Training a Raccoon Hunting Dog: Advice for a New Redbone Owner

Just keep taking her by herself in a good woods at night that has plenty coon. If she has it in her she will eventually come across a hot track and follow it. She’s still young so it may take several trips to the woods. Once she trees her first Coon pet her up and praise her really good. Let her tree several herself then take her with other dogs. Hope this helps and she turns out for you.

Take her to the woods, set up a bait if possible. Don’t worry if she doesn’t like a hide, that means nothing. I would refrain from a live trapped coon, just take her hunting she will figure it out. And 10 months isn’t too late it’s perfect timing

In regards to the e collar if she does not like stimulation, I would start trainer her to come back by the tone button. Get a 50ft check cord and hook it to her and let her roam in the yard. Say the command “come” and then hit the tone button on the collar. If she comes back give her a treat, if she ignores it say the command and hit the tone button again. This time use the cord to pull her back to you. Repeat as necessary until she knows what tone means. Then continue practicing this as time goes on so we doesn’t forget

@Kyle I appreciate your advice. She actually does very well when being toned. She usually comes to me almost immediately. My goal was to use the tone button solely as a “come on back”. This particular time she was just choosing to ignore it. I assume she heard my kids several hundred yards away but I could not be certain. I used the stimulation just to stop her. She is a tough nut to crack. I have to figure out what motivates her. She rarely is interested in treats. She occasionally will eat them but prefers to go and bury them. If she does eat them, it is after dropping them several times and finally deciding to eat it. I have tried multiple flavors and types. She is a pretty good dog, Just very sensitive and I am not the sensitive type(ask my wife) which is probably an oil and water mix. I’ll keep working.

@Mic Thank you for the advice and encouragement. It was definitely a frustrating day yesterday. I am glad to hear I am not too late getting her started. I look forward to getting her out there and spending time with her and my kids chasing coons. Being in the woods with the family is the whole point of this and I do not want to lose sight of that

@Bryan Thank you for your advice. I never even thought of taking her out at night this weekend. I should have done that. I was too focused on finding her a hide to play with and missed an opportunity over the long weekend. I will definitely keep pushing. I really like the dog and my son is in love with her so I’m appreciative of your advice on continuing to work with her

@Matt there’s been a lot of good advice given and I would agree with everyone that you didn’t wait to long and at 10 months old she’s at a good age to start. I would definitely start taking her to the woods and going for walks. If she doesn’t range out or seems nervous at night go early morning or at dusk. Before she ever trees a coon she’ll need to figure out all of the other sights, and smells. This will help build her confidence. If your able to put some feeders out I would even if she doesn’t run in and run the track she will be able to smell where the coon come in and eat. She sounds like a timid pup and she’s going to take a lot of patients. Your better off going slow with a pup like that. Do you have any other coon hunters around that have some good solid coon dogs? If so I might try and go out with them every once in a while and let her tag along and see what she does.

@Matt also as far as treats, use some sort of meat. Often dogs that don’t like a store bought treats will still be highly motivated for a hotdog or a piece of chicken. Experiment and see what she reacts the most to. Cut it into small pieces and make sure to use it sparingly to not let her loose that interest in it

@Ben Thank you. I will try the chicken. I tried hot dogs but of course, she wasn’t a fan. Apparently God thought 4 teenagers wasn’t enough to teach me patience. Haha

@Ben I appreciate the encouragement and advice. There is a member on here who I am

@Matt 😂 dogs will teach you a lot of patience

@Ben Sorry. Fat fingers got me. There is a member on here that is a friend of mine who has a couple coon dogs. I plan to take her down to head out with them. I have heard so much how dogs learn from watching. Hopefully that will make her understand what the game plan is.

