I read the add in Dog Trade (Training Pen For Rent) and decided to call about it. I took 4 of my young up and comers over to the pen outside of Corsicana, where I met Mike, his son, and Hunter Dan. Now Folks, let me say that these are some of the nicest people your going to meet. We sat around and talked for a bit and then headed down to the pen.
I'll be the first to admit, not knowing what to expect, I thought it was going to be too easy to find hogs in a pen. As we started driving in, I started to realize that this might give the dogs more of a challenge that I originally thought. There were plenty of brush piles and small thickets that two hogs could be hiding anywhere.
I went ahead and dropped two of my young dogs out and sat at the truck talking to the guys. About 10 mins later (I was getting worried) my two young dogs opened up. We walked down to where they had the hog bayed in a brush pile and after a few minutes, spooked the hog so it would break and the dogs would have to follow and get it stopped again. Once they got it stopped and bayed again in a thicket, I called them out which was easier than I figured it would be (took me about two minutes of calling). Mike, his son(Fats) and Hunter Dan went back up to the house and I had the pen to myself for the rest of the day.
I flushed the hog from the thicket and headed back to the truck to get two more young dogs and give them a shot. After a few minutes they hit a track and struck also and I did the same thing that I did with the first two dogs.
I switched the dogs out and hunted them solo letting each one get plenty of chances to take a track and strike their own hog, hopefully building up some confidence and getting them some experience.I made sure to take the dogs away from the last direction I saw the hog or hogs going and drop them off there so they would not just jump right on the track and would actually have to look for it. I'm sure that after a while the dogs had to look harder and pay attention to which trail was hotter as the hogs moved around more. I lost count at about 15 or so times.
I definantly noticed some improvement and seen exactly how the dogs were hunting. I had a blast and have to admit, that I was suprised on how well the hogs were hiding and how hard the dogs were hunting to find them. Most of the time, I didnt know where the 2 hogs were. Plain and simple, the dogs actually had to find the hog before it moved.
It was nice to be able to sit back and watch the dogs hunt and work and admire the way they did it.
I will defininately not hesitate on going back or on taking my finished dogs there to tune them up when things get slow.
Here are some pics that my wife took.