honestly brother, thats pretty much the gist of it for me and it has worked dang near every time. a couple things to note though, first lets not use the word "pen" as there are laws against doing this, lets call it your "training area"
1) If it is adult bulldogs you are going to work I would put a good sized boar in your training area but not one that will absolutely wreck them their first go round but one that is salty and will make them work for it, if you use a hog to small they may tend to "play" with it more so than catch and hold it, likewise if you put a stud hog in the training area that is ready and waiting to work them over they may get injured or nervous esp. the first time in the pen.
2) if your "training area" is substantially sized throw a good bay dog in there first, this will help fire up your bulldog and in my opinion thats what you want, you don't want him walking in front of a train without being ready to stop it, let that bay dog work the hog for a bit where your prospect can see whats going on. After a little bit of this turn him to the hog, he will do 1 of 3 things, He will either run in and catch the hog or he will run in and start baying with the bay dog (if you've never seen/ heard a bulldog bay get ready to laugh, it is amusing to say the least
) or the 3rd option and the only negative scenario in my book is that he will freeze up and try to avoid the situation, now this can be tricky...i've seen bulldogs do this that ended up making decent cd's but they are the exception not the rule, we have to be realistic and know that regardless of breed some dogs just don't have the fire in em, thats the honest truth.
3) now if your prospect does either of the first two options I spoke about above then you are more than likely in business and the rest is all downhill. If your dog runs in and catches immediately give him time to let him figure out the best way to go about holding the hog and work the kinks out, if he doesn't catch ear go in and catch the hog then have someone remove him from the hog and replace him on its ear, eventually he will hit ear given the opportunity as he will more than likely learn that it is the easiest and best position for him to hold and gain leverage.
Ok so that leads up to option number 2, you turn him in and he goes to baying along with your other dog, now there are different ways to entice him to catch and I know people do things differently to all get the same results (this goes back to the whole "more than 1 way to skin a cat" saying) in the interest of time I will tell you what works for me and how I do it. When I or a buddy gets a new bulldog and the said dog goes to baying I will pull the dog back out of the training area leaving the bay dog in to continue working the hog, let the bay dog settle the hog into a corner of the training area, (you may laugh at first when you read wht im about to write but seriously it has worked many times for me) next I simply pick up the prospect and drop him pretty much right on top of the hog, 99.999% of the time that hog is gonna knock him around a bit and take off, now I will honestly tell you once I have never had to do this more than once because once the prospect realizes that the ol boar hog has whooped him he will get what I call "fire in his eyes" and will hit that hog with everything he's got. This has honest to God never not worked for me and my buddies in the past when trying out a new cd.
Like I said above, this is NOT the only way to do it BUT it has worked well for me and my buddies over the years and until I see/ experience a better way to get the same results this is how I will continue to try out new potential cd's in the future. Hope this little bit of info helps you out today and in the future. Best of luck to you and hope your prospects work out for you!
