In Japanese its called Maki gari and the way I have seen it work is you will have your handlers/pushers (Seko) use the dogs and loud sounds to push hogs and deer toward hunters waiting on a stand. The dogs will chase the animals out of heavy cover toward the direction of waiting hunters. I think this style is also common in europe also.

    The coomon method here in the states is where a group of bay dogs (Curs, catahoulas, plotts) are used to bay up a dog and then a catch dog (usually a pit, bull, dogos, or mixtures of dogs) is released once the hogs is "bayed solid". Here's some well used terms for hog dogging.

    "Silent on track" - A dog that will nt bark while on chase but bark once a animal is bayed (Most NK are this way).

    "bay on track" - Dogs that will bay while chasin on track (common with hounds)

    "Cold nose" - A dog that is able to track a cold trail.

    "Hot nose" - A dog that is able to only track fresh tracks.

    "Gritty" - A dog with high drive.

    "Trash" - Animals you dont want your dog chasing. (Cattle, deer, birds, armadillos, skunks)

    Most NK are hot nose, and silent on track. This is usually a preferred dog among pig hunters. Cold nosed dogs are great but you'll be chasing that dog every where if the trail is really old. A dog that bays on track will scare animals away faster which makes it harder to corner a animal like a hog. This is good for bears since they escape by climing a tree or hiding.
  • What Gen and Dave said.

    In my experience, my dogs and my friend's dogs will honor the dog that is first to the quarry. The exceptions to this have been when we get on a sow with piglets, or when the dogs are spread out and on different scent trails. Piglets are hard because the dogs know they are easy game, so sometimes it becomes every dog for himself trying to catch them.

    Usually though, all it takes is for one of the dogs to take off, or start baying, and the other dogs pick it up and group up right away.

    All that being said, creating a functional pack with good success rates is not an easy thing.
  • Yes, I am at about 30% at completing a functional pack. With the local pig popultion spread out over a large area and a population of about 1K, its been very hard to geton some decent hunts. Koyuki is doing really well and she's ranging out little by little. If I didnt haveTaro it would be hard to get her to range out.
  • Wow! This is pretty interesting. The hunting method that Gen mentioned above where dogs and hunters flush the prey out to awaiting hunters is a common hunting method in Laos and Thailand too. Since the NK are hot nose and is silent on tracks they will be excellent for hunting ground animals. This is very helpful. Thanks everyone!
  • @shishiinu ;

    "n Japan you'll have a group hunting type that uses a good amount of ogs and many hunters. In Japanese its called Maki gari and the way I have seen it work is you will have your handlers/pushers (Seko) use the dogs and loud sounds to push hogs and deer toward hunters waiting on a stand. The dogs will chase the animals out of heavy cover toward the direction of waiting hunters. I think this style is also common in europe also."

    This is common here too, or at least in Florida lol. When I was looking into hunting deer w/ dogs, I spoke to about every hunter I could. What they'd do is have a group of about 10 dogs or more chase a deer through the woods and get it to jump out in front of the truck on the road where the hunter would be waiting to shoot it. ~
  • @Sangmort;

    That sounds very fun...but I personally think it would be more fun to just run it over with the truck. LOL j/k.
  • Nice Osy, when are you gonna start hunting??? I promise to go over there very soon, the recent pay cuts have not been helpful in planning out of state trips.
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