Starting pups

I show my pups their first smaller hog at or around 4 months of age from the outside of a pen, I've had pups that climbed into the pen to get the hog the first time they ever saw one and i'e had pups that could care less about a hog at that age. I keep the best and get rid of the rest at or around 6 months old. When I have pups like the ones that i've been dealing with lately that fire up and are all about it from a young age I will continue to work them on smaller hogs inside the pen when I think they are ready. I do mock hunts for them starting around 5 months of age (this is all completely dependant on the individual dogs personality and maturity level and not the breed of dog or even the line of dog for that matter) At or around 6.5-7.5 months of age (once again entirely dependant on the individual dog) I will start taking 1 or 2 pups at a time to the woods on a hunt with my grown dogs and will turn them to the bays as I see fit. Once I think that they can handle it I start lettin em run with the big dogs and thats it.

This is really a hard question for anyone to answer correctly including myself as no one knows your dogs better than you do. Watch them and their actions when they are young, they will let you know when they are ready to start working and just remember it takes more than just working a pup on a hog to make him a good hog dog. If you don't think that they are ready to mess with a hog there are still bunches of other areas that you can start working with them and conditioning them to, We take a ride almost everyday when I get off work in our buggy around the neighborhood so I always tote a couple pups in the bed, this lets them get used to riding around and gets them out of their shell, I intentionally make a round through areas that I know we will see cattle/ dogs/cats and all manner of other things just to get them used to the different sights and smells at a young age. It is nice to be able to take a 6 month old pup to the woods and not have to worry about em fightin a chain or bayin cattle/horses//goats etc etc.

best of luck with em and hope this helps some.