I start exposing my dogs to hogs at around 6 weeks to get them used to the smell and sounds of hogs. Keep a small hog in a small pen. Every few weeks I walk them around the pen. When they get around 3 or 4 months old I'll bring an older dog to bay the hog and get the pups fired up. When they act like they want the hog bad enough and I feel they are old enough to handle it, I'll put them in the pen with a small easy hog. After they can handle the hog and build up confidence one on one, I put them in a 3 acre wooded pen. After they "find" the hog in the 3 acre pen they are ready to go hunting. 99% of the dogs I do this with look like really well started woods dogs their first time in the woods.
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Buddylee has a good system going here and it will work for sure if the dogs have it in them...also like someone mentioned. hunt the pups where you see fresh hog sign or keep them in the dog box until the straight dogs open on a track or hog and then turn the pups in... once or twice like this and the pups are ready to run with the big dogs...by this time I already have the pups deer broke...
Take the pups somewhere where they can rome without getting into trouble and turn them out and just ignore them...Ignoring them will encourage them to go find something to do and you want them to range out...What is exciting is when you take a 3.5 month old pup to the woods and he makes a loop and checks in five minutes later...
Myles has a good system too...
but there is more than one way to skin a cat and it is the small things that can set back a pup or can bring out the best in one if the small things are done right...
I say the small things because we would be writing a chapter if we included the small details...so just use common sense when training a pup.
