What age and why?

[lawdawgharris]

So on another forum, someone brought up the subject of starting young dogs or pups. At what age, no matter what game you’re hunting or what breed of dog, do you start training and taking your pups and young dogs and why? How much pressure do you put on them and why? What are some of your methods? I of course have my thoughts and what has worked for me in the discipline of hog hunting this family of catahoula/walker crosses that I have for the last 30 years. I would like to hear y’all’s.


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[Cajun]

LawDawg, before I answer your question We seem to have a problem on this forum. You would think we have a cur dog audience because they are all silent mouth. This is how I have seen many websites and forums die because of non participation. There is a wealth of knowledge on here if people would just respond.
With 30 years of experience with your dogs you already know what to expect from your line of dogs and what has worked for you.
I am very fortunate that I can let my pups run loose so they are basically training their selves. By the time they hit 5 months they have graduated from running rabbits and squirrels and started running deer. That is when i have to pen them up. Up to that time I have walked them on a leash teaching them to heel and worked them on a long line tone breaking them. I have a very thick 25 acre running pen and I only keep one running hog in there. I can find out pretty quick which dogs have the nose to trail and jump the hog and the race is on. I will let them run about a hour and pull them out. I will start hunting them at about 9 months but I do try to pick there battles for them. I do not want to put them on a rough hog at that age. They are still pups and I want them to win and gain confidence. Also at that age I could put them in fresh sign and they would do their best to trail them up but at that age I just want them running shoats and smaller hogs. That dosnt always work but that is what I strive for. At a year old all bets are off and I expect them to run anything and will also start bear hunting them when I get the chance.

[Beebout-it]

I've read a few posts on here about this topic so the last litter i had i purposely bred to have fall pups so I could let the pups be over a year old before their first cat season. I really didn't do much with them except basic obedience and put them on the long check cord for here training and eventually tone training as well. Just let them be pups, take them out roading with the big dogs for exercise. With the 2 i kept from that litter having been alive for 2 seasons and only 1 under their belts im not sure I'll hold pups back again because the only real difference I see is that they could both be further along having seen twice as much game so far in life. With that being said they are both doing very well, the male pup being more advanced than his sister. I'm just going to go back to letting the pups decide when they go with the big dogs hopefully around 6 months old but I'm never expecting to much from them. Usually ill just walk them into a treed lion a few times and it naturally clicks for them and they basically start themselves. In the past I did a lot of drags, both hotdogs and scent for the pups with lots of cage work to follow. But anymore I mainly start taking them hunting with the pack around 6 months old and let them progress at their own pace.

[GVBEAR]

Well I do not have 30 years of experience and have not ran a hog that I am aware of, I mostly run bear. Then in the winter try coyote and cat. And Cajun is right the interaction has definitely been slow on the site lately. I have mixed thoughts on this. I have been involved with dogs for a little over 20 years. Owned hounds for the majority. I do not have a specific line i stick too. So I find it can depend on the breeding of the dog. And when the litters are. Besides handling and basics. I am limited on my bear season in wisconsin so depending on when it is born I start dogs between 6-12 months on bear. With that being said I will start dogs on bobcat or coyote depending on their age to get them working on trailing and working with the old dogs. But my main focus is bear. My ideal situation would be starting a dog at 6 month on bear. I have already been hauling them with the dogs and roading them together, so at 6 months I like seeing if they want to trail and try to hunt with the old dogs. As long as they show interest and try I will keep working them but if they do not I will hold them back in the truck the next few times. I do not really pressure them much at all. It seems sometimes if you hold them back and they see everyone else go it can get them to want to go. Or at least for me. I used to try some scent drag or a caged coon but have really gotten away from that the last few years. I usually want a dog by 1 year to at least be trailing, treeing, and baying with company or at least 2 out of the 3; I have had some later starters but I believe that is more due to the breeding I think; my thoughts on adding pressure to get a dog to hunt well are pretty simple. Usually when you force something or push your luck it gets trashy or does with my dogs haha. Well enough of my rambling

[lawdawgharris]

I’m not fortunate enough to let my pups run loose. In the past I’ve always taken my pups to the back of the place and let them run the woods while I just sat in the woods in a chair. Once they got to where they were getting out pretty far and could find their way back to me on their own I quit taking them for fun. This was usually by the time they were 3 1/2 - 4 months old. I would show them a hog and get them started baying. Once they got to where they were over confident on the hog I would graduate them to a bigger one, something that could back them up but not destroy their confidence. When I was satisfied that they were hog minded in the sense that they were straight to the hog pen as soon as their gate opened, then I started doing mock hunts and no more bay penning. By the time they were a year old they thought they were hog dogs and never had been on a real uncontrolled hunt. I don’t like to start one on uncontrolled hunts before a year old because of mental maturity. So many people think physical maturity means mental maturity. It’s not that way. A dog can be able to keep up with the pack and not be able to deal with the adversity that a rank hog can deal them. Getting roughed up a little bit is one thing but getting cut down is another. It’s no different than putting a freshman on a varsity football team at a big school. Or putting a 16 year old amateur boxer in the ring with someone like Mike Tyson. He can probably deal with his jabs fine but if he gets hit by one or two or ten of those hay maker rights, he’s probably going to have second thoughts about boxing after that. I don’t like to hunt them too much either. They are like anything else, if they get sore and tired it will start them to picking up bad habits. I like to let them recoup before I hunt them again. A couple hunts a week until they get in better shape is plenty. Once they are in better shape and I’m convinced they know what we are there for, I start casting them ahead of the older dogs and giving them a chance to locate first. Confidence is everything in kids, horses, and dogs.


