Let me put it this way. If the doctor told you you have cancer and if you continue to hunt and fish he will give you a years time to live. If you quit he would extend that time to a year and 3 months, but no more. Which would you rather do. Quit doing something you love to live 3 mths longer? Or keep doing it and die happy?? SOrry but this is the best way I could think of to give an example.
Shane, again, I'm not being critical of your decision to continue to hunt the older dog. But to answer your question, I don't think the analogy works well. Your dog didn't have a terminal illness, he was just old. If I go hunting and fishing, I don't wrestle the deer into the freezer, so even if I was terminally ill I could do what my condition alllowed me the strength to do. I certainly wouldn't continue to compete in MMA event's at age 65 or 70 though, but I might watch from the stands.
Do you really think that if you had retired the dog, that he would have lived only 3 months longer? Now, I admit to not owning a single hog dog, so I can't speak from experience. I've only been on about 8 hog dog hunts with folks who own, train and hunt that way. But in may way of thinking, isn't there still things an older dog can be used for rather than just being placed into a kennel to watch the others go out? Like being used to train younger dogs on smaller hogs in a pen perhaps? That way he still gets to participate, but as his owner, you offer him some protection since he is older and no doubt not quite as swift or fleet of foot as he was 5 or 6 years earlier.
Again, I am sorry to hear about the loss of the dog. I know from losing dogs in the past that it can be a painful experience, especially when you have had so many hunts together. God bless'
