I got my kids a Mountain Feist for Christmas. He is 7 months old. I've worked with him pulling a tail around the yard, but that's it. Yesterday he silent treed a gray. How do you teach it to bark on tree? I have thought about trapping one (tree rat) and hanging trap in tree. Any pointers?
When I coon hunted, I saw some guys who would take the tail and drape it over a limb and let it down until the puppy could get it and get him worked up over it. If he gets excited over getting to gnaw on it a little bit, he might bark treed. If you can get the live one in a cage, be sure to lower it enough for him to see and get agitated at it. The other side is, some dogs never bark on the tree. In that case, get a GPS unit for his collar and you will kill more squirrels with him. However, if you are like me, I love to hear a sure nuff tree dog hammer on it! Good luck with it. I know your kids will love hunting with it. It is getting hard around here where I live now to find anyone who hunts squirrels with a dog any more.
I have several guys who run squirrel dogs around me. I'm thinking running mine with theirs, maybe the seasoned dog will show my pup the ropes and get him barking. I've tried the tail trick and he only growled at it. He's young so there is still hope.
Absolutely there's still hope. Good luck with him!
That's what I'd do, try to get him out with some older dogs. Neighbor has a cur/feist mix and he's worked with him for months trying to train him. Took the dog out a few times with a couple trained dogs and seen immediate results.Originally Posted by yetti462
I have female Dachshund that has kept a squirrel treed for up to eight hours.
The easiest way to train is to give a name to something they are already doing. If he barks at something use the command you want to use for barking and praise him. Keep doing this and he will assosiate the name with the command. Now he will bark on command. You will also want to work the 'quiet' command. There may be a period in the training where he thinks you are praising him for barking at anything but if you keep at it you can fine tune it once he understands the command means to bark. It will be a short trip once he has that down to persuading him to bark at squirrels all the time without the command.
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