I let the dogs out of their kennels the other night for a quick run around before I feed them and put them away for the night. They were not out of their kennels long when Jeff baked up down in the gully beside their kennels. I knew straight away from Jeff’s bark that he had a pig bailed and it was not long before back up arrived and there was a real humdinger of a bail going on.
Their was only about five minutes left of any sign of daylight so it was quite hard to see but as I was standing there watching the five dogs bailing my white boar who would have been over 140 pounds. All of the dogs were doing a good job so I was sitting back watching when the boar charged out at Breeze who was standing back barking a bit of encouragement. The boar grabbed her by the back leg and started throwing her around. All of the other dogs were quick to get in and do their best to get the boar to take his mind off Breeze for a second so that she could get out of there.
While Breeze whimpered a bit when the boar had a hold of her she took it well and did not show the boar that she was hurt as she bailed again as soon as she was lose but even in the fading light I could tell that things did not look good for her. Within seconds I had worked out that I needed to get her out of their fast so I called all of the dogs off. By this stage Fog and Lightning had him by an ear each in the bid to get the boar to let Breeze go. It took me two calls to get the dogs to come out because they were very worked up by this time.
Breeze was struggling to walk up to the kennels and by the time she made it up I had put all of the other dogs away. I took her around to the front of the house and turned on the outside light so that I could see how badly she was hurt. Her back leg had been snapped clean through about half way down. I was now put into that situation that no person likes to be put into and that was make the tough call on weather I get her fixed at the vets or I put her down. Breeze was born on the 14/8/2003 which makes her 11 years 5 months old.
I have known for some time now that she was getting old and slowing up that is why I had not hunted her for the last two years. She was only a second dog all of her hunting life and she was the one that I first tried out the electric collars on and was surprised at the results. I also filmed Breeze right from the day I picked her up as a wee pup. She was lazy on the find but loved standing back barking at pigs so she was one of my main training dogs. I knew I could rely on her to stick with a pig and keep it bailed.
In the time she had been hunting she had her stomach ripped out twice by pigs and survived she also snapped her front leg when she jumped over a water fall after a pig and she recovered from that.
I was feeling very sad when I walked into the house to retrieve my rifle. She is now resting under one of my pear trees just up the hill from her grandfather Leroy who is under a plumb tree and her son Cloud is under another tree around the corner from where she now rests.
I find that burying a dog beside a tree or planting a tree on top of your old mate is a far better way to remember that dog and they will still be giving to you for the life of that tree. The way that I buried Breeze under that tree needed to be done right. The tree itself is on the side of a hill so any rain runs off the hill so to ensure that the tree was going to have the best opportunity to grow and flourish. I dug all of the top soil away from the top side of the tree and placing that on the bottom side of the tree you make an area around the tree that is slightly lower at the back side so that this holds the water for the tree to help feed from. Also I have dug in two channels that can catch more water as it runs down the hill. Breeze is buried on the top side of the tree so that the tree roots will grow towards her.
RIP Breeze
I believe that every thing has a reason for happening, two days before this happened Ruby had ten pups to my dog Fog so the next new dog is all ready on the way.