The prey drive has to do with them wanting to track. Also, it would be an awesome bonus to have a raccoon hunting buddy. The zois do a great job cleaning up the ones dumb enough to come in the yard, and cleaning them out of neighbor's yards when we get frantic phone calls about aggressive raccoons, but this is what the forest understory here looks like:
or like this with lots of hills
Charlie was fantastic at navigating that sort of terrain and finding game. It's not really so great for sight hounds. Strider can and does use his nose, but I can't let him hunt in a place like that without him vanishing. Plus one of his life goals is to fight a cougar, and I know there's nothing I can do to convince him otherwise or proof him against it. There's enough of them around here if he got a whiff of one he'd be gone in an instant.
It seems weird now that I think of it, but I've never met a dogo before. I think a smooth coated white dog would be okay, where the mud can be mostly wiped off. It's those big wooly coats that are so hard to manage here. Though if I was going to get a dogo I'd probably just go all out and get a fila since I already have good mentors in the breed and access to stable, health tested lines.
ETA: I like ridgebacks. Probably would just go for a BMC over a ridgeback though, for health reasons and it'd be easier to find a BMC from proven working stock than a ridgeback.