My son Bryce and I had a recent hunting trip down south to co inside with the Taieri pig hunting comp that the Ridgeline team where helping to run. On the 17/8/2012 we where driving around one of the forestries with one of my main dogs Cloud and my young eight month old dog Fog riding on the back of the ute. As we rounded a corner the dogs jumped off and disappeared into the Douglas firs. Fog put up a bail first eighty meters away and was joined by Cloud soon after. As Bryce and I approached the bail the boar was spinning around trying to face both dogs. We watched them for about thirty seconds before Bryce took the killing shot. I was rapt with Fog as the boar did not break one and we only had to drag it twenty meters to the road.I did not have my camera with me at the time so we did not get any photos of it on the hill. The only photo we got was at the Taieri comp with it in the line up. He only weighed 95 pounds.
Good start for you’re young dog Bill.
When training a dog how many pigs should a dog see before it will start finding its own.
I have brought a 3/4 year old McClung bitch.Grey hound,boxer lab.
Has been on aprox 150 pigs with its prev owner.
I was hunting the other day and there was fresh pig sine everywhere My main dog caught a good boar witch the bitch joined in on but the pig when
it was found you could have tripped over it.She didn’t even want to try and find.
What could i do to help her out a little bit.
Cheers Chris Shaw
A dog at 3 to 4 years old should be in its prime when it comes to hunting. Because you are a new owner when it comes to that dog I would give it a bit more time to settle in with your dogs. For myself I always start my dogs off as pups that way I know what I have got. I would give the dog a couple more hunts and give it every chance to prove itself. Some dogs can have the odd bad day. As for your question about how many pigs a dog needs to be on before they start to find. I don’t think it is about how many pigs but how many opportunities the dog gets to perform. Some hunters get to a pig and kill it straight away. When I am training a young dog, that dog would be getting so many chances to bail the pig and I do not like to kill a pig in front of a young dog because that only teaches a dog to want to kill. My young pup Fog got to bail pigs for three months before he saw his first pig killed.