I had good intentions of getting out for a quick hunt with the dogs after work. I had just finished a ten hour night shift driving a milk tanker around the central South Island. I had worn shorts to work hoping that it would not get to cold at one point of the night it got down to minus 1 which was just cool enough when you had to get out of the truck. When I arrived home at 4.45am and got out of my ute to open the front gate it must have been minus 10 as it was bloody cold. So rather than go for a hunt I went straight to bed. Luckily I woke at 8.45pm, this would give me about two hours spare before my first client turned up for some dog training. I only had three days off from the milk tankers and every one was booked out.
So for my quick hunt I took all three of my dogs but I had both Lightning and Thunder wearing a muzzle each. Fog would be the only dog with out a muzzle. I had spied a bit of pig rooting a couple of days earlier so had a fare idea of where they would be living. As I approached the place that I expected the pigs to be Fog was over the top of the hill working the next gully. So I watched on the GPS as Lightning worked his way through the bracken only to have him return. Once Fog tracked back over to me he went down into the bracken that Lightning had not long came out of and he started bailing a mob that was in there. When Lightning and Thunder arrived they only bailed for a short time before a pig broke out. At this point I knew exactly what would have happened is that I would have had to much dog pressure. If I had only Lightning and Fog I may have been able to keep them contained for me to close in and take a pig if I wanted to. So Thunder would have got to close and forced a pig to charge, as soon as that pig is isolated and with the dogs putting a bit of pressure on them they will run as fast and hard as they can. This pig only made seventy meters before the dogs pulled her up as she turned out to be a good sized sow. As I was making my way to the dogs I could hear the other pigs making there way out of the bracken. The dogs were putting far to much pressure on her and I was just about to get my hand piece out and give the dogs a sound on the collar to take the pressure off the pig when she broke down into some ferns. I got some footage on my camera of this bail and you can see just how relaxed she is when there is only one dog on her and you can also see how her body language changes as more dogs join in. It is Thunder who goes in and stirs her up by putting a physical challenge right to her face so she reacts by fronting up to him as she thinks this is her only option even though she would be scared for herself as very few pigs her size come out of an encounter like this with their lives.
I think I must be getting soft in my older age as years ago I would have taken a pig like this and been happy but now I was more than happy to call the dogs off and walk them back to where the other pigs were to see if they could catch something bigger and of the opposite sex. I watched as the dogs got onto some small pigs and as soon as Fog and Lightning saw them beside them they just lost interest in them and came off. Thunder on the other hand tried to grab one and I was ready so I gaze him a sound on the collar and he came straight off. Fog carried on tracking around into the next gully and bailed up the mob again. There was one big problem with this bail and that was a nice black boar breaking out just across from me with Lightning and Thunder right behind it until they heard Fog and came off there boar to help Fog.
!!BUGGER!!
The dogs once again broke this mob and ended up in the creek 600 meters away with a pig of about the 110 mark. I watched four other pigs walking out form the previous bail. I did not had down into the gully to get the pig that the dogs had as I had to be home in half an hour so I called the dogs off and made it home in time for the next session of training.