Training Tips

[TheRednose]

Good deal... y’all may need to rename him Lucky haha.

hahaha right, or Nick as in just in the nick of time lolol.

He must have heard that discussion hahaha

[Judge peel]

You never know what a dog will do until given enough chance. Like Parker said if a dog wants a hog a lot of the other stuff is up to you


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[Jason Dunn]

Larry we tried the foot on the head limb on the rear sucker would get under the Ranger where you couldn't get a good lick on him haha.

[parker49]

hahahaaha he'd have  to leave ..i want quit til he does .i'd run over  him ..even  if he  just goes off a hundred yards and lays  down  for a while ....you never  whip a  dog  for the  hunt  you on  you whip  him  for the next  hunt ..

[parker49]

here's another trick don't know why but  you get  one  in the collar and swing him round while tuning him up and  usually they will leave  they don't like  like that swinging round ...i am very ruff if i have  to be ...but  its either that or bullet .... i guess i get that from my daddy swing  me  round  by  my wrist  or  trying to catch up with me running  in a circle  while  he  tore  me  up ...hahahahaha  when he let  go  i left  hahahhaa  i have trained several like that that made sure  nuff dogs  later...... if  he'll stay bayed  by himself and loves a hog he'll make a dog  you just gotta  figure  out as trainer  what to do .....  our  job  is  to correct bad  habits  the rest falls in line  on its  own

[Jason Dunn]

Thanks for the advice will apply it 

[justincorbell]

I think the shock collar may do more harm than good in that situation... he may get gone, but not gone hunting. The dog may also be going through a lull... I've seen a lot of young ones go through spells like that for a while and then turn back on. It's just how much time and patience the owner has haha.

I agree 100% with this, a shock collar in that situation will do more harm than good I believe. If he were mine I would pick him up and not even turn him loose on the next few bays....hell id even go as far as to leave him home for a month or more and make sure that he see's / knows every time you are going hunting when you are leaving him home, sometimes being left home will put a fire in their ass when you do finally tote em again.

[justincorbell]

the 2 most important things ive learned over the years messing with my pups is #1) SLOW DOWN, if you are not sure that you are going slow enough then slow down some more. You can learn ALOT about your animals and the woods in general by dropping it in granny gear and letting things happen naturally, no need to blast all over the lease running the dogs ragged. #2) have fun, not all pups are going to be fire on day one, some take time (how much time depends on how much patience you have). I personally do things alot different than I used to years ago, I will admit that my dogs now are overall a better caliber of dog than they were 8-10 years ago and because of that I have changed the way I raise and mess with them. 10years ago I would show em multiple pigs as they grew up, sometimes it worked great and others it didnt work at all, eventually I quit showing them hogs at the house all together and simply waited til I felt they could handle themselves in the woods then toted em with the grown dogs and turn them to bays until they figured it out, now days i will still do that here and there but not near as often as I did back then. Im not looking for the decent pups out of my litters, im looking for what I feel is the most natural based off different things that I see, one thing that I do that has helped me quite a bit is that when I start toting pups to the woods I generally drop 2 or 3 at a time and let them go be puppies (7-9mths), I may sit in one spot for an hour before they come back or it may be 10 minutes but when they come back I dont pick them up immediately, I will give em another 5-10mins to get bored and leave again and 9 times out of 10 if i just ignore them they will disappear again pretty quick. When I am doing this I go to the woods with zero expectations other than to enjoy myself and let them learn things at their own pace. the most natural out of each litter will quickly begin to stick out amongst their peers, the single most important thing I look for is pups with "go" the natural drive and want to.....they dont have to have a clue what the hell they are doing, they just have to have the want to too do it. The single hardest aspect of messing with these dogs is finding ones that naturally want to go hunting, once you find em that have that natural "go" the rest is easy as it gets, the trashier the better for me. I can teach a puppy what I want him to hunt IF he naturally wants to go in the first place, its hard to teach em much if they arent interested in going in the first place. a perfect example of this is something that happened to me with my top prospect a few months ago, this was a 6.5mth old pup that i had brought to the woods a 1/2 dozen times before....... 2 buddies and myself were easing down a high grassy road with low lying tallow thickets on both sides, as we got towards the end of the trail a BIG buck jumped out not 30' in front of my pup and it was game on lol. my buddies both looked at me and said "what are you gonna do now" to which I replied not a damn thing, we are gonna sit here and drink a couple and see just what he is made of, an hour later we pulled up to that pup over over 2/3's a mile away wearing a 40lb shoat out by himself............ my point is that as long as you have pups with the natural want to then the rest is easy and all of the extras that I used to do trying to work them was just that....extras.

