How to train hounds? Hunters in China have rich experience in training hounds. To sum up, there are basic training principles, puppy primary training and hunting training. Here are the main points: 1. Basic principles of hound training: Before introducing the primary training and hunting training of puppies in detail, let's talk about the general principles that must be followed in training hounds. (1) The importance of training; The hunting skills of hounds are partly inherited and partly cultivated by strict training since childhood. A qualified hound often comes from the hard work of hunters. Without strict, continuous and timely training, no matter how good the dog's innate breed is, it will not become a good hound. Therefore, hound training is very important. (2) Specialized training: The training of hounds must start from the age of puppies and be taken care of by specialized people. It is not allowed to change the owner of the dog halfway. If you change the dog coach halfway, it is difficult to achieve satisfactory success. What's more, you can't keep him for two days, which will distract the puppy and seriously affect the improvement of hunting skills. If you treat puppies as playthings, they will only be playful dogs when they grow up. (3) Training items and training time; A good hound must have three hunting skills: searching, chasing and picking. Therefore, tracking and searching, chasing and picking up prey are the key points of training. The purpose of training is to form a strong hunting conditioned reflex in the puppy's mind and learn these three hunting skills in order to complete the hunting task entrusted to it by the hunter in the future. The six, seven and eight months after the puppy is born is the fastest period of its advanced nerve development, and it is also the golden period of coaching the puppy's hunting action. At this time, the puppies must be trained strictly and systematically to make them have good hunting conditions. A year later,; The development of hounds has been completed, and the quality of hounds has been finalized, so it is difficult to retrain. (4) Training places; Puppy primary training can be carried out in the hunter's living area, such as the wide courtyard, the rural threshing floor and the academy outside the village. However, puppy hunting action training must be carried out in a real mountain hunting ground. Through hunting field training, the hunting skills of hounds are fully developed, and puppies are guided to learn to search, chase, attack and pick up prey, so as to overcome activities that do not meet hunting requirements. The more times a puppy takes part in real hunting training, the better its hunting skills will be. Therefore, hunters should often lead puppies to train and hunt. (5) Basic methods; The basic method of training hounds is encouragement and coercion. Encourage its hunting activities and forcibly correct its activities that do not meet the hunting requirements. So we should talk about the combination of encouragement and coercion as the basic method of training hounds. Incentives include temptation. When the puppy completes an action, the hunter should give the meat encouragement in time. The dog was too timid to go into the water, so the hunter dragged the dog into the water. Hunters must be gentle when training puppies by encouraging or forcing, and can't kick at will. When the dog's activities do not meet the hunting requirements, the hunter should stubbornly and repeatedly correct its wrong actions, patiently teach it the predetermined hunting actions, and never indulge or indulge, otherwise it will leave bad problems for the hound and affect the future hunting. (6) Don't exceed the requirements of hounds: hounds only have a certain primary ability to accumulate experience and control their own behavior. It is wrong to compare these behaviors of hounds with people's thoughts and behaviors. Therefore, we can't make unrealistic demands on hounds. 2. Puppy primary training: two to six months after the puppy is born is the period of puppy primary training. Puppy primary training includes: (1) training to obey the master's orders; The primary training of hounds begins at the age of two months. During this period, the puppy's brain began to develop. Through training, the developing nerves of the puppy form the conditioned reflex needed for hunting. The period of June, July, August and 30 months is the fastest period for the development of senior nerves in puppies, and it is also the best training period. Ten months later, the development of hounds has matured and their hunting performance has been finalized, so it is difficult to retrain. Therefore, the puppy should be weaned within two months, brought back to feed alone, and given a simple and loud name, such as "Xiao Huang", "Husai" and "Xiaohei", which the hunter can call at any time, so that the developing brain and nerves of the puppy can firmly remember their names. Every time "feeding", the hunter should call the puppy's name, so that the puppy can form a good habit of obeying orders and coming at once. Whistling often is also very important, which can make the puppy develop a conditioned reflex and come when he hears the owner's whistle, which is very important for hunting in the mountains in the future. When puppies learn some simple movements, they should gradually increase the training distance and gradually replace food temptation with encouragement by touching or patting their heads. The orders given by hunters must be simple and accurate, such as "going" and "coming back" ... It takes repeated training and regular training to form a firm conditioned reflex. When the puppy is five or six months old, it should be trained in hunting skills. First of all, we should teach it to accurately execute hunting orders such as "get up", "don't move", "lie down", "chase" and "bite". The dog accurately carried out these hunting orders. The hunter should pet and encourage him and give him some good food as a reward to make him happy to carry out his master's orders. (2) Listen to the master's training: the puppy has great feelings for people and is willing to follow the master. Therefore, it is easier to train puppies to follow their owners. At first, they can be tempted by food and gradually love to follow their owners without eating. However, in order to keep the puppy close behind its owner and not run around, it must be trained repeatedly. Following the first method, the puppy is very novel about the surrounding scenery, and sometimes it will run to smell it, and the hunter will call it back at once. Take compulsory measures when necessary, train puppies to follow with ropes, cancel the ropes after getting used to it, and finally train hounds to walk beside their owners. (3) the cultivation of hound's brave character; After the puppy is born for three months, the hunter should often take it to the wild to get familiar with the natural environment such as mountains, rivers and forests, and cultivate its brave character. A fine breed of puppy, if chained at home all day, will also become a timid and useless bad dog. On the contrary, if the breed of puppies is not very good, if they can practice regularly, hunters will often take their dogs to the mountains