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I know most people including myself who start hog dogs in bay pens. Its a nice indicator of a dogs desire and an oppertunity to let the prospect know that baying a hog is a good thing.

Funny thing is that none of my dogs will show much in a bay pen if anything at all. When they were younger they would bay but as the have gotten older they show no interest in a pened hog. Every hog dog that I have had over the years has done this with one exception. I cant say the same for the people I hunt with. They will put a veteran dog in the pen with a prospect and the veteran dog will bay in the same way as in the field showing the prospect what the game is all about.

Years back I put one my young prospect dogs in a half acre pen with 2 hogs. One was a large boar over 300lbs that was completely tame. The other was close to 100lbs and basically wild. My dog bayed and chased the 100lb hog in circles around the large boar. My dog payed no attention to the large boar. Finally I leashed my dog and we talked about how we thought my dog did. The large boar walked up to us and begged for a belly scratch. My dog sat there calmly and sniffed the hog.

Odviously my dogs know the difference between the field and the pen, wild and tame. I simply chalk it up to inteligent dogs. However im not bragging. I wish my dogs would bay a pened hog. If I have a prospect dog I have to get somone elses dog to show the prospect dog the ropes unless I put the dog in the pen by itself. Something I dont like to do.

Anybody else have this situation? I dont know anybody in my area or anywhere else that has this issue. Feedback?

If they were truly "intelligent" like you say you should be able to turn them off or on. I take my dogs to check traps if I need there help I call them over and if I don't I tell them to get back and they sit back and watch wanting me to need there help. If you cant get a dog to get after a pig any size domestic or not you need to check your dogs. The drive is apparently not there or they are just very loose dogs. The dogs should have the drive to get after it until you tell then its not ok. I personally don't want a dog having any type of "is this ok or not" conversation it its head Ill do it for him. This is for pigs only trash breaking is started at an early age and is sometimes never fully completed.

Some dogs just don't like the pen I believe. I have a rough as heck, lotsa bottom, hog striking cur, that will climb out of a pen. Drive isn't an issue with this dog, I feel he just feels confined or uncomfortable in a bay pen. If there is a tree in the pen or some bushes, he will act normally, but in an open bay pen, he just wants out. Idk, the rest of my dogs work fine in a pen, unless I take them to a baying event and there are alot of people around, then it's a crapshoot as to what they will do.

Some of the grittiest dogs I've ever been around wouldn't bay in a pen or ever in a 3 acre lot with 10 hogs in it, but in the woods they were hog finding, catching machines. I don't base my opinion of a dog off of what it does in the pen. If I were wanting a bay pen dog then I might, but I don't. I want my dogs to catch game. I dont think it's about gameness. It's about smarts. You take an old vet. with years worth of scares to a pen, he looks in sees a caught hog and probalty thinks, what do you need me for, hell you already have him caught. Take that same dog to the woods, he does his job and goes home, doesn't matter if he will bay in a pen or not to me.

I wouldn't care if the dog didn't mess with the larger hog. If he was chasing the smaller hog around the larger one, then the larger one was taking the bay and don't need to be screwed with or he might break. the smaller one was running and the dog was trying to stop the runner. I don't see a problem.

My older dogs don't show any interest in a penned hog, but will find them and bay them in the woods. We keep hogs in a pen and let pups bay them, but they seem to lose interest after a couple of years in the woods.

I agree with Donald, I hunt past trapped hogs pretty regularly down here and my dogs know the difference. They even start others off the trap, but won't even acknowledge the trapped ones. They have learned their lesson. But I can send them in to drag one out if the need arises. I believe alot of it is not their drive, but a lack of challenge.

I was just using that large boar and small hog story as an example. That dog is now 16 years old. She refuses to die just to spite me.

None of my older dogs will bay a hog in a pen, they will straight catch them if I encourage them. These are not gritty dogs at all in the woods and are excellent bay dogs.