mock hunt ideas lets hear em

When pups are around 16 weeks old, put a small pig in their pen and let them bay it, chew it, etc. Let them get some fur in their mouth and get a good taste for it so they darn sure know what one smells like. Keep the sessions short, never let the pups get bored or lose interest. Always stop the session when the pups are screaming for more. In other words, the pups ALWAYS need to win the game. Never let the pups get trashed or run over by the pig when they are this young, so make sure the pig is small enough they can dominate it. Praise them real good immediately afterwards. Now they will do it for themselves and do it for you too. Do this a few times, maybe once per month, but don't overdo it. When the pups are around 6 months old, put a medium size hog in a cage. Let young dogs bay it from outside the cage. If you have a big enough pen, let them bay and work a loose hog in a pen, but once again, make sure the pig is not going to trash the young dogs. Do this a few times, always stopping the session short while the pups still want more. When they get a little older (you decide) take a medium size hog and hobble it. Go to the woods, and drag the hog a pretty good ways, laying a sent on the ground. Now at this point, some people tie the hog. Another way Ive seen it done is to shoot the hog in both front feet with a .22. Im not saying I would do this, but it works. Turn the dogs loose back at the starting point of the drag line and let them go to the hog. When they get there, they got a hog standing there for them that cant run, and they can just stand back and bay it. Do this a few times. Each time, make it take a while longer for you to get to them, this will teach them to stay until you get there. When they get old enough to keep up with grown dogs, just turn a young pup loose with a couple of finished dogs. From this point, all you can do is keep them in the woods and let them figure it out for themselves. NEVER turn more than one young dog out at a time. Two young dogs will play with each other and distract each other. They will also pick up bad habits from older dogs and other pups that have bad habits. When I hunted a lot, I always turned out ONLY one young dog with two good dogs.

I aint no trainer, but this method worked for me on starting young dogs.