Noah, you baited me right in
You can't have to much communication with a working dog, both verbal and through body language. Your body language is just as important as the verbal, many hunters don't pay as much attention to this as they could. Being an old horse trainer I am allways thinking " non-verbal" first, backed by verbal. My good finished dogs I can freeze in their tracks with a look, call out with a single whistle and a turn of my back, send to stock with a big nod and a focused look, change direction at a distance with a whistle facing the direction they need to work. All of this non verbal work helps when hunting wild cattle that will leave the country at the sound of a mans voice from a mile away. I guarantee that your dog is allways paying attention to your body language whether you are or not. This directly carries over to hog hunting as stealth is of up most importance. I rarely use any loud verbal cues when hunting.
The most important thing to me, in a cow dog, is that the dog learns to "read" me so that I don't have to be yelling all the time. The other big thing is working on handle without fear in the dog, and I want the dog to respond to a command with his name. This helps with individual control and balance when working cattle.
A response with-out fear builds a bold, aggressive, independent dog that is not afraid to think, try, and possibly fail. Sometimes I will ask a dog for something and he will not yield to me and he will give me the look "your a moron boss, watch this". I defer to his judgement and see how it works out, more times than not the dog was right. I don't want a dog to be afraid of me, but I want zero doubt that I am the pack leader and that we are all on the same team.
Things I need the dog to do for me when I as?
Number one is a call out command (OUT, name) backed by a crack of my whip. Get back to me right now and stop working.
If the dog is of off the truck, or out from behind my horse he should be hunting. I control how deep a dog hunts by the speed I am traveling. No verbal commands ever.
When a dog is bayed I like to be able to loosen him up (easy now, name) or have him get a little tougher (get a hold, name)
Lead out, to lead when the stock are ready.
Hear-to -me,name, is a command I use when I need the dog to check back in for some reason.
i use a growl as a warning that they should get back or get down, or leave something alone (trash) or cattle while hog hunting.
I don't care if a dog loads up on command. If I turn them lose at the house they better be hunting the truck or trailer. I don't really want a dog loading on the truck in the field with-out me asking for them to load. If I put them down, I expect them to hunt on the ground and when I want them back on the truck I will put them there myself.
Gotta go air up a trailer tire and check some bulls before dark, interesting topic, will check back in a bit.
Thanks,
Paul T