im not saying its the right way by any means because Lord knows there are as many different ways to go about training dogs as there are dog breeds in the world and what works for me may not work for you, ya just got to figure out what works for you and follow the plan, if things change then adapt and keep on rolling.


regarding the slowing down statement, I generally dont ride around much looking for tracks or sign, 1/2 the time i turn a pair loose from the truck before I even unload my buggy then get all my stuff together and head to em once im ready. A perfect example of where slowing down payed off for me, me and a buddy decided to make a late night run because when we were hunting in the mornings we were coming across multiple sets of big tracks throughout the lease but they were always from the night before and our dogs simply dont have that cold a nose so we decided to change it up on the hogs and started hittin the woods at 11-12 at night........ anyhow we did this one night a had caught a couple sows but nothing worth talkin about, it was 4:30ish in the morning and we were all tired, dogs included so we decided to call it good, we were 3/4 a mile from the truck so I said to hell with it told my buddy hell lets just push em to the truck.... we dropped em and started easing that way, about 400yds from the truck 3 of the 4 dogs we had started getting piggy and they all pulled right off of the road so we shut down and waited, a gyp of mine was the only one that didn't go with em and she was kinda screwin around by us not doing much but I ignored her and let her do her thing, about 20 minutes goes by and I realize she is gone, grabbed the garmin and she had gone 700yds the opposite direction of the other dogs through a young pine thicket STRAIGHT to a feeder I had set up, she made 4 circles around the feeder then rolled due north and bayed up solo on a stud of a boar hog (ive hunted those woods for over 25yrs, not all 25 with dogs but still) he ended up being the biggest boar hog Ive ever laid eyes on with dogs or through a scope in those woods. had I picked her up when she was "screwin around" we would have never laid eyes on that hog, instead we ended up catching a stud of a boar and got to watch the dogs work him for over an hour in a blowdown in the middle of a flooded creek.


SORRY FOR THE RAMBLING LOL, I was bored at work. been a while since I have visited this site, hope everyone is doing well.

[Jason Dunn]

Justin your methods sound a lot like mine I have never minded a pup running a deer a ways sometimes like in your example it gets them on hogs and that's all we really want is them to move out find a hog I have seen that happen before over time the dog decides heck with that deer I cant catch and goes for the hogs. I am not real patient but my brother is I have probably made some bad calls on dogs not giving enough time to get it I know I did on one named Willy that dog had some hunt but Lord he hunted everything trashiest dog I ever saw I was in the middle of building a house had the wife barefooted and prego with #3 had no time for this dog called the boy I bought him from told him I had a great deal for him if he wanted him back he was free I knew he had it but I didn't have the time to trash break him. 8 years latter started hunting with a young guy that lives near me and there ole Willy and boy he was a hog dog showed out almost to the day he died a couple months ago at 12 I think, I wish I would have kept him and put the time in him the guy that trash broke him said it took some time to achieve it . Willy was one of the best I have seen if you was thinking of a quick hunt you didn't even think about letting him out I am just glad I got to see the finished product.

[parker49]

the shock collar will work  if done right .....first you gotta  make  sure the dog knows  when you holler suey or whatever  command  you use  to  mean get gone ,,,,after that  some will get out about 60 yards  or so and  hang up waiting on another  dog or sulling ...i holler  suey and bump they'll leave ...some dogs  is hard headed .......i've  done about everything ....but collars  will  work

[Jason Dunn]

the shock collar will work  if done right .....first you gotta  make  sure the dog knows  when you holler suey or whatever  command  you use  to  mean get gone ,,,,after that  some will get out about 60 yards  or so and  hang up waiting on another  dog or sulling ...i holler  suey and bump they'll leave ...some dogs  is hard headed .......i've  done about everything ....but collars  will  work

What have you found works best limb or the collar?

[parker49]

myself i use  my cable lead ...and  if  he don't  get the message with the cable end  i'll use  the  snap end ...like a  said  i'll get ruff it  i need  too ... its  usually male  dogs   that  need  it ...... i ain't  never  been able  to love  one  into anything ...... loading  one  up ain't never  worked  for me  either .....some like to ride hahahaha ...... if they  like a hog and will run  or bay  one if you get  em on it  i can usually  make a dog  out  of em  might  take  me a   little  bit but they usually come around ....the  shock collar  i don't like to use at all if  i can  keep  from it .... but  i have  done it  and  it works like i said some dogs will hang  up about 100  yards out looks like they running up and down a road  on the garmin  they looking for a  dog  to  run with ...those  you holler  suey and bump  they'll pull out .... problem with collars  is  once  you use  it then thats  what  you have  to use  it  for on that dog and you gotta try and  make  sure  the  dog knows why he  got bumped ........i wouldn't suggest anything to anyone  i haven't  done  myself ......

