I am currently raising my first two hog dog pups, and both have been in a pen 5 or 6 times with a pig. My question has to do with one pup in particular. She is almost 10mos old, and the first few times in the pen she would bay good and tight, right in the pigs face, but not want to catch the pig. The last two times in she keeps nipping at the head or ear, but wont latch on. But when the hog tries to run, she grabs hold of its back end and wont let go. She'll spin the hog in cicles until the hog gets free or she lets go, whichever it is, then gets right back in its face.
To me, being new to this, I am pretty happy with it as this seems like a good thing to stop a runner. But my concern/question is if this will get her hurt in the future. She is just on a little 60lb pig right now, and when she has hold of it rear the pig keeps turning and hooking her. What will happen on a bigger pig with some teeth? Last time in the pen, we put one of my buddies older dogs in with her, and as soon as my buddies dog caught ear, my pup latched on the other ear. Do ya'll think she will learn to catch ear with some more age and experience, or keep going for the back end, or both? She looks like she really wants to catch the front end, just not sure about doing it yet. I realize she is young, but was wondering if dogs seem to do the same things, or change their ways as they get older.
My buddy that I got her from said he is happy as can be with her, but I am just looking for some different and unbiased opinions. I have a short video clip if anyone is interested I can PM the link, but I didnt want to post it here. Rear end stoppers , a desired trait some hunters,breeders over here in oz and nz breed for,southern parts of oz are very thick and steep, this is where these dogs excell
