I have heard not to pet or handle working dog from tons of people It might work for some but i feel this is very wrong. First off dogs are pack animals I want all my dogs to know and understand I am the leader of the pack. This is obtained by handling them every day petting them teaching them all the thing that you want a grown dog to do. The dogs hunt for us as a family not a tool. I tell them to come back load up or what ever and they do it. This is learned like our kids if you don't start early your in trouble. The dog is going to hunt or not hunt it don't have much to do with you petting the pup at 4 months old. I am very concerned about turning a young dog loose in the woods with out sequence of milestone first. Faster is not better the slow road prevail in most things. I like the pups to start early but I don't thro them into the fire ether. I will do few mock hunts little pen work to see if they have something then don't worry bout it to much let them get a bit of age to em then see what they got
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I agree with you JP, I've tried all sorts of methods, from leaving them in the pen from weaning to the woods, to letting them sleep in the house. This is just me, I believe the best way is to socialize them as much as u can and put the alpha impression on them from the very beginning, I handle mine as much as I can I wont have a dog I have to work hard to put a handle on and I've found it makes a major difference in the way your dogs respond to you, I used to be the guy who said his dogs were nothing more than a tool but the deeper I got into this mess they are like family, that's not saying I won't deal with one accordingly because they are going to eventually perform to my liking or they'll go, but each one of them knows I care about them but also know that I'm the alpha and will get them right however needed, I've seen a big difference in all my dogs including pups. When I say socialized I'm not talking about taking them to the TSC parking lot and let everybody pet them or taking them for walks in the park, they are exposed to me and family members and few folks I hunt with and that's it. This is one of my favorite parts of hog hunting is to develop young dogs, anybody can take a finished dog out and catch hogs, I like the challenge of getting one to that stage.
