Been there, done that. I hunted with dogs for years while living in MS and LA, and enjoyed it at the time. I also hunted bear and big cats in several of the Western states with dogs but that has been many years ago too. Today I would rather sit in the confort of my stand and watch nature.
Like GB, most of our dog hunting was split between hunting the dogs, and hunting the deer, and property lines, highways, and creeks didn't stop the chase. We ran Beagles, they didn't run the deer to death, just kept them moving, but I remember one trip along the Red River just North of Alexandria, LA, the dogs jumped a big buck and ran it in a northern direction for quite a long while. One of the dogs didn't return after the deer crossed the river. We waited, looked, called for well over an hour, but no dog. I returned to the area several times over the next week looking for the dog, but couldn't find him. About two weeks later I had a phone call from a lady who lived up near Coushatta, La, she said she had my dog. We drove up the next day to pick the dog up. The house was a shotgun house out on the edge of a bean field, the lady and several kids came out when I drove up.. I seen the dog tied up to a fence post in the back yard, it was barking and doing double back flips. She said, I can tell that is your dog, I said yes, she said good, you owe me $75.00 for all the clothes the dog tore off the clothes line. That was a bunch of money in those days, but I paided up. Not too long after that I got rid of the dogs.
If I had been a fast thinker, I would have looked at the dog and said, No, thats is not my dog, I gave that one to Graybeard last week.