The Scotch Terrier and Beagle should be mink dog. The steel trap is more generally relied upon to bag the sly mink and his capture with dog and gun is oft-times very unproductive.
Opossums Are Easily Caught Alive for Training Purposes.
A Pennsylvania hunter contributes the following to the general fund: a good cross for mink as well as rabbit. This combination gives the requisite agility needed in coping with mink. Some even advise a strain of water Spaniel with the above breed for ideal.
"Before taking him out you can teach the young dog when 8 or 10 months old, what to do by catching an animal that you wish to train your dog on and leading it around. If it is a 'coon or opossum, then put up a tree or on a fence. Loose your dog and let him trail until he finds it. Teach the dog to bark by hissing him on and clapping, whooping to him and such like.
If for skunk, kill one and drag it around, place it out of pup's reach, and teach him to bark when he comes upon his game. You can teach the habit of tongueing after night or silence on the trail as you prefer. Let your young dog shake and chew at the game you are training him to hunt for. After he has found it and he fails to bark by hissing him, tie a rope three feet long to it and keep throwing it toward him and pulling it quickly away to teach him to grab at it and hold on, and also bark. A live skunk generally gives a young dog such a lesson the first time that he is always afraid of one afterwards, unless he is an Irish terrier or bull dog or beagle crossed. These two breeds are good ones for any kind of night hunting.
Take a live animal, a 'coon or something, and lead it past your young dog's box where he is tied and let him see it and take notice how he will want it, but all you want is to teach him the scent and how to tongue when he comes up on the game. I believe what I have told will generally break any dog.
A good dog, well broken to hunt 'coon, skunk or opossum is worth scores of traps. Don't be afraid to switch a young dog some, to make him learn good from bad, like tonguing track and rabbit. Always pet him and be friendly after chastising him, and a good scolding with a couple of light smacks with open hand will take the place of a whipping. Don't use a stick unless necessary. Use judgment, the same as you would want some one to use you, and in a few nights' training your dog will be catching game. It is easy sailing after a few are caught, and your dog is your greatest friend you have. He will make you from $5.00 to $15.00 a night, where if you were trapping for the same game, you would be lucky if you got a dollar's worth of fur, and besides what is finer sport than a day's gunning, to hear your old dog up on yonder hill or in some woods talking to you to come his way?"