Cow Breaking

[Jpigg]

you have to establish the dog hunting first. i have always found the best way to train a puppy coming up is to have it around older dogs that will not pay any attention to a cow. you dont want to go shocking the dog when its hunting because it doesnt get on the animal who want it to or youll take the hunt out of the dog. game dogs and working dogs are not programmed to go for just hogs or deer or cattle etc.  they are programmed to want to go on any kind of livestock or wildlife.  if you catch enough hogs with the dog and discipline it when caught in action only on everything else it will sooner of later not want to go for anything but hog.  one thing you can do to really mess up this is run two or more puppies together. if one goes than the others will go with it and when theres more than one puppy baying something they get competitive and never pay attention to anything else going on. if a grown dog runs right past the cows while the puppy is showing interest the puppy will already have a doubt and usally a little holloring a few time in that case and your good. but when another dog erases that little doubt it sometimes takes a lot of work to break the dog from that animal.

[halfbreed]

good post jpigg BUT it ain't that much work if you have access to cattle .i used to just let my pups run the farm and bay all and every thing they wanted . except chickens , now when the cows STARTED PAYING ATTENTION to the dogs and moving away from them it was time to put up the more aggresive ones and introduce them to pigs . a couple weeks of pig time and back to the pasture for some cow breaking . usually 3 or 4 days of no cow yes pig was all it took . one point is to test the dogs you've broke by letting them  loose with a cow dog and see if the pup can be pulled into baying with a trashy dog , it happens more than not in young dogs

[Jpigg]

yes sir you are absolutly right about that. unfortantly, i dont get to spend the time with my dogs the way i used to. hell, i have worked so much this last year that dogs i had that would get nervous last season when they got around cows had to be cattle broke again this year. it really sucks but there getting back in shape now and i can promise i wont let it happen again. 

[halfbreed]

i know the feeling i gotta start all over again . i had to leave the farm and move to take care of my 80 year old mom and her place , lost access to free ranging the dogs but got my neighbors cattle at the back fence to break younguns with . but it wont be the same i loved letting the pups start baying on their own  [ just instinct ] and then go from there . now i'm gonna have to work at it .