Thanks Rebel. I don't own any dogs but hunt just about every weekend with a group of guys that have dogs. I love it. They are all getting older so I get to catch and tie all the hogs. Works good for all of us. One of the guys is really into the bay pens and he only uses Catahoulas. They are good dogs but are really catchy so we have to be careful with them. When they are down itisn't uncommon to hear the squeal before you hear a bark, problem is they don't know the difference between a shoat and a bad boar. The rest of the dogs are a mix of Black Mouth's and hound blood. There is really an assortment of types of dog and it works well for us. We have the catchy dogs that we will ususlly keep in the box until we have a running shoat that won't bay or if we get into a bunch of sows and pigs we'll turn them in after the first bay. Have a few go yonder dogs that when you put them down you won't pick them up unless you can catch them crossing a road or they have a hog bayed. They usually get turned out mid day when the hogs are laid up. Have 2 dogs that are really good at winding the laid up hogs and three more that are really good at sorting out old tracks. We ususally put 4 bay dogs down at a time and lead in 2 bulldogs. The guys I hunt with usually bring 8-10 bay dogs each and 2-4 bulldogs each. Enough that we can keep rotating and hunt all day or all night if needed.
We don't get a lot of bay dogs cut up. We are pretty careful about what and when we turn loose. Like you said, alot of work and time go into a dog to get it stuck. We sew up the bulldogs occasionally, a hazard of their job. All of the bulldogs are pretty seasoned and we usually only get one cut if they miss the catch and the hog breaks and they catch it again before we are close enough to help right away. I'm a veterinarian and one of the fellows I hunt with is also a vet so the stitching up part isn't a big problem for us. We have lost 2 dogs to heat strokes, that seems to be a bigger problem for us than getting them cut up, especially the bull dogs with vests on.
I have yet to get cut. Had a sow bite my foot and ended up under a big boar hog but the dogs had good enough hold he couldn't do much to me except stomp all over me. One of my hunting buddies got his leg chewed on pretty good by a sow, she got him above the boot and wouldn't let go, had to use the breaking stick on her. One of them got tossed but no blood no fowl. Nothing has gone really bad since I have been hunting with them but oh do they have some stories. Great sport but not for the faint of heart.
I have hunted with a guy from around Tallahassee. You close to there? He is probably in his 60's, his first name is Edgar and I'll find out his last name for you. He is retired and drives all the way over here to hunt with us once in a while. He's friends and trades dogs with one of the guys I hunt with.