for activities, and they will also be trained to be a brave and capable good hound. Take the puppy outdoors, don't be afraid that it will get lost. Calling it from time to time, not allowing it to have a little independent activity, is not good for the search performance of cultivating hounds. If the puppy is too far away, the hunter's cry and whistle can't make it turn around at once. The hunter should stand in the same place and wait for it, and the puppy will come to its owner himself. If the dog finds a hunter, the hunter should encourage it. If it can't find its owner, the hunter should take the initiative to greet it. In order to cultivate the brave character of puppies, puppies should be used to hearing gunshots in the wild. If the dog is scared when he hears the gunshot, the hunter should care about it and touch it. As long as he often hears gunshots in the future, he will get used to it. In order to cultivate the brave character of puppies, hounds should be allowed to smell wild animals at an early age. It is necessary to make a pot of dog food with animal skins, find some animal skins to smell and rub, and cultivate the puppy's sense of smell and enthusiasm for hunting animals, so as to lay the foundation for hunting, tracking, reconnaissance and pursuit. If conditions permit, let puppies eat fresh animal meat regularly after six months. When giving it food, you should tell it to smell it before eating. When hunting animals in the future, the smell of wild animals will not only make it afraid, but also make the hounds excited and bravely catch up. In order to cultivate the brave character of the puppy, when the puppy goes into battle six months later, it should strengthen its command and tell it to learn to search and attack. But the puppy has limited physical strength and no experience, so the hunter should consciously arrange it to win several attacks. For example, when other hounds push down wild boar, the hunter should command the puppy to take another bite; Or when the wild boar is still struggling after being knocked down, it is a good way to strengthen the courage of the puppy by commanding the puppy to bite more. (4) Trainer of hunting dog picking skills: After the puppy grows up to four months, the hunter will throw things in the yard or on the threshing floor and guide the puppy to pick up. At first, puppies often bit themselves while picking up things. The hunter should stop it immediately and order it to return what it brought back to its owner. In order to make the puppy finish this action happily, it must be achieved by food temptation first. The selection and training of hunting dogs should be from near to far. After the simple picking task is completed, it should be taught to complete complex picking tasks, such as throwing objects into the water and teaching it the ability to swim. Or throw things into the grass, and coach the puppy to complete the task of picking things in complex situations. Puppies should be lured by food at first, and then gradually changed into touching and encouraging ways to form a firm conditioned reflex for hounds. In order to lay the foundation for future hunting, the hunting objects can be gradually replaced by dead animals. The hunter threw away the dead birds and beasts and ordered the puppies to pick them up and return them to their owners. This is the same as training a puppy to pick up ordinary objects. After the puppies finish this action, the hunter should reward them with meat immediately. From near to far, gradually increase the picking distance and coach repeatedly until the puppy completes the command every time, and then go to the hunting ground for hunting training. Hunting and picking training should be carried out in hunting grounds. If the hare is killed or the bird is shot down, the hunter should not take it, but order the puppy to take it back. After the puppy completes this action, the hunter will immediately cut a piece of fresh meat from the birds and animals picked up by the puppy as a reward. As long as you train repeatedly in this way, the puppy will form a strong conditioned reflex, and this hunting skill can be consolidated. If the puppy is a little timid when hunting and picking up prey, the hunter will lead it to search together. After several such field coaches, the puppy will be emboldened and dare to complete the task of picking up prey alone. It is not difficult to train puppies to hunt in the wild, but hunters must persevere in order to achieve satisfactory results. (5) Training of hounds' tracking ability. In the wild, two hunters are needed to train the dog's tracking ability to search for wild animals. A hunter first drags the killed birds and animals on the ground, and then the owner of the hound orders the hound to follow the trail. When the dog finds the killed birds and animals, the hunter should immediately cut off a piece of fresh meat to reward it or encourage it by touching its forehead. From near to far, the distance gradually increases, and after the puppy can complete the task every time, it is necessary to carry out hunting ground tracking training. Autumn without snow is the best season to train puppies to find tracks. Hunters take their puppies to the hunting grounds for field training. The hunting ground should be chosen in a place where there are not too many rabbits. If there are too many wild rabbits, they will be constantly frightened and the trails will be chaotic, which is not conducive to training. In training, when the rabbit is frightened, the hunter will catch the hound after it escapes. Sometimes the puppy will lose track and be in a state of hesitation and "stuck". Where it has lost its trail, it is often behind the hound's "stuck" and hesitant state. The hunter took the hound back a short distance and found the rabbit's footprint again. If you can't find a puppy, the hunter needs specific help; Or the hunter found the trail of the rabbit, pointed it out to the hound, and then ordered the hound to continue to follow the trail to find the rabbit; Or the hunter takes the hound around the "stuck" place a few times, coaxes the hare, and then lets the puppy keep looking. In any case, you can't ask the puppy to give up the trail of this rabbit and chase another rabbit, which will make the puppy develop the bad habit of getting lost. Train the puppy to track. We must pay attention to the following problems: (1) Don't chase after it. If there is such a problem, we must force the hunter to correct it resolutely. The hound followed this trail and found another new one. Don't throw away the original, go after the newly discovered. Otherwise, if you lose the original one and chase another one, you will lose it, change it constantly, and finally accomplish nothing. (3) training puppies to track in the snow is convenient for hunters to observe and guide, which seems to be beneficial to hunters and unfavorable to hounds. Beasts in the snow have a weak sense of smell, and hounds can distinguish smell, not sight, so hunters must pay attention. (4) Field tracking training must enable hounds to develop lasting endurance. A keen sense of smell and the ability to never forget animals are valuable advantages of hounds. Search for more posts on related topics: hound training]