I can agree with you on the bragging about culling dogs. My opinion is that if you go in search of curs, they are really easy to find. I think they will all quit. I also believe dead game dogs just die before they see enough to quit.

I also think so many curs were game dogs if given the right opportunity or better said, landed in the right place.

Forever I was in the camp of there is only one way to know if you own a game dog. Maybe I have softened later in life, I don't know. I watched an APBT/American Bulldog cross get gutted by a hog. As the old folks say, 'from asshole to appetite'. The cut started just under the chin and went damn near to her cootchie. She rolled over and I thought she was dead or would be shortly. In the bloody mess she slipped out the owner's hand and went after the hog as fast as she did prior to being cut. She took caught and the it was a blood batch. After this I knew she would die. These guys provided after care like nothing I had ever seen, all on the tailgate of a truck. I still thought she would die. When they pulled her off the tailgate the bitch popped the lead when she seen where the hog was caged, actually busting some staples. I would consider that bitch game. In my early, probably not so much.

Me personally, I never really game checked many dogs. I was sort of schooled by old guys and was lucky enough not to ruin a lot of dogs learning. I learned to roll tired dogs. I would run a dog on a mill til he was just about spent and then take him to the barn with a fresh one waiting. Similar to believing they will all quit, I also believe when they do quit it is from fatigue and frustration and the thought of not being able to get it done. Those things visit upon a tired dog sooner than on a fresh dog. I was never able to brag about rolling dogs for hours on end. If the tired dogs did things I liked in a couple three rolls that lasted 20 minutes or so, I then rolled the dice. I was betting on what I thought I was seeing. From there his game check and his first match were one in the same.

With the shorter rolls the dog does not get beat up as bad and can be rolled again in a shorter period of time. And if he proves himself in that first match all is well. The bonus is that he didn't get beat up for nothing in a game check.

After that babbling, those tired short rolls showed traits and I in turn bet on those traits.

That was the plan I was taught and that is the way I did things for a long time. The missing variable is that I never bred many dogs. The guys that taught me about dogs never bred many dogs. All three of us look back and wished we had bred this one and that one. Some of those were actually culled because they could not win.

When I was like 9-10-11 years old I can remember looking up at the old guys and the highest praises always landed on the dogs that won and the guy that worked him. I just don't remember the breeders getting a lot of love. I fell in love with winners and conditioning.

EWO