[justincorbell]

myself i use  my cable lead ...and  if  he don't  get the message with the cable end  i'll use  the  snap end ...like a  said  i'll get ruff it  i need  too ... its  usually male  dogs   that  need  it ...... i ain't  never  been able  to love  one  into anything ...... loading  one  up ain't never  worked  for me  either .....some like to ride hahahaha ...... if they  like a hog and will run  or bay  one if you get  em on it  i can usually  make a dog  out  of em  might  take  me a   little  bit but they usually come around ....the  shock collar  i don't like to use at all if  i can  keep  from it .... but  i have  done it  and  it works like i said some dogs will hang  up about 100  yards out looks like they running up and down a road  on the garmin  they looking for a  dog  to  run with ...those  you holler  suey and bump  they'll pull out .... problem with collars  is  once  you use  it then thats  what  you have  to use  it  for on that dog and you gotta try and  make  sure  the  dog knows why he  got bumped ........i wouldn't suggest anything to anyone  i haven't  done  myself ......

Solid points Mr. Larry. what I highlighted in red is 1000% correct in my eyes. I try to only use my shock collars for 2 things, 1 to shut em up in the buggy (rarely needed but it has been used) and #2 to stop em when I need to stop em but to be honest any dog with 1/2 a brain in his head figures out REAL QUICK what comes after the tone...... 9 times out of 10 I can turn mine around from wherever they are with nothing but the tone feature.

[parker49]

the tone feature  is  gonna be a game changer  lots  of people get rid  of  good  long range dogs  because  of  not having access to follow them ......  myself i don't care  for mine  to run long as  i used too ....way  more hogs to hunt these  days than used to have ......

[bigo]

The best tip I can give is, don't get ruff on a dog unless he knows exactly what your getting on to him for. If he knows, you can whip him, shock him or whatever, and he want cower down or be afraid of you, but will respect you. If one does get under the buggy, don't quit until he gets out from under there and leaves or you have just trained him to get under something when punished.

[TheRednose]

Lots of good info. I have a lighter hand personally and really the only time I get rough is for fighting or trashing on a skunk etc. And there is no doubt they know what they are getting whooped for. If I have to beat them constantly then they are not the type of dog I will feed. I am not opposed to putting boot to ass to keep them on the straight and narrow, just don't want dogs that I have to do crazy things to, to get them to hunt or listen. Different strokes for different folks, I definitely have a lot more learning to do myself.

[Judge peel]

I was hunting with a young man while back he dropped some young dogs I did to mine went on and bayed his didn’t he kick em grabbed em by the collar twirled them around and hollered to get ahead. We caught the hog and moved on mine took off he was getting set he was just bout to kick the dog and I said would you like my opinion. He said ok I said if your boss wife daddy or anybody else treated you like that would you respect them or work hard for them he said hell no I said then why you treating that dog like that he don’t know he should be out hunting all you did was teach him to get away from you then by chance the dog will eventually find something. But you would have a much better dog by letting him chose on his own or make him think it’s his own thought. Beating things to achieve results is ok if you like beating things.


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[justincorbell]

the tone feature  is  gonna be a game changer  lots  of people get rid  of  good  long range dogs  because  of  not having access to follow them ......  myself i don't care  for mine  to run long as  i used too ....way  more hogs to hunt these  days than used to have ......

Mr. Larry, I can say without a doubt in my mind that the alpha system has made me an all around better dog handler / hunter. before I had the ability to tone/shock a dog I was always more worried about where they were headed and spent more time running all over the place trying to stay where I could cut em off..... now days its the complete opposite, i don't worry about a thing regarding where they are as I can turn them around with the touch of a button. It has given me the opportunity to slow down and in doing so it has let me relax and enjoy myself more in the woods.

[parker49]

judge peel  you do things  your  way  and  i'll do mine  mine ....but  don't try and down mine unless you hunt with me and see the results ..... i very seldom even have  to whip one  but  i will ....... there's hunters and there's trainer's ........  when i finish one  i can send him or rig him if he  comes in close enuff to hear  me i can send  him back out several hundred yards or so  by himself  can  you ?   and i have trained truck loads  like that  and quite a few other's couldn't get to hunt ...

[Judge peel]

Parker I never said anything thing about you bubba. I could careless how you train your dogs or what they do after you train them. Everyone on here can post there ideas and opinions as long as they ain’t slandering anyone or talking crazy.


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