Training Pups

[Reuben]

Roading Pups
I was watching a video the other day where someone was roading his dogs…once I saw the video, I thought I should write about roading again on account it has been years since I posted on roading…
In the video the driver never slowed down, and the dogs stopped at least 5 times checking on a track or scent but then immediately left it running to get in front of the vehicle…these dogs have been conditioned to only take smoking hot tracks…probably without the dog handler having a clue what he is doing or has done…
Roading for all around nose…

Road the dogs at not too high speed watching and reading the pups…when they stop to check something, we should stop and let the pups work it or if they decide to move on then we follow…with pups, if they take the track wait until they come back or strike…we want the pups to trust that we are always there…we want them focused on the task at hand and not the dog handler…this teaches the pups to take any track they can handle according to their genetics…
If the pups are getting tired, we are traveling too fast…slow it down, it is all about the dogs…

Rigging Pups
Assuming pups have been taught to wind on a few staged pigs…
Speed doesn’t have anything to do with winding…we can be traveling 80 MPH down the Highway and the dogs will blow up in the dog box when they smell hog scent drifting out of the woods and crossing the road...
We want to go slow enough so the dogs won’t be bouncing and losing their balance…we want to travel crosswind with the idea the hog scent is crossing our path…we are watching our pups and dogs, if the dogs or dog is winding and casts off but comes back and tries again…what more than likely is happening is that the dog is winding hog from the deck but once he is in the brush he loses the scent…it is our job to figure out where the pigs are and get closer…we all know the dogs do not think as we do…
Sometimes the dog with the best nose will pick up his nose to the wind but it is not enough to make him take to it…as dog handlers we decide if we should turn into the wind, and if we do…just maybe in a ¾ mile the dogs will whine and off the deck and roll out to some feeding or bedded down hogs…
Training pups is very easy to do if they were born to hunt…we can bring the best out of them when done correctly…or we could ruin the next potential world champion by making a few wrong moves…
This thread is for the new hog hunter…the old dog folks please forgive my ramblings, you are most welcome to add in building of better hunting dogs, your experiences are most welcome…thanks

[Austesus]

Good topic Reuben, I always enjoy these discussions. When I first started hunting I had no option but to walk. Even if I had a buggy or a four wheeler it wouldn’t have done me much good. The guy that taught me how to hunt only walk hunts and so that’s how he taught me, and he ended up taking a break from hunting for almost two years and he gave me permission for all of his land. The majority of that land had no access to anything but feet, there were too many creeks and flooded areas that you had to cross to be able to get any vehicle back there.

This past year I joined a club for the first time, about 2k acres with some nice roads. Now this is a deer dog club and so there’s a lot of dog pressure, and during deer season I can only hunt from after dark until about 3-4am. The hogs are not staying on that property and they come through after sunrise so I’ve been missing them every time I’ve went, which has been about 25 times this year.

With that being said, I’ve been roading my young dogs in there this year and have thoroughly enjoyed hunting that way. I have not yet had them catch a hog with that style, but it’s at no fault of their own. I start by getting them out of the box, bringing them to the front of the truck and giving them the command “get ahead”. It didn’t take but a few times for them to learn that when i say “get ahead” I mean go out and hunt in the direction I’m sending you. I will ride with my foot on the brake so I’m moving slow, and the dogs will typically trot in front of the truck, out at the edge of the headlights. When I first started hunting them like that they’d blow down the road out to 300-400yds, but now that they’ve gotten more hunts like that, they’re hanging closer. They will typically trot head up trying to wind, and will occasionally stop and check tracks. When they stop I immediately stop the truck and watch them, I’ll wait for them to come back out to the road and start going again before I move. I’ve had them trash on a few armadillos like this, so even though they haven’t caught hogs like that I know they’re hunting. When I walk, these dogs usually hunt between 200-400yds out. They’ll cast about that far and then will continue to range out if I don’t pick them up and move when they check back in.

I have a 2022 Ranger SP570-4 on order that should be here in a few weeks. I’m looking forward to hunting out of that and doing a lot more roading and rigging. It’s looking like I’ll have a few more spots this year that I’ll be able to hunt by buggy.


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[Arkansashunter96]

I kind of went through the same thing this year on my lease I hunted it from March to the start of bow season and once my walker opened on track and couldn’t work it out. Just got the go ahead that I could go run it again. During my long dry spell I got the chance to teach my pups on how to road hunt similar to how you did. A lot of chances to load and unload dogs teaching them how to cast and to just be pups and burn off steam. I love my Toyota for road huntin. Throw in in 2 low and just crawl. Gives you plenty of time to check tracks and gives the dogs time as well. If you ever buy a truck from someone that roads a lot just know that starter has some usage lol.

