what age do you start your pups

[chaseb]

I was just was wondering what age you guys start your pups or if you can start them to early and will pick up bad habbits

[hotshot630]

I got a 4 month old B&T pup I'm ready to start him as soon as I find a hunting buddy here in East TN.

[briarpatch]

Start your pup when it shows you that it wants to trail and it is mature enough to handle the woods. Of course, you should have already put a decent handle on it.

[Rossco]

when it comes to coon hunting i dont think that you can start to soon. All dogs are different and they will show you when they are ready. Show a pup a coon, and see how it reacts. If things look good, then you can put it on a sight race. If it does good with that then let it see a coon run out of sight and then normally the pup will go to whre he last saw it and then use his nose to find where it went. Using older dogs to help teach a pup is good, but try to let the pup do it by himself sometimes, it will help build a better dog.

[sswhitney]

View My Video
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here are a couple snipits of yesterdays training with my 3.5 month old pup here in southern NM, it was hot and the dogs showed it. I had them working this cage for over 45 mins as I had my pup and a friends older dog I was trying to turn on. The pup turned on the minute I let her go, and by the end of the training, so did my buddies dog.

[cmogi10]

View My Video
View My Video

here are a couple snipits of yesterdays training with my 3.5 month old pup here in southern NM, it was hot and the dogs showed it. I had them working this cage for over 45 mins as I had my pup and a friends older dog I was trying to turn on. The pup turned on the minute I let her go, and by the end of the training, so did my buddies dog.

Note, I am not speaking from experience, I am just curious.

I have read and heard from numerous people that you want to limit the exposure to the coon and letting it go at it for 45 minutes would be more trouble in the long run then just letting it see it for 5 minutes. "too much of a good thing is not a good thing"
I first heard this in Wick's book.

Is there any validity to this?

[chaseb]

thanks for the help

[sswhitney]

Well as for too much of a good thing is not a good thing, I don't know. Here is a slightly different prospective, esp when Big Game Hunting out west. Many times these dogs are trailing/treeing for hours before we get to the tree. This is not the case in most situations out east, where the hunter can get to the dogs in a reasonable time frame. I have seen my dogs tree for over 6 hours, now is that too much of a good thing? I am by no means an expert at these dogs, but in the video you hear me over and over working on a dog named Ruger. This dog would not tree or bay up anything until this training exersize. If you saw all 11 videos, which you didn't because I didn't post them, you would have seen this dog running around like a bird dog, not paying any attention to this coon, but in these videos, you see some tired dogs working a cage like they are supposed to, keeping pressure on the animal so it stays in a tree, if I had let them, they would have dispatched this coon in seconds, but that is not what I was training for. I let my good dogs work with the green dogs and pup and really got them all turned on. Now as for 45 mins, I only quit then because my dogs were showing signs of heat fatigue. But in the woods, they would not get that luxury. Training is just like anything else, everyone has the way they do it, some say this works, some say that works, I don't know. I do know I can take a dog like Ruger, or that Blue dog of mine, and get them working a tree in 3 or 4 sessions, I can get them trailing a drag scent really well shortly after that. I have done this 4 times now, and oly had 1 dog that didn't ever turn on. I have my lead dog now running bears with a friend of mine, and he loves that dog. I trained him the same way I am doing these dogs.Don't take my word as gospil as it is just what I do and I am only a 2.5 year vetran with only 9 coon, 3 cat trees and 1 bear tree under my belt. I know I would have more coons, but I only run them when I cant get to my cat country. Hope this optinion proves helpful in understanding my reason for 45 minute cagework. SW
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[cjohnson1178]

start them YOUNG, keep it FUN and POSITIVE. then asap get them off the cage and drags and into the woods. Showing a dog to many cages will make it a lazy hunter. dont make a habit of giving it to them, make them go get it.

[sswhitney]

Amen to that, keep them hunting, to add just a bit to my last post, I believe if a dog will tree, and you make it a good experience, they will trail to tree harder. That again is just my opinion. SW

[july_hound]

normally.. when there around 2-3 months old i just let them play and goof off.. when they get up around 5 months/or start running/treein stuff ill put them up.. weight a week or two.. then start basic obedience.. then when they get up around 8 months old... ill start gettin them used to ridin.. that only takes like a week or two.. depending on the dog/bloodline ill normally start them around 10 months old.. but thats not all cases.. i had a BIG PUPPY out of a very popular rebone line that i didn't start till he was 2 cause i felt he wasn't ready.. im 100% sure that you need to let them mature a bit before startin huntin... my yote/rabbit dogs i normally start them when there a year old...

this is just how i do it though.. i work alot of dogs.. i mean ALOT... so i constantly have a prospect or two around

[chaseb]

thank all of you for your posts