Raccoon hunters knows that if you're going to hunt raccoons, you need a coon dog. Training a new puppy to hunt raccoons isn't as hard as you might think. With a few steps and some patience, your dog will be treeing more raccoons than you know what to do with.
Instructions
Teach your puppy the basic commands. Before you can progress to hunting raccoons, they must know the basic sit, stay, come here, heel, and lay down commands. An easy way to do this is to enroll your dog in an obedience school and work on the commands at home in your spare time.
Walk your dog in the woods on a regular basis. A coon dog must be comfortable in the outdoors, and walks build its stamina and increase its love of the woods.
Take your puppy outside in a crate or puppy carrier. Make sure you can close the door and lock your puppy inside. Fire your gun away from the carrier to help your dog adjust to the sound of gunshots.
Tie a freshly killed raccoon to a tree after dragging it through your yard to leave its scent on the grass. Let your puppy follow the scent to the raccoon. Reward the dog and make the path harder to follow each time. You should begin this training once your puppy reaches three months old.
Capture a raccoon and set it free in a field or thin woods. Let the raccoon run away and hide, then set your dog free to go find it. Don't get discouraged if your dog needs more practice before finding a live raccoon.
Take your new puppy on its first hunt after it is eight months old. Taking a trained coon dog with you can help teach the puppy to copy the older dog's actions.