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[lawdawgharris]

There isn’t right or wrong in my opinion. There’s what works for you and what doesn’t.


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[Beebout-it]

I as well don't have the luxury of free ranging my pups but I'm not sure that I ever would. I'm not willing to let my pups run any off game, and its just to high a chance of them getting themselves into trouble. I may keep a bit to much control of them but they all work great for me. Kinda handle the my hounds like bird dogs, never want them ranging out on their own when I'm out free casting them. I like them to hunt close until they start trailing so I have a good chance to figure out what they are trailing and which direction its going. As time has past I've found myself enjoying raising and training pups continuously versus just having a bunch of finished or nearly finished dogs. Fun watching them progress to the point of needing no help from the old dogs or from me.

[lawdawgharris]

I love watching the progress of young dogs too. I hunt different though. I pull up and collar dogs and usually cast them from there and wait until they bay and go to them. My dogs are silent so I watch my garmin to see which way they are traveling. They will usually hunt a set of woods out and move on to the next set unless a track takes them somewhere else. It’s also usually into the wind.


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[Beebout-it]

They don't open when you get the hog bayed? We mainly hunt from the truck just looking for tracks in the snow so that makes it extremely nice for not handicapping your pup from the start. You knows exactly what your putting them out on. The snow also is a great help to trash breaking the young dogs. I usually will leash up a pup and go for a hike, letting them smell everything they come across and never actually scold them for smelling off game tracks unless they get overly excited. Then if or when we find a cat track praise them good and hike on it a bit. If they show a lot of interest and start pulling at the leash or opening even turn them loose and how far they will go.

[lawdawgharris]

Lol, they don’t open until they are looking at a hog. If you can hear them, they can see it.


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[lawdawgharris]

I cast my young dogs with the older dogs. My older dogs are straight so I don’t worry about them starting my young dogs on trash. I’m also fortunate to live where hogs are plentiful so we are gonna usually have one bayed within 30 minutes of casting. That doesn’t give the young dogs much time to get bored and start looking for trash. If a deer or something jumps up in front of them I usually let them investigate it and then make them leave it if they haven’t left it on their own. I call them off and if that doesn’t work I use that tingling, biting sensation that’s around their neck. I try hard not to use that though. The more experienced they get the harder I try to make it.


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[Beebout-it]

My best dog is that way, silent trailer and when I get a bark notification I start hiking because there's fur in the tree. With that much targeted game your dogs must not do much cold trailing. Are you killing every hog they bay up?

[lawdawgharris]

What is your silent dog breed wise?

We kill every hog we can. There are many land owners that won’t let you come back if they find out you aren’t. The population is ridiculous here and the damage done by them is tremendous, be it rooting up pastures or hay meadows, or the crops that they destroy. They literally will eat ANYTHING they can over power. I use to have pictures of them running off with fawns in their mouth, coons, eating calves, and up inside dead cow carcasses. Turkey nests and quail nests catch it too and they will eat the bird if they catch them on the nest as quick as a coyote or bobcat. We have bayed sounders with 100+ hogs in them. It’s hog paradise here, plenty of food, water, and cover.


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[Beebout-it]

I have ranches i hunt that the owners are the same way about lions, they expect u to kill anything that trees or don't come back. Its hard to imagine and game that thick and destructive. I guess until your around wild hogs you won't get the whole picture.

[lawdawgharris]

Yeah they are powerful. They can go and do whatever they want to. If a rancher has an at will feeder for cattle, the hogs will eat before the cattle. The cattle will actually stand back out of the way and let them have their way. There have been more than one bovine hooked and gutted by big boar hogs because the cattle crowded them. I have seen thousands of dollars spent clearing land and sprigging it and about the time it got thick and lush, a group of hogs come in and turn it upside down. The rooting so deep that the only way to level it out is to bring in a dozer because it will knock the front end out of a tractor. I have stood in rooting that was mid thigh deep on me and I’m 6’2”. The only safe anti hog crop is soy beans. They will demolish corn, milo, watermelon, peanuts, rice, even graze on cotton a little. I had a farmer from about 50 miles away call one time. He begged for us to come hunt up there. Him and his brother had already talked to every land owner around for a good ways to get the ok if we should get on their place. He said they had already RE-planted three times and if the hogs came in and ate their seed behind them again they would have to quit because they would be ruined financially. He said they had sat and waited for them, had other people with dogs come, and had helicopters fly it and nobody had done any good. We went up there and killed 18 in one morning for them. They got their corn up after that. What we didn’t kill moved way away. I have seen 100’s of acres of crops demolished. And even worse they are wasteful. They might take one bite out of an ear of corn or a melon and leave it to go on to another one. The melon is ruined and the corn stalk and all are on the ground so the combines can’t get it, milo stalks and heads the same way. Net wire fences work until the hogs decide they want in or out bad enough and then they pick it up with their nose and go. Their power is unbelievable. My uncle raised some wild pigs once to eat. When they got about 30-35 pounds, he had to quit letting them out of the pen in the evening to graze because they were worse than any dog ever thought about being with killing his chickens. They would get after one and run it down like it was nothing and be gone with it and eat it.


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