Many squirrel dog enthusiasts have various ideas as to how to train a squirrel dog. It is my opinion that you should first start with good hunting bloodlines. This will increase your puppy's chances in making a squirrel dog. The following should give you a few suggestions:

Squirrel Dog Training

• Socialize the puppy early. Whether you pick the pup up at 6 weeks or 12 weeks old, give it as much human interaction as possible. If you have children allow them to play with the puppy as much as possible. This is truly the fastest method to socializing a puppy.

• Next around 8 to 12 weeks old work on basic obedience and by all means get the puppy used to wearing a collar and work on breaking it to walk on a leash. If you do this early you will save yourself many future headaches.

• Around the age of 12 to 14 weeks old start taking the puppy on short walks through the woods 10 to 30 minutes tops. This allows the puppy to get "Woods Wise". It also makes a huge difference in the pup’s overall maturity.

• Around the age of 3 to 6 months old start laying drags and fooling with the pup with squirrel tails, hides or dead squirrels. Utilize this time to get the pup looking up trees at the tail, hide or dead squirrel. Once the pup starts barking treed on these move on to the next step.

• Caged squirrel. Trap and place a live squirrel in a cage and try to excite the pup by moving the caged squirrel around on the ground. Once the pup is excited pull the caged squirrel up a tree. This gets the pup to looking up where the game is located. Once the pup consistently barks treed on a caged squirrel hung up a tree move on to the next step. Be careful to never overdo the caged squirrel.

• Turn a caged squirrel loose in an area where the squirrels choices of trees are limited and let the pup chase it and HOPEFULLY tree it. If it does tree, then reward the pup with treats and praises. Be careful and never release a caged squirrel more than a couple of times!

• From the ages of 6 months on it is nothing but "Woods Time". This is the key ingredient to making a squirrel dog. Good Luck!!

• All of the ages above can vary a great deal, depending on the progress of your pup. Always keep in mind you are basically dealing with a child so don’t place too much on them too early. Allow the puppy to be a puppy. If it’s in him it will come out…

I have said it before and I will say it again, "I have never been able to teach a dog to hunt or tree. I can only give it the opportunity to do what it was bred to do. Handling, obedience, and bad habits I can work on, but the pup’s instincts and bloodline will take care of the rest”. There again this is all my personal opinions and nothing else. This is just what works for me... Hope this helps.

(C) All That Jazz Kennel, 2007