Alot depends on what you like and the country being hunted. The guys that hunt the mountains tend to go for the bigger, thick set dogs. The blokes that hunt the tropics use a thinner dog. Saying that some guys up my way use big dogs but hunt in the cooler months. Bull Arabs are popular (they are not a recognised breed)and their X's, Wolf/Stag hounds and their X's are popular as well ,as are pitbulls. Most keen bloke breed their own to suit their type of hunting.
My cousin had a mate that worked in the local pound, they used to take out a promising dog and use it. If it didn't hunt well it got the bullet!
You usually have a finder/Bailer (dog with a good nose and one that barks) and a lugger or two (these dogs go in and latch on)
My mate Gary uses Jack Russels. These little dogs find the pigs and bark. The male will go in and grab on. I think the big pigs just look at them and say "yeah right" then they cop a bullet behind the ear

There are a few sites on the Aussie/NZ pig dogging, a search will turn some up.

Take a look at this site!



www.boardogs.com



Very good reading and nice photos!

Anybody aware of "Deutsch Drahthaar"?
Here's a Aussie website where he uses them for hunting of sambar, waterfowl,
upland birds and of course pig's. Isn't that versatile!

www.users.bigpond.com/ozhunter_kennels

Norseman,

Great minds think alike. At this very second I was about to do a google search for the drahthaar.

Thanks.

Hi,
Thanks for the links Nitro, it'll help satisfy my curiosity on all things hunting.
BTW I know that pig sticking is NOT cruel (good point about my choice of words though!) as I have used it on warthogs a few times when they needed a finisher. I was merely thinking it might be more expedient and prevent injury, but I realise that you probably need a frontal strike, and a pig on it's side with my knee on it won't gimme that opportunity!
Bakes, how popular are Ridgebacks in Oz? My uncle kept a few in the good ole days and said they were great on wounded antelope in Africa....BTW I have searched everywhere and cannot find a single report of them being used to hunt lions in the last century (although one crochety old Tanzanian claimed to have used them on buffalo...that would be a thrill!)

Sorry for jumping your thread but I want to say something in favor of our national breed, the "dogo argentino". These dogs were created with the sole purpose of hunting wild boar and are incredibly brave (Capstick wrote about them in Death in Silent Places). Our gauchos hunt the giant boars with a pack of four of these white warriors, a knife and nothing more. Not for a weak of heart of course.

Ridgebacks arn't that common here really. Our more popular breeds would be, (in no order)
German Shepard
Rotti
Blue Cattle dog
Kelpie
Mongrel

Nainital
The Dogo have been banned from importing into Australia. They are strong looking dogs!
Speaking of you giant Boars, how big do they get? Do you have any pictures?

Bakes: pigs weighing more than 300 kilograms are recorded. That�s a lot of pork, usually sheep killers. I didn�t learn how to post pictures thus I�m forwarding to you one of a middleweight boar (some 120 kilograms). What about lenght of tusks in Australia?.
Regards

Nainital
Here's some pics from GG375. Go to page 2 of this forum and you'll find some pic's I posted as well.

Pigs

Here is an old pic of some of my young dogs lugging a pig,basically without going into the finer points of breeding they are E bull terrrierxgreyhound xstaghound









and a couple of others

Jeeze their ugly mate....which one is the pig?

Doe's anybody know how the Great Danes fare/operate as a boar hunting dog?

In Oz the pure dog is not much fuggin good in most cases but quite a few pig dogs have GD in their blood for size/height etc.
The show breeders are as usual to blame for their current standing in the hunting world as they generally have bred the "good' out of the breed for which they were actually bred for in the first place.