``McDowell Lyons, who wrote a great book, _The Dog in Action_,
on the relationship between structure and movement and
various kinds of work in dogs, tells the story of how he first
came to understand the long work of breeding, which is in
serious situations the same as the work of living itself, and no
toy for foolish suburbanites.  Lyons had gone to the Tensas
Swamp, in Louisiana, having heard of a wonderful sort of dog -
they were just called ``hog dogs.''  He went out with a farmer and
some other men, who rode mules.  The hog dogs eventually found
a wild boar and proceeded to tease and irritate the boar until he
began chasing the dogs, who then hightailed it for home, stopping
to tease the boar some more if he showed signs of losing interest
in killing the hog dogs.

Back at the farm, there was a hog pen, which had solid sides
except for a smallish window about three feet above the
ground.  The dogs ran into the pen, followed by one or more
angry hogs who were in turn followed by men on mules.  Once
the hog was in the pen, the farmers closed and barred the gate,
and the dogs escaped by jumping through the window.

Lyons was of course wonderfully impressed with the intelligence
of the dogs, and asked the farmer how he trained them.

The farmer says, ``You don't train 'em.  What you do is, you
take yourself one hell of a good hog dog, and breed her to
another one hell of a good hog dog.  Of course, all the pups
don't come out of the swamp.  But them that does, is hog dogs.''

Now, the farmer's answer was no doubt abbreviated somewhat
so that the fool of a city slicker could follow it ...''

  Vicki Hearne, _Bandit_, p.181