Red nose, how are you going about training to rig?
Disclaimer: I am no expert and do not claim to be. This has worked for me in the past (coons).
If your dogs already knows what they are hunting and already is catching game it can make things a little easier and faster. Easiest way is to have a rig dog and let that rig dog teach the rest. But if you don't depending on what you are hunting lets say hogs because that is what I assume you want to rig for here is how I would do it.
First you may get lucky and have a natural rig dog, to find out just put them up on the rig where you can see them and start rigging them in the hottest areas sign wise you can and see if they do it on their own. If not you can try this below.
Step 1: Make sure your dog is comfortable riding on the rig.
Step 2: Once they are tie a shoat up and lay a track with it crossing the road and leave it a few yards off the road where you cannot visually see it.
Step 3: Put your dog on the rig and drive slow through where you laid it. Make sure you can see the dog when you are driving through, just because he/she doesn't bark doesn't mean they didn't smell it, there are other indicators dogs use, and you will see them not bark and use these other indicators especially if you are running really silent dogs. They may whine, wiggle, try to jump off etc. So not only will you need to listen but you will need to watch the body language of your dog.
Step 4: If your dog indicates in any way let him/her down and see if they find the shoat if they do praise and pet them up, really let him/her know they are a good dog. Then I would put them up for the day.
I would then do the same thing somewhere else and drive them through again, then if they get it again do the same thing. Once they get this right two times you can probably start trying to rig them for real. Take them somewhere you know there are hogs and see what your dog does, if he/she rigs (indicates) then let them down (don't encourage them or praise them on it till you know it is a hog track for sure) and now that dog will just need reps and you will have yourself a rig dog. Remember encouragement is key when they do something right.
You can get creative with how you lay the tracks and how far off the road you put the shoats (don't put them too far off to begin with), you can also not lay a track just put the shoat back in a thicket or woods and drive by it (make sure you are using the wind). I would try and imitate your most common situation for where you hunt.
Step 5: If your dog doesn't indicate, don't get mad it's okay. Here is the way I handle that; just drive on through a little ways and then turn around and drive through it again. See what happens, if he doesn't indicate again just go home or work on something else don't over do it.
Step 6: Come back another time and try it again.
Keep in mind not all dogs will rig and like everything else in life there are levels to this game so some will be way more natural than others and do things others cannot do. Also you do not want to over do the track laying stuff, do as little of that as possible, just enough to get the dog indicating and then I like to start the real rigging. Good luck!
