Message #547446

[justincorbell]

I follow pretty much the same plan Cajun does with a few slight differences. I do not have the ability to let my puppies run free but I do have a pretty good sized puppy yard that I raise all of mine in. I mess with and play with my pups for a few minutes just about every day and will let them out to explore as often as I can, I reckon I would be ok leaving them out until they were 11-12weeks of age to run free but I don't want to take the chance both of having one get run over or stolen so I keep em in the pup yard out of view of the road unless I am around to keep an eye on em.

I show my pups their first hog at roughly 4-5 months of age for the first time, now this is where I do things somewhat different. I have a jack russell going on 4yrs old and since I have had her I have never showed a pup a hog without her there. She stays in the puppy yard with the pups from a very young age and pretty much teaches them manners and acts as a replacement mother of sorts. I truely believe the pups learn alot from her by being around her as they grow and she has made my life SUPER easy when it comes to starting pups. I will get a hog roughly 20lbs when the pups are around 4.5 months old and turn it loose in the puppy yard, then I simply sit back and watch the show, my jack russell has a great handle on her and I can sick her on a hog or call her off easily, I will wait til turn her on the hog util after the pups have the time to check it out to see what they will do on their own, if they do not immediately start baying I turn her to the hog and the rest is history. Since I have started using her I have had an honest to God 100% success rate with the pups ive started as far as getting the fired up and baying a hog, they feed off of her and it literally turns into a monkey see monkey do scenario. I let the pups bay until I can tell they are getting bored with it then I take the hog out and dont show them another for 4-6 weeks. The second time they see a hog I rarely have to use my jack russell to get em fired up.

After I do the above I simply leave the pups be to grow and be pups until they are of age to go to the big woods. Once they are old enough to go to the woods I start turning them loose 1 at a time with a grown dog, I prefer to only run 1 pup at a time in the woods to minimize them playing and goofing off.

I wont say this is the perfect way or the only way but it is how I have been doing it since I got my little jack russell and it has worked out great for me.