Greetings

[Guest Tonedog]

I've got a bandog, he tries to hunt hares every afternoon and makes a complete fool out of himself

I didn't get him to hunt hares, rather got a dog, took him for walks and noticed the local wilderness is teeming with hares.

Strangely it's fun even though I know he won't catch one. Just seeing hares and watching a dog chase them seems to have hit a chord with the english gentlemen buried in my boorish australian body :11:

I'm looking into getting a "lurcher" as a second dog, my dumbarse bandog can keep flushing hares out of the bushes and towards me with his oafishness, except soon I'll have a speed demon with me ready to be slipped when this happens. There's been countless times it would have been curtains with a fast dog by my side (by my estimation at least).

 

I'm looking forward to learning about this noble sport from you gents.

 

Also I'm really fascinated by the deer hunting some of you engage in, didn't know this was so common, thought it was only something that USED to be done.

It's really good to see it's not dead.

One question, why don't I see any wolfhounds or wolfhound x's being used on deer? Seems like they'd be a good choice especially for the bigger bucks that the grey x's have trouble pulling up. But I suppose I wouldn't know, just curious.

[socks 32,253]

wolfhound crosses are far to big and heavy to be of any real use as a lurcher cross mate ..........

[Guest Tonedog]

Even on something like red deer?

I know they wouldn't be able to turn quick enough for hares, but I thought after wolves went extinct in britain wolfhounds were used and bred for hunting deer, and that todays wolfhound is pretty much a deer hunting dog by design.

 

What I've read from you guys suggests the quickness to catch the big deer isn't the problem, it's pulling them up, then I read you're using little 60 lbs dogs and I just wonder why you wouldn't use a slighly slower but bigger and stronger dogs for the particular job?

[Stabs 2]

The wolfhound is a recreated breed mate using deerhounds/borzois/great danes and even a pyranean if rumour is believed. They aren't the dog of legend in the old stories. They were bred to "look" like the old wolf dogs.

 

Having said that, I've seen some uselful Wolfy crosses on the pigs over your way.

[socks 32,253]

the deerhound was the breed used in the old days for hunting deer ... i doubt if there is a wolfhound alive in the country today that has an ounce of hunting instinct left in his blood ...............

[shaun v 3]

go for the saluki x if you want some serious sport with the hares and the deer , but you might have problems finding a working saluki, Over here in the seventies and eighties we got alot of people using show crap to breed from which caused the saluki being labelled untrainable or worse and then they started bringing working blood into the country, they would make an ideal dog esp if hunting in ruff terrain

[bullseye 2]

go for the saluki x  if you want some serious sport with the hares and the deer , but you might have problems finding a working saluki, Over here in the seventies and eighties we got alot of people using show crap to breed from which caused the saluki being labelled untrainable or worse and then they started bringing working blood into the country,  they would make an ideal dog esp if hunting in ruff terrain

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I hunt well enough with the dogs I have, mainly bull/ grey X, I am led to believe that the best cross for the deer's in mind is the Deerhound/Greyhound to a straight bull, these half breds have the best package with plenty of height,weight, guts, speed and brains.

But these dogs are not for the novice dog owner.

 

I have thought about using Irish Wolf hound and when I made enquiries I was met with the view that they would be too slow.

Very interesting subject though!

[Guest Tonedog]

Suppose you blokes would know the score hey.

But are you sure todays wolfhound wasn't bred for hunting deer? I know the score with it not being the wolf hunting dog it used to be, but I thought it was modified into a deer hunting dog with the infusion of new breeds, not just a recreation for the hell of it.

Could be wrong.

 

I've actually heard good things about them as far as their hunting instinct goes, I've known blokes to cross them into their boardogs specifically to get some hunting instinct into the line.

The 2 negative things I've heard are a) they can take over 3 years to grow up and they can't turn too sharp at high speed.

However some people seem to think they're extremely quick in a straight line.

 

Probably what pig hunters think is quick and what you guys think is quick are 2 different things though.

If you's aren't using wolfhounds it's pretty safe to say they don't work right?

Bit like that with pigdogging in australia.

 

Although I don't see much saluki blood in pig dog lines, and I reckon it could come in handy by the sounds of it.

[Stabs 2]

My best mate out your way likes a bit of Wolfy in his pig dogs and he explained it to me like this:

 

If you want to add size to your pigdogs then was two ways of doing this, you could either add English Mastiff (or Bull Mastiff) or you could add Wolfhound. This gives you size and mass in both options, but the Wolfy cross would be a bit racier than using the Mastiff blood. If you look at the breeds used in the Wolfy recreation, then it's pretty much a "boardog" anyway going by some of the crosses I've worked with over there. It's all down to personal preference at the end of the day though, some blokes like the hairy dogs, some don't.

 

Bully wolfhound crosses

 

 

Line bred stuff down from Doug Mummery's lines through to Pigchasers yard.

 

 

Dog on the left is a 3/4 bred Dane so ignore that one

 

It seems that Wolfhounds are very expensive over your way. A lad we know borrowed one of a breeder to line his bitch with and accidently ran it over in his cruiser Breeder wasn't happy :11: