LCK,
It sounds as if Stinger is doing very well, of course, it's got nothing to do with the trainer
I have a question about the length of time you'd keep her on the tree, as I understand the importance of pulling the dog off with it still wanting more and while their interest is still high. Are you talking 5 mins, 10 mins or longer?
I cage-caught a coon and showed it to my 6 month old english pup today. This was the first coon she's seen. I kept my other dog in the house while the pup had her introduction. Right off the bat, she got down wind of it and started barking, but she was a little apprehensive and stayed 10 feet back of the cage on the ground. I let her see it for about 4 minutes. When I started to drag the coon, she really turned it up a notch, and moved right in only inches from the cage, barking and growling. I dragged the cage about 150 ft then tied it 6 ft up in a tree, where she again stayed 8 ft away and barked. Lots of praise all along by me.... Then I let my airedale out of the house and he half-trailed / followed the pups barking to the coon. This was his second caged-coon for him and he was right under it jumping, barking and trying to climb the tree. I let them both go at it for another 5 minutes or so, then let the cage down and released the coon. The 'dale was tied but Libby was not, and she rushed in and grabbed tail fur just as the coon escaped from the trap up the first tree, and that was the end of her first coon session. She was definitly wanting more! LCK would you consider this an adequate exercise, or, would you have done it differently? If so how?
Her next coon will be released with a 5 min head start out of sight and she'll need to use the nose to locate it, as she now knows the scent of coon.
Thanks, and I do look forward to more on Stinger's progression.