Can I ask why y'all turn them into bays first? I just ask because I've never done it much. I usually show the pups a penned hog a few times, then do a mock hunt or go to Doug Mason's place and see if they'll find a pig on their own in his pasture. If they atleast give it hell, I start carrying 1 or 2 at a time to the woods and hunt them with the big dogs, if they.m trash they get made aware that I am unhappy. I do not attempt to trash break until they know good and well what a hog is.. Granted I haven't raised but maybe 5-6 pups all the way up,
but this is how I did it with them
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I can't speak for anyone else but my reasoning for sending them to a bay the first couple times they go to the woods is for two main reasons.
First, my main dog and my hunting buddies dogs tend to be a little rangy and at times will flat leave out, I start my pups relatively young and when the older dogs do get out of town they will burn a puppy and leave it in the dust. If this happens too many times I think it can really hurt a pups confidence because he doesn't think he can stay with the older dogs, and that is something I don't want to risk happening. In my opinion the 10-18month age period is the most important age for a pup, I want to do everything I can to make a dog successful when he is in the woods anytime I bring one but I will go above and beyond with younger dogs to make sure they have the opportunities to make a dog.
Second, regardless of how many times I have shown a pup a hog at the house that pup doesn't have the experience to know what he is after in the woods. When I have time I will stage mock hunts for my pups but with work and life here lately I haven't been able to do it nearly as much as I used to. Therefore I will hold a pup on the buggy and send him to the first 6-8 bays in the big woods to attempt to minimize trashing. I want him to know that pork is what we are after and letting him go with the big dogs just to have him fall out of the race 700yds away leaves alot of opportunity for him to run into a deer or any number of other critters on the way back to me. Of course it will still happen at some point, thats just part of it and I dont mind, I deal with it as it comes and we move on. I simply want to do everything i can to help him be successful as a youngster, it just makes it that much easier on me when he is 3-4-5yrs old.
I will be 100% honest, I used to get so ticked off when a dog trashed I would see red because honestly I was hard headed and didn't know any better, it was in my head that we were in the woods to hog hunt and dammit that is what the dogs were supposed to be on, period......... Now days I am much more lax about that, don't get me wrong, I don't put up with my grown dogs trashing on deer or cattle but I cant really blame em for jumpin on an armadillo or possum or coon when it literally runs out right in front of em......hell they are huntin dogs, I just laugh and tell em to leave it and on we go BUT by the time they are 2.5-3 years old they know what they are there for and know better than to run a deer.