[Austesus]

I agree completely, I think it was a good way to teach my young dogs. A few times I thought they had something caught but they were trashing. After dry holing them a bunch of times like that, I don’t mind them trashing on an armadillo. I’ll scold them a little but I don’t get real worked up over it. I’ll give them a good whipping over trashing on a possum just because I like possums. It helped me to confirm that they’re actually hunting though and not just running roads.

It helped a lot with teaching one or my dogs to load up. He loads up fine at the house but once he starts hunting he doesn’t like to load back up. He will try to slip off and keep hunting. Having some roads for the first time I’d be a fool not to take advantage of them. I made him run behind the truck for about 3 miles, I’d slow down and right before he got to the tail gate I’d speed up again just out of his reach. It took a few hunts of running him down


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[Austesus]

Sorry, didn’t mean to post that yet. Anyways, took a few hunts of running him down like that and now he loads right up. He realized it’s a lot more fun to load up and get cast somewhere else than it is to chase the truck lol. I’m hoping that my new Ranger will be here in the next few weeks and that will take over as my primary hunting rig. I’ve had the chance to hunt out of them a couple of times over the last 2 years and really enjoy it. I enjoy walking as well, but this will just be another tool at my disposal to use when going to certain properties. I plan to tie some pigs off, maybe 100yds inside the woods off the edge of roads, and then ease the buggy down the road on the down wind side to get my dogs rigging better. My dogs will rig from the boat but most of the places they do are places that I can’t cut them loose unfortunately. Most of the places that we can turn out on, the hogs are deeper off the water so the dogs don’t get very many opportunities to rig and actually be sent on what they’re rigging. From a training standpoint I hate to see them going crazy smelling hog and not be able to cut em loose. I think this is a very efficient way to hunt though. When we do our annual WMA hunt we scout for sign the day before it opens and then we turn out on those spots we like the following morning. After that first day the hogs are all scattered from getting ran by so many people so we just put my buddy Shane’s Pepper dog on the box the 2nd and 3rd day of the hunt and let her rig and then we turn out where she opens and we catch a lot of pigs like that.


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[Arkansashunter96]

I’ve always wanted to try the training to rig thing but it’s so difficult now that they changed the rules in Arkansas and trying to set it up doesn’t sound so easy. But I bet it’s worth it. The good thing about it going once or twice a week roading since March is my dogs are in pretty good shape by now. I’m going with a mule finally decided it’d be worth it and make it somewhat more fun. It’s hard to rod hunt at my spot too due to the hogs being around the water and it’s so deep out in there I think having a mule would help a lot. I just hate leaving anything on the table haha. My damn bird dog pup I think is going to be winding machine if he makes it maybe with deer anyhow. Ive been thinking my pups been running deer. Last week I’m looking down into this gully its been cut and somewhat grew up and he just floats down to this brush pile and out pops the biggest buck I’ve seen all year

[The Old Man]

I don't ever road dogs, I believe it to teach some potentially dangerous habits, with them used to having a vehicle behind them and they come out on a road they may not get out of the way of other drivers and even if they do they may attempt to follow the other vehicle or even if they went through a place and came out on a road they are more apt to just run the road rather than return towards the cast, plus the dogs here rig well so they don't need to be on the ground to find game, and it saves lots of unnecessary miles on them that I'd rather save for the game.
Dogs that rig well have strong winding instincts, and will open on the first and very faint whiff. Those with the right instincts pick it up naturally and very quickly, often on just the first few hunts pups will rig, you just need to have broke them from  idle barking while being hauled and then if they bark put them down, if you don't put them down they learn it is useless to bark when they smell something on the rig. Now this applies to open dogs, I know of guys with Cur Dogs that run silent that their dog will just whine or maybe they watch them for an action to know they are smelling something. You can also do some trash breaking from the rig, after they have started rigging and have been on proper game a few times, if you see deer or a coyote and when you get there if they rig it shock them. It does not hamper them from rigging proper game and if it does they weren't gonna make it anyway. At the end of the day it is extremely hard to ruin a good one, and if it is not a good one, we're wasting our time on them anyway.

[Reuben]

Old man…you’ve made some good points…

The main reason I wrote about roading was to speak about folks who road their dogs and never pay attention to the dogs unless they take a track…this is teaching the dogs to only take hot tracks…

The other thing about roading is if the wind is coming from the wrong direction or the game is traveling towards the downwind side the dogs have a chance to work the track…I prefer the dogs to not miss any potential track that can be followed…if it’s up to me I will not hurry for two reasons…one is the dogs will rest as needed and two…the dogs learn to work all tracks that they can follow…at least that is the goal…the other issues just using common sense as best we can…

[Arkansashunter96]

Yes and the pads on their feet get worked over to well sometimes too. Even when I’m crawling along sometimes I feel like it’s to fast.

