I'm new to this board, and I've been lurking for a few days. Really enjoying the conversations & information.

I'm a Pit Person, right now I have a couple of pit-Xs, one a 4-YO lab/pit who I tried to take SAR (what was I thinking?), and a new 9-week-old rescue that we assume is a pit-X ('cause really, can you tell much at this age?).

Anyway, Shula, the new pup, has high prey drive. When we brought her home 2 weeks ago, the first thing she did was try to dig out a gopher hole... This is a big Yay! for us, 'cause we like to use dogs for gopher control. Our last gopher dog (another pit cross) died suddenly of lung cancer (only 10 YO ) in February.

Today she met her first gopher. I had trapped it & when I pulled the trap out of the tunnel, it was still alive, so she got to feist it a bit before I bopped it & let her carry it about, puppy maul it, etc. Lots of praise, of course.

I've put the gopher in the freezer... any ideas how to train w/it? Or shall I just throw it out for the coyotes?

Other than that, we'd like to maybe make this pup a therapy dog when the puppy terrors have passed, in a year or 6.