2 shoat or not to shoat?

[BigAinaBuilt]

I was reading thru the "how much to feed thread" and after reading DJHogdoggers response about the dogs being able to eat the shoats they catch I was wondering. Does allowing the dogs to eat the shoats cause them to catch more shoats?? I have heard of a few methods of  training a dog to target Boars or just bigger pigs. I also have a dog who was trained this way by my uncle before I acquired him and now it has been passed on to my new dog and I am hoping my puppies will also pick up on this. Does anyone else train their dogs to target the boars or just the bigger pig out of a group?? I will be trying a few techniques of training on my puppy that is ready to get in the forest soon and look forward to seeing what kind of results I can produce.

[djhogdogger]

Well, we do not allow the dogs to eat the choats until we get home and cut them up. So i'm not sure that they realize that they are eating a choat. LOL  As long as we are catching hogs, I'm not too worried about the size of them. They have caught everything from monster boars to 20lb. choats, but they seem to run right past pigglets. When ever they do catch choats, they usually end up catching a good sow before it is all said and done. It would be interesting to see how you train one to only target a big hog, our dogs seem think that big hogs smell just like little hogs. LOL

[BigAinaBuilt]

The easiest method seems to be to raise the puppy with their favorite toy sprayed with dominant boar scent and then call it whatever you want it to find. Then hide the toy and tell them find it until you're in the actual hunt and their tracking down their favorite toy that smells like a dominate boar. My dog was trained by every time he hit a sow or pig smaller then 100 lbs he got scoldings. I have seen him on many occasions while huntnig with friends packs, My friends dog will strike a smaller pig and my dog will just look up at me as to say "it's not me!"  I have no preference as I like to cut and release alot of the pigs I catch. So big or small is fine with me also but I find anything I can teach a dog interesting and fun.

Which then brings up the fact that once a pig is cut he smells different and the dog will have a harder time tracking it! I have no clue how my dog knows the difference but I've also tried to push the dogs on a sound of one walking and he gave me that look  like "It's small" and didn't go but the rest fo the dogs did and it ended up being a 60 pound boar. I've mentioned this to my uncle on a few occassions and he told me he just scolded him alot to break him off of the smaller pigs and sows but I will talk to him again and see if he will elaborate for me.

[Cristina]

I think it has a lot to do also with the age and experience of a dog. For example when our dogs hit a big group I've noticed that our older dogs (5 years +) end up going after the big hogs that broke and usually the young dogs that just started go after whatever is an easy target for them just to catch something and that is usually a shoat or a small sow. Not saying they do this all the time but from the times its happened the young dogs caught the smaller hog and then we hear the older dogs baying on the bigger hog of the group and once the shoat is taken away they go and bay the bigger hog. But that's just my opinion based on what I've seen.

[Austin]

So let me get this right, the dogs can tell the size of the hog just by the smell?

I can understand catching more boar hogs because they have a stronger scent. Hell, I can smell them sometimes, but I dont understand how a dog can differentiate a 30lb shoat from a 200 lb sow.  I am an equal oppurtunity hog hunter, I will take any of them, no matter size, color, or breed. JMO

[BigAinaBuilt]

Austin- With my dog it is based off of the squeelers and the way a smaller pig "walks louder" than a bigger pig. The training method I posted is to train the dog to only target Boars but the size of the boar will still be up to you to push for the bigger ones. The only way to get him to action a sow is if the other dogs stike it up and I answer he will go in and bark it but still has that hesitance fearing getting in trouble for it. When I got him from my uncle he had been talked up so much by my uncles and their hunting partners that at first I was very dissapointed he didn't want anything to do with the first 3 pigs I caught to the point I called up my uncle and questioned the dog only to be have this explained to me! I was expecting a good veteran dog and the dogs would strike and he would just give me that look! I try not to push him on to many sows but sows are where the meat is at so I hope to teach him "big sows are o.k." but I also don't wanna mess with him to much and confuse him.