[The Old Man]

If they could have smelled it on the ground they can smell it off the rig and the wind direction is the same whether the dog is on the ground or the rig. They real often strike off the rig tracks that have not crossed the road, but if it has they will work the track from the road if it didn't cross the road they work the track from the point that they reach it. Unless the road is really rough and bouncing me around I usually drive 15-40 mph when rigging and sometimes they strike while traveling at 80 on the highway.

[The Old Man]

In fact sometimes "conditions I guess" I will get a rig strike that they make sound really good when it is a track nearly too old or once in a while too old to line out, guess the scent is up off the ground, I don't know.

[Arkansashunter96]

Pretty interesting. Sounds like I need to get it together and start training. Seems like we’re taking the longest bathroom break ever when I road anyways too lol

[Reuben]

My belief is when the dogs are on the ground they will work a track that they won’t when rigging, talking about cold tracks here…sometimes the dogs can wind a hog from the platform but once on the ground will loose it once they get in the thick brush…usually because the scent is coming from a long ways off and it is coming from over the brush…lots of scenarios that can consider…but that’s what makes hunting with dogs very interesting and entertaining…

[The Old Man]

That's not always true, folks that mainly rig for game with dogs that are very inclined to rig will see what I described a few or several times per year. I'm talking about get a rig strike and whether the track crossed the road or is a long ways parallel to the road it be cold enough for them to just barely be able to make it go or might not even be able to  get it out and warmed up. Again I lay it off to conditions, and of course some dogs are better rig dogs than others, sometimes scent lays close to the ground and holds well, sometimes it rises without much dissipation, sometimes it dissipates quickly. temperature, humidity, air pressure, sun or no sun, wind, thermals, topography, all play a part. I can't explain how each or combinations there of effect trailing but I see it in dht dogs. One time I had a pair of dogs take what i knew was a 9-10 hour old track "hardly ever do I know how old a track is" a few days later the same dogs could not take a track that I saw the hog make 45 minutes earlier, same dogs same area had to be conditions that were the difference.
Lots of people believe dogs only rig warmer tracks and others won't even put down on a rig strike that doesn't "sound" good. You mentioned not waiting on the dogs to work a track would condition them to run only hotter tracks. I hunt alone lots of the time and will often put down on a real cold or weak rig strike just to see if they can make it go and I'm not wasting anyones time but my own so I've piddled with the scenario quite a bit.

[Reuben]

I’ve seen about the same as what you are talking about…the many variables keeps it interesting…

[Arkansashunter96]

Yeah you’ll hurt your head trying to figure the scent and weather thing. My buddy finally told me it was hog season and we hit the woods. He told me it was a new spot we were just going to check out so I brought a easy handling short range dog and a pup. His dogs were kind of out of shape and we ar whooping them in. Those dogs hunted everywhere. And we even had hogs on a trail camera from that night supposedly. But the ground was frozen. And we couldn’t find a track where they were at.  We didn’t even strike one. Tonight I roaded slick and left my bird dog pups in the box. Most of the time he’s pretty easy to road we didn’t get very far until he went out so I knew he was on one. We caught a couple of small pigs. Got one ready for the grill

[Judge peel]

I do a lot of roading  and rigging. The big trick is reading your dog. You have true rig dog that can wind the track and jump on it and go then you have a grinder that just works hard but to the untrained eye you think the dog has a great nose but really it’s working hard to make up for the lack of nose. Then some have a good nose but might be a little lazy on a cool track but not a cold nose dog. Far as roading you can push them to hard cuz they will not investigate sign. I do a lot of stopping and setting rigging and casting mixed together. My biggest thing is once there on don’t quit.


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[Reuben]

I do a lot of roading  and rigging. The big trick is reading your dog. You have true rig dog that can wind the track and jump on it and go then you have a grinder that just works hard but to the untrained eye you think the dog has a great nose but really it’s working hard to make up for the lack of nose. Then some have a good nose but might be a little lazy on a cool track but not a cold nose dog. Far as roading you can push them to hard cuz they will not investigate sign. I do a lot of stopping and setting rigging and casting mixed together. My biggest thing is once there on don’t quit.


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I agree...

[The Old Man]

I have told it before, and it definitely was the exception rather than the rule, but the longest "cold" rig strikes I have had that were "successful"  was one 8 hundred and some yards and one 9 hundred and some yards to the track, both times they had to work quite a while and a long ways to get it warmed up and jumped and both times they put the meat on the end of a long race, apparently conditions were just right or they would not have known it was even on the same continent. Wish it was that way everytime haha.

[Reuben]

Old man…that is impressive