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Silverton Boar Dogs
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« on: December 12, 2009, 11:11:08 am » |
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I practice calling my dogs off hogs at the bay pen. I have a small hog pen and the dogs bay from the outside they can't get in side with the hogs. I will send some young dogs back there (its a couple hundred yards from my house) to get bayed up and leave them until they are tired, about an hour. I will walk back there and talk to them a little bit and get there attention and call them off and back to me. I might crack my whip a time or two and if need be I will get between them and the hog an forcefully call them out by name. When they come out I will send them to water and hold them with me for a while until they relax and settle. If one breaks back to the hog I will make a big deal of getting him back, lots of noise and whip until he is under my feet and on his back and then lots of positive attention. You might be able to use the Shock collar in a similar way but I have never used one so I don't know. Positive attention is a big deal here, and repitition do it over and over and over. Its the noise of the whip not the touch of it.
I never try and call my dogs off a running hog or cow. I wait for a settled bay and then call them out. A crack of my whip or gun shot will usually call them out right a way if they are in ear shot.
It is easier to get them broke like this on cattle and that's what I do with all my dogs. Send them to hold up some cattle get settled and call them out, I may need to ride in to them and crack the whip and take possession of the cattle myself and send them away. but I can then follow them and take them to water and rest and then send them back to the cattle and repeat and repeat and repeat. A dog must respect you and therefore the whip or gun shot. The dogs must call out by name, accept nothing less, In the dogs mind you have taken possession of the hog/cow and they must return to you at once and yield. Will this work with the shock collar? I don't know, I want the dog to yeild to me personaly not just take a hit from a collar.
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