EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

 Okay, I have a question on culling. We have a litter on the ground that i have really high hopes for. We started with 10 pups and lost 2 due to illness. They are coming 6 months and we have started them on pigs. All but one pup really enjoy baying a pig. Some are loose and some are gritty but they are all getting in there and cant wait to get at the pig....except for one pup. He will bay from the outside of the pen, and he will bay a little from the inside of the pen with two other pups. But when we put him in the pen by himself he goes to the gate and wants out.

 I have had a few people tell me that he will probably be the best dog in the litter because the one who turns on last usually is. I was thinking that i need to go ahead and cull him. We have been working with them for a month now and the rest of the litter will bay by themselves and are ready for a bigger hog. This guy is just not showing much interest.

At 6 months and being worked for a month (about 2 times a week) is now the time to cull?

Sure I'll be told I'm wrong, but I would wait. Try him on a pig tied outside the pen. Some of the best dogs I've seen wouldn't work in a pen at all, but were awesome in the woods.

Put him up and forget about him till he is about 12 months and try him again.But if your like me i have to many pups and the ones that work right now are the ones you want. My last litter i had one that done the same thing and i just put him up to mature and he is the best one now.

 Okay thanks guys. I have already chosen 3 pups that we are going to keep and i am placing the remaining pups in homes where i can watch their progression. The thing is, that i don't want to place a cull with someone to have to feed if its not going to work out. And I sure don't want a cull in the world with my name attatched to it. So i will probably keep him a bit longer and let him mature a little more and see what happens. I also know that there is always culls in a litter, so we may have more culls by the time we make it to the woods.

It seems like most pups bred to hunt will bark at a pig, but thats only a small part of being a hunting dog. The next hurdle will be leaving our feet in the woods.

6 months is still very young.

Is it a male or female? From my experience the males usually take a little longer to mature than the females.

But I dont expect anything till after 1 year old

At six months old...you don't know what will and what won't work out for the woods...

I know how hard it is to keep feeding a pup that isn't doing anything while the others are fired up and goin at 6 months. I also know how it is to have to cull most of those that were fired up at 6 months and then wonder how that other one would have done if I had only kept him till he was a year old.  On my yard I don't cull nothin now until a year old. The best dog I've ever owned wouldn't even look at a hog till he was a year old...
The Woodrow dog Scott has I almost culled at 10 months old because he had no interest in a hog yet...

Its a male, and thank you for your input everyone. Its deffinately food for thought.

The pup might turn out to be the best... Personally I would never know because I would cull it if I had the whole litter. One reason is I couldn't keep many and the other reason is that if I kept these type of dogs then I would expect to get these type of pups from these dogs. I would try to get a pup that is doing what you like now and that hopefully it will be the best when grown. Chances are this type of dog would produce pups that start earlier than later.

I had one that wouldn't look at a hog in the pen. I took him  out the pen and  got him to chase something small in a open field. Once he started chasing he got better. He had no heart on leash or pen. I guess he felt trapped but like I said once he strarted chasing  things changed. It's work in progress.

 Personally I wouldnt cull anything until they are 12-14 months old unless the dog has a genetic disorder or some kind of handicap such as hip problems, etc.

ive got a buddy who had a bmc puppy that at 8 months would piss himself if you put him in a pen with a hog. he is now all catch no bark.

I'm sure glad he showed you a little something good enough to put him in the trailer, Matt ;)

He was in our 20 acre pen for about 2 hours that day and would not do NOTHIN. The other dogs were running hogs all around him and he would just walk off.. I was at the truck gettin ready to go and shawn came riding up and had all his dogs caught up. I had about done decided he wasn't gonna make the trip back to my house. Shawn was loading his dogs up and said you might wanna go help that woodrow dog out, I said oh he's about to get some help. Shawn said well when I left him down there he was caught on the big hog and I don't think he was winning. I decided to bring him on home...

This post makes me think I will give the little guy some more time.  ;D