End a sub par day in a good way

Along with my Jasper and Bella pups that I hunted today...I also brought my two 8 month old red pups J.P. and his sister Jinx. I left them at the house with the intention of getting a little pen work in when the hunt was over.

J.P. has been on a couple hunts and hangs good with the other pups. But I haven't seen him work a pig since he was 5 months old...he was showing some potential at that time to maybe turn into a good ass dog. Anyway...just wanted to see if he was still on that track. Whistler has a 75lb Boar and I figured he would work well.

Anyway....stuck J.P. and Jinx in the pen...the Boar was in his little house just chillin...the pups were nosing around the pen when Drew runs the Boar out. They acted skittish about 2 seconds...lol...got surprised I guess.
Anyway...Jinx goes to barking...J.P. goes for a mouthful as the Boar runs by and hits his target...right on the ear....less than 5 seconds and he's caught....dang it...guess the boar wasn't big enough for him to get whooped and have to work. Got the pups off...took J.P. out and let Jinx go by herself...she barks a bit...nips a bit...and ends up caught within about 20 seconds. So much for seeing them "work" the pig. Guess a trip to a big pen is in order if I want to really evaluate these pups.

Im gonna be off the hunting grid for a couple or three weeks so i wanted to kind of end things on a goid note for Jasper and Bella. After seeing the young 'uns catch out...there was NO WAY i was putting Bella in...so she just got to watch all the action and get fired up.

Now...if you've read ANY of my posts about Jasper...you know he has never put his mouth on a hog...not really anyway...I mean...when a hog is caught and all the other dogs pile on...he just nips and whines/barks.
Well...I decide to put him in the pen for a little fun since he's gonna be sitting for a few weeks.

He goes in...barks a few times and nips a few times as the hog moves by...each time the nips get stronger...till about 30 seconds in.....HE catches.

I NEVER would have believed it...I would have bet money he would just bay. I've seen it plenty of times where a normally "loose" dog gets gritty in a pen but I think this had more to do with the size of the pig than anything. Guess I'm gonna have to give Jasper a little more credit in the gritt department now.