training with tame hogs

[jdt]

 im sposed to be having acouple of young weatherford ben dogs coming  and the place i have hogs to hunt is about 75 minutes away. iwondered about getting a cull hog out of  a feed floor and turning loose to let them go find, if i couldnt catch him he wouldnt be hard dispatch as most are slow or crippled. if i let a wild hog get away here id never get out of jail.

my question is would it be close enough to the same animal to do the dogs any good?
would it make them over confdent and get them killed in the real world? i wouldnt do it alot just to get em going good in a controlled situation and where we could get to know each other. i also plan on trappin some wild hogs up there to train with but wont have time to go as often as i like. what d yall think?

[jdt]

i really would like some feedback on this

[slimpickins]

I think it would be a great way to start a training session with a new pup, but other than that....I'm unsure.

[uglydog]

I have used tame hogs in the past, and have nothing against it. The problem with some tame hogs is they don't know or don't care to try and defend them selves. This IS VERY BAD to train your dog on.

I had a Giant sow, that would eat out of my hand, follow a feed bucket anywhere I wanted to go, and expected some back scratches, that was a great pup trainer. That hog would hear the chain on the gate rattling and start coming, whem Bessie saw a dog she was in training mode. She would go head to head with any  dog, and fight. She whooped alot of dogs that wanted to be tuff and try to catch, I loved her, she taught alot of dogs to bay and bay with respect.
I have tried with some other hogs that would just squeal and try to run and one dog would have a hogs hams ripped and crippled within minutes, making them absolutely useless to me.

So to answer your question, it is like anything else, they are individuals, some may be good and some may just be a peice of pork your dog is gonna chew on. I would take a dog that is gonna bark at them through the fence and the hogs that charge the fence  and appear to want to eat your dog, might be worth taking home and trying out.
Train on something with attitude because that is what they are gonna get in the woods, and you want to train them the way you are gonna hunt them.

[jdt]

thanks, thats kinda what i thought , i can get them cull hogs for nothing . the dogs are sposed to be 11 mo. and started. i thought i would kick one out in the woods and wait a while then send the dogs to find em just to get some practice and handle on em before going to the real world. but ifigured to much of that might get em hurt on a real hog, he said they were kinda catchy anyway.
                                                                                              anybody iteresed in coming to tennesse and catchin some hogs around some crop feilds? these hogs have never been run!

[aladatrot]

Don't let your wife teach the hog to come when called and do stupid pig tricks. I did this with "Delta" my pet wild caught hog. She is the world's biggest mooch at pushing 200 lbs and I won't let chris bay anything but little puppies on her. She will all but climb into your lap for donuts or cinnamon flavored oatmeal. I won't let her so much as get a scratch on her, and she is a full blown pet. She is my child along with a couple of Aussie Dogs (www.circlecaussies.com - thanks sean).

Letting the wife get attached pretty much ruins your baying hog :O)

M

[jdt]

lol thanks aladatrot, my wife knows that any thing here thats not a horse,mule or dog is probably going to wind up in the smokehouse or freezer. the little kids hadnt quite got the concept yet though. i wondered how you tamed a wild hog, 10 or 12 years ago we had some wild ones on the other side of the county that hank williams jr. turned out and a guy caught a baby and fed it out . we [i was just a kid] killed  and blocked out their  meat hogs for em and they had to shoot that one one the trailer he was still wild after being bottle fed as a pig. are you some kind of pig whisperer? hahaha

[aussiedogger]

i bottle fed a wild baby hog from a few days old. turned out just like a dog. it'd roll over for a scratch, come to its name and follow you to the ends of the earth. most affectionate animal i ever owned