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Rigging and Roading

I was just wondering how you train a dog to rig or road. I mean starting from nothing and having no other hounds that know how to rig or road. I have been road hunting before and it appears to be a great way to get a dog in shape and tree a few coon just don't know how to get started. Thanks for the help.

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Adam Davis, owner handler Backwoods Blues
Home of some trashy culls,
it ain't the years it the miles that make me look this way

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Dan Sagely

Camp Creek Kennels

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I've never done it but had an old timer that always has a rig dog tell me how he did it.

Now when I say rig dog, I guess some people also call them wind dogs. You have them in the back tied or not and the bark when they wind a coon from the road.

This is how he told me he does it.

He'll catch a coon in a live trap and then take that coon and hang it in a tree off the side of the road. He will then tie his dog in the back and drive by slowly until the dog winds it and opens. At that point he will get out and turn the dog loose to try and find the coon. If the dog doesn't catch wind of the coon on first pass he'll turn around and keep driving back and forth until dog finally gets wind of the coon and barks. After doing this several times getting the dog used to winding coon from the truck he'll start moving the coon farther and farther off the road until he's satisfied this dog is winding coons at a reasonable distance. Then he just hunts his dogs from the county roads he lives around. He's an older man that can't really get out and walk the woods so this is his preferred method of coonhunting. Most of the times the dogs don't get over 100 yards into the timber before they are treed. Sounds like a fun way to hunt, especially on those nights when you are tired and you know you need to have your dog in the woods but just don't have the energy to get out and walk the timber. Also sounds like a heck of a way to hunt in the heat of the summer. You can go out and tree coons even in hot weather and your dog isn't going to over heat or yourself for that matter. Might give this ol' mans training method a try.

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Hunt em' up!

Ive never really trained a dog to rig.If a dog has the nose and the desire it will come naturally.Least that is how I get my rig dogs.Although Jims method sounds like it would work great.

TO TEACH YOUR DOG TO ROAD EITHER HUNT WITH A GOOD ROAD DOG OR TAKE HIM OUT IN DAY TIME IF YOU CAN GET SHOCK COLLAR KEEP HIM FROM FREE CASTING ! CONTINUE UNTIL HE STAYS ON ROAD DON'T ALLOW HIM TO GO FUTHER THAN BAR DITCH.WHEN YOU GET HIM TO THE POINT HE STAYS ON ROAD & OUT IN FRONT OF TRUCK YOU ARE READY TO START WORKING HIM AT NIGHT ALONE!AND DON'T FREE CAST HIM DOWN WOODS OR CREEKS THIS WILL MIX UP MOST DOGS!THIS WILL TAKE ALOT OF HUNT OUT OF MOST DOGS AND EVENTUALLY HE WILL GET TO THE POINT THAT HE WON'T FREE CAST ANY MORE .IT TAKES TIME & BETTER TO START WITH YOUNG DOG THAT CAN TREE HIS OWN COON !!!!!!!!

i do ninety % of my hunting rigging... the above method of training by jim harris sounds good to me. ive had some coon hounds that i saw a coon cross rd. i sat there till they barked and then let them go.. some took one time and rigged them from then on.. some never got it. it just is a natural thing for a lot of dogs. i hunt bear now.. i let pups ride in truck long before theyre old enough to hunt . a lot of them are striking bear off rig before they really are running.. this has always kind of amazed me.. its a long rd between a dog that will strike a bear off rig to a dog that every time he barks on rig you will run a bear.. .. if you have a young dog fairly straight on coon why not just rig till he strikes... ... like a friend told me once.. "how can he help it " well thats kind of how it is.. a lot are just naturals at it. ill tell you its a fun way to hunt if you live somewhere you can do it... you need some wide open country where you can drop dog when he strikes.. this is getting harder to find and nothing i hate more than getting hot strike and cant let go cause its posted ground... if you really get into rig dogs youll find theres a big difference between them... some will only strike a track thats crossed rd. some will strike a track a 1/4 mile from the rd... a real good rig dog is really something... . if your into nite hunts you will want to mix it up a little rigging and free casting ... i had one once that i only rigged except in a nite hunt.. after a few hunts shed start to hunt deep again but looked kind of foolish the first few hunts inthe spring.. nothing in the world like driving along . bored , half asleep and that dog blows up in the truck... wake you out of a coma. pete

I used to do a lot of road hunting. Some dogs just take to it naturaly, many won't. This is a great way to start pups. Road a good straight dog until it strikes then dump your pup. That way you can give them lots of good hot coon tracks to run before they ever get a chance to run off game.
I used to have a walker female that would run 30 mph in front of the truck all night long when she was in shape. If you got on a road where you couldn't keep up she would come back every once in a while to see what was taking you so long. If she came to a fork she would wait to see which way you were going then she would throw gravel in your grill getting going again. One night I was hunting her in a corn field and a car came by. I saw her in the cars headlights running down the road. By the time I got back to the truck and went after her she was a couple miles down the road and on her way back. I bet she couldn't understand why that car kept trying to pass.

TomMN,

Exactly what you just described is why I don't road my dogs. I've had friends who will road their dogs and if you cast them along a gravel road they'll spin and take off down the road. If you cast them into a block of timber and they come out the other side along a road, off they go. For me personally, I wouldn't own a dog that had been roaded for that reason. However, I would love to have a good rig dog.

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Hunt em' up!

A close hunting dog helps

I've got a dog that won't hunt out more than 300 yards when I am hunting. Last fall during season, I had a sore toe that really hurt after walking for a while. Below my house is a big bottom with drainage ditches cut through it. I decided to give hunting in the headlights a try. It took a little bit, but he got the hang of it and I drove along the ends of the corn field and he stayed in the headlights. When he would duck into the brush, I would stop and shut the lights off. Most of the time he would open 2 0r 3 times on the ground and then come treed. I know, I know you are going to say that is the laziest way to hunt, but it meant the difference of whether I hunted or stay home.

Funny how people on here are blaming roading as to other problems like dogs that don't handle............training error, if your dogs take off running down the road thats because you don't have a handle on them period. I can dump 8 dogs out of my box at once to let them clean out etc, and not a 1 will head up the road untill I give them the command "up the road". If they take off running wild up the road you need to work on your handling skills. Also someone said your dog will get mixed up between freecasting and roading???? You need to find a smarter strain of dogs. If your dog don't know what your wanting it to do between freecasting/walk hunting or roading.....I would look for a new dog. I rig, road, and freecast my dogs hunting bear/cat/coon, theres no problem to doing any of them if you got enough sense to know what your doing and your dog has enough sense also you should'nt have any of the problems period!