Yea guys I've just been watchin and readin everyones response and wish I'd posted it earlier. I've got/had a very well started gyp. At 6 months she was goin step for step with very good dogs and would bay the hair off a hog. But she didn't really have the know how to work a hog. 1st good hog tore the artery out her neck, couple hundred later and a late night vet trip she was good. Got her healed and sure enough first good hog hits her on the other side, nothin bad small cut but a sign. Last week I took her with us and she got run over by a hog, broken leg. She had worked in a pen a couple times, but not to much. As soon as she wanted to go with the big dogs we let her and I wish now I had worked her more in a pen or on mock hunts, just to learn how to handle a hog, when to be rough, and when to get away. Time will tell on her, if all fails she is a pretty little thing so we will breed her to something good and hope for the best on the next go round.
in the bay pen a pup can learn quite a bit including grown dogs...but if the pup is getting rough on a shoat then you need to put a bigger pig in the bay pen...you want the pup to also respect the hog because if the pup thinks it can dominate all hogs without having to protect itself it will do the same the first time on a big boar in the woods...I learned that one the hard way...
