BigGameHoundsmen.com

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Trying this again, I tried twice yesterday and it wouldn’t post.

In response to lawdog’s post.
I feel ya. Back when, I had no problem walkin the hog dogs around. But those were just small 20 to 1,000 acre ranches. Now, if mine take a line, I usually just take the easiest route and try to judge where they’re headed, so I catch up when they get there. It’s much more enjoyable to ride my hay burners than hiking around. especially if I knock somethin out of a tree. Besides I hike too much at work as it is ha ha.
I sure do enjoy training pups though. Maybe as my pack gets better and I build my kennels up right, I’ll start selling a dog or two each year to pay for their feed.

My puppies are currently being born , the wife and kid are sending me pics as they arrive. 2 males and a female so far.

That makes you a pawpaw. Pretty fitting name for a dog man lol.


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6 pups born 1 of which was still born. I already can't wait to take them to the woods

So my 9 month old was in and out of a 19.5 mile race with my older dog for about half of it. Made some smaller river crossings but didn't swim the big river with the old dog. Any special ways to get her used to swimming other than just taking to a lake or river and trying to play in the water?

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I always take pups to the water on leash and walk in and out , walk them in until the waters just about deep enough to swim and just stand and hangout ill praise them a bit . Not sure what your running but if its a option a coon on a float should do it.

I run bear but the float idea is very interesting. I'm sure I could get something on there they want bad enough to go get it.

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Old guy I know thats been of dogs a long time told me that he use to tie a coon off a bridge over a strong current to keep his dogs in shape when it was hot out. He would hang it just above the water so the dogs would swim right under it as long as they could. The northwest houndsmen association here in montana uses a live coon on a float for their water races and its way better than the dummy with a coon hide over we use at ours.

For the original question, at what age and why....I begin to carry mine when they look to be big enough to follow along behind the big dogs and not get too lost. No specific reason why, just how I've always done it. Time of year and running I'm having or if I'm hunting close to home or hours away also plays a role in when I start carrying a pup, like to start them close to home til I get a good hunting handle on them.

I do things a little different or have a different mind set. I hunt hogs, but I can’t imagine that it’s that different, if any in regards to this. I was told something MANY years ago by an old mentor. I had to listen to his advice because the man was good and successful at everything he did. I had a pup, runt of the litter, but a spit fire little dude. He was about 8 months old and just as athletic and catty as person could ask for. I just knew he was going to be phenom. Since I didn’t have any doubts about him being able to keep up or about his want to, I loaded him up. Way bayed a bad dude that morning. He didn’t want to stay put and the dogs just kept giving back what he was dishing out trying to keep him bayed. Well my pup was doing great and then he got caught. The hog nearly cut his front leg off. That sounds bad and extreme but that’s exactly what it was. We got him put back together and healed up but he never barked at another live hog. His littermates that I was around all made nice dogs, but I never felt like they had that “it” factor that Shorty had. I was talking about it with my mentor and he told me
I started the dog too soon. He said it’s usually about that year old mark, give or take a month or two, that most dogs mentally start to mature. He said many of them are physically capable much sooner and make good dogs so long as they don’t run into that wrong experience before they are mentally mature enough to cope with it. He said if you take a 15-16 year of kid and and put him in a boxing ring with the heavy weight champ, more than likely he’ll never want to box again. If he does, he won’t fight with the same style or intensity that came natural to him. How many times have you seen a coon dog pup just trash a roll cage or something so they get started in the woods and are all of a sudden in a real fight because they caught a sure enough bad coon on the ground, or caught one in the water that nearly drowned them. More times than not, that pup won’t fight a coon anymore, especially solo. They may tree and and all but they aren’t going force one to do anything and sometimes won’t even stay if the coon is on the ground. He said the difference in just a couple of months can make all the difference in how a young dog deals with adversity. I’ve found that to be very true and I don’t start my hog dogs on actual hunts until 10 months to a year, depending on the dog.


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