@Matt oh I no what you mean I delete comments all the time because I hit the send to early lol. I hope that helps get her started back n the right direction

Matt, I don’t primarily hunt coons but I use them to help train my lion hounds. If I were to use a caged coon, I would do it with an older hound and only do it once. I like to run my young dogs with older hounds to learn but they also need to go alone. I don’t like a food reward. Instead I like to pet them and encourage with my voice (high praise and being petted) when they’ve done right. There’s a lot of good advice from the guys above but the most important thing that you could take away is that it’s all a long game and patience is king. Good luck and keep us updated!!!

@Aaron Thanks Aaron. Listening to Meateater and HoundsmanXP gives me a respect for you lion hunters. Really enjoy learning about it. I plan to make up a coon feeder soon and get her back out there. I have found like you said, she responds to praise quite well and have been wondering if that should be her reward. On the other side of that, she is crushed by harshness too. I find myself being more harsh than upbeat with her which has been something that I really need to work on around her. I do not want to baby a dog but she definitely has a sensitive spirit that I will have to learn to adjust to. I will plan to keep everyone updated and looking forward to a long training season leading up to our kill season beginning in October.

I have a dog that sounds like her minus the pouting. He turned out to be the best handling dog I own all I have to do is raise my voice slightly and he does as asked. As far as her on the coon, my best coon dog absolutely will not touch one after it’s dead. It doesn’t matter if she treed it once it’s dead she has no interest. She has always been like that and all I did was hunt her til it clicked and she started treeing.

@Elijah Thank you for your encouragement. Really looking forward to getting out with her

I have no clue about the coon hunting but I know running my hounds on pigs the collar is mainly for tracking and toning to come back when I can't call them out by mouth. I use the stimulation on off game if I see them run it with my eyes. They don't really associate that with me or the collar in the field.

I've buzzed dogs after running an 8 mile track and thought they were relaxing on a creek after losing the pig. Come to find out I walk into the dogs laid down b

I've buzzed dogs in what I thought was them laying down after running a pig about 8 miles and they were all laid around it, and it was backed into a fell tree root ball. He ran me over. I don't use that button ever now. If they don't come out I go in.

@Clayton Thank you for the advice. I use a yard collar with slight stimulation if she gets crazy barking. (It doesn’t happen very often) I only plan to use the stimulation on the Sportdog Tek 2.0 when she is running deer or running towards a road.

@Matt for our young hounds we just bring them and drop them out with older dogs. They usually go out at a little at a time and come back. Eventually they roll out and you will see them again on a pig for us! Give them as many chances as you can. I'm sure that some of them may not have the want to but I think most of the hounds do. I have a bluetick pup thats 9 months that is running pigs down with the big dogs now.

@Clayton Sounds great. I have a friend on here with a couple experienced hounds. I’ll be running her with them soon. Then I plan to get another pup next year and let Rebel train her.

I'll be following tboy. Let us know how its going!

@Bryan I live trap them and use a roll cage and let them bay at it for a while then pull the dog back and let the coon go for a ways till out of sight then let the dog go but I don’t know what your laws are like were you hunt

Older post but any updates on how the dog turned out?

I have a pup that used to act like yours and I couldn't get him interested in anything I later found out he got excited not by a caged coon or drags but by a running coon so I trapped a few and let them go infront of him and let him chase after them. I did this a few times then I let one go and gave it 30 minutes and let him out on it and he started trailing. He never did find it but it led me to think if I could just take him out at night he might just happen apon a hot track and find it still on the ground and would be able to chase it and maybe see it go up a tree. Well he did find one on the ground and chased it up a tree. Now he is on his way to making a great hound. He is one year now. So with that all being said just take him hunting whenever you can day or night and if that don't work maybe try some of the things I did.

Sorry, I haven’t been on in a while. I appreciate you guys asking. I actually kinda gave up on her and got another dog. He’s a big male about the same age. He’s much more into hunting than the femaleI was just gonna keep the redbone as a yard dog and run this blue. I haven’t had much time lately to take either of them out but he actually got the first dog treeing on squirrels occasionally.

Sorry not sure what happened there. It just posted before I was finished. Long story short. There may be some hope for her yet. I want to get my make confident at it and then I’ll see if he can get the redbone running