getting my pup to bark at the tree

[yoopergat]

hey all
im new to the forum and to hound hunting. i picked myself up a nice walker pup who is now 6 months old. he is a good runner and seems to have a pretty good nose on him so far. one this is though, he dont bark when he is on the trail or when he is at the tree. he will tree for a little while and then follow my scent back to me. how to i get him to stay at the tree and bark???? will this come with the help from season dogs or is there something that i can do in the mean time to help get him doing what he is sposed to do??

thanks for any advice that you may have.

andrew

[TomJr]

Reading between the lines here... but are you just running drags/scent trailes you layed? If so at 6 months he is doing great to follow and tree some on fake trails and its time to get him on the real thing...

If he is running alone then something small to start with like a coon or fox. Some live game will get him all fired up

[yoopergat]

yeah as for now its just on a coon hide i trapped and had froze a few years back. you let him chew on it and play with it a little bit and get him all worked up. then ill tie him off on a tree and go drag in for some ways come back. ill walk him to the area till he really wants to go then i let him go. hes will put his nose down and fly. VERY HAPPY ABOUT THAT. I will try to get him on a live coon. i showed one to him last month and really had nothing to do with it. stayed back about 40 feet and barked a little.

i just dont want to get him afraid of the live stuff. ill set up the live trap and give that a shot again. perhaps that extra month gave him something. i know he works the chipmunks in the yard quite well.

thanks for your response tom. does anyone else have any input for me. like i said im new to all this and would really like to do it all right.

andrew

[festus]

Andrew,
I agree with TomJr, it seems you have a nice young pup there. However, you are letting a bad habit get started with your pup. Put an end to it now, don't let him leave the tree and come back to you. Scold him, spank him with a leash, or what ever it takes, don't praise him just reprimand him and send him back to the tree when he comes back to you. Use your head here and only use as much force as needed when reprimanding him.

The first thing I would do with your pup is some cage work. I would work him on a caged critter a few times. If you have another dog of any kind ( poodle, weaner dog, ect. it don't matter what breed) that will bark at a critter. Once your pup will fire a few times good on the ground, move to work at the tree. Pull the critter up the tree and encourage the pup to bark at it, lower the caged critter back down the tree and let your pup bark at it, do this a few times if need be.
Each training session allways leave your pup wanting more, once he is firing good end that session with him still wanting more. Don't wait untill your pup becomes bored or starts to loose interest to end the training session, it is VERY important to end every possitive training session with your pup fired up and wanting more.

If you are running drags, alot of young pup's won't open very good on a drag, so I would not worry about that. Alot of good information for you in Mike's post concerning starting pup's with a drag in the training link of the forum here.

Good luck,

[kehrer10]

my pup never opened on a drag, but the first time he caught wind of a barn lion he struck right away. he just seemed to know the difference. if he is trailing drags good ditch em and get on a real critter.

[briarpatch]

IMO kehrer10 is correct. Most of the time drags just entertain the owner. Try him on the real thing. If he is ready you can tell it. If not wait awhile and try again.

briarpatch

[yoopergat]

thank you all so much for the words of advice. im going to put all this together with him and see if i can get some coon in the live trap for him. i will admit that i over looked the discipline of coming back to me. i usually yelled and told him to go back, but nothing to really make him think of what he was doing was wrong. there is a guy down the road that has some hounds i will see if i can use one of his on some cage work with my pup. maybe even some work on running and staying on the tree.

you all have been great help. once season rolls around ill try to get some pictures on here of how hes doing.

andrew