Cam is a dairy farmer from the Oamaru area but originally from the North Island. His two dogs are from the same parents but from different litters. Storm is an 18 month old dog and Ash is a 9 month old bitch. For the first run in the block we took Breeze and Storm but first I got the pigs to come down to the bottom of the hill for a feed so that Cam could get to see all of the pigs. The only pig that did not turn up was the black boar. Once the pigs had just about finished eating everything I let the dogs in.
While Breeze bailed the three grey boars Storm tried to pull away from the string that Cam was holding. Cam did not have a good enough hold on the string and Storm got loose and was straight into the pigs splitting them up and breaking them. Storm was wearing an electric collar and also a muzzle so he could not do to much damage. I did not want to give him a shock at this early stage so we gave him some time to settle down. Every time he went in for the hold the boar threw him back so it did not take him to long to realise that it was easier to stand back like Breeze and
bark at the boar. After 15 minutes the dogs and pig where very well settled that I said to Cam that I would go and get his other dog Ash and bring her in on a rope. She was far more stand offish as she got close to the action so I took her off the rope straight away. The three dogs bailed well for the next hour until we called them off for a break.
On our second run we took the same three dogs and walked up the gully to the last point before the going gets harder where we turned around and started heading back out. On our way back one of the pigs must have started a fight with another pig which got the dogs going. Cam’s two dogs did not go all the way up to the pigs though but returned to us. It was Breeze that bailed up which got the two training dogs off again. What happened next impressed me, as the two dog’s were heading for the bail they ran into the grey boar and stuck with him to get him bailed down by the creek. At this bail Ash started to get more confidence as the bail went on. One of the big differences at this bail was that we stood further back giving the dogs a chance to think that they were working with out us there. Finally, it started getting too dark to see so I called Breeze into heal while Cam called his dogs out. While Cam has done a bit of hunting up until now this is the first time that he has ever seen someone call a pig dog off a pig and he was surprised at how easy it was. This to me is a very important part of the training as it keeps the dog keen and the dog also learns that they are not there to harm the animal but just stop it from running away.
That night we had a couple quiet drinks and a good feed with a lot yarning.
Next morning we took Cam’s two dogs and Fog, we got right up to the top of the block before we saw the pigs on the opposite face, it was Fog that worked his way over there and gave a bark but instead of going in and bailing a pig he stood back and waited for some back up. When the other two dogs arrived they got onto one of my small pigs and managed to get it down in the scrub. I was quick onto the electric collars with Fog coming straight off with the first shock knowing what it meant. Storm jumped back with the first shock but went straight back in. From where we were we could see exactly what was happening, every time Storm went to bite the wee pig I would give him a shock, after about the fifth shock he decided that it was easier to listen to us calling him back to heal. Once he left the pig Ash also came back too as she never had an electric collar on. We took the dogs around to where we had last seen the pigs and could not find them. It was not until we where right up in the far corner of the block that I spotted the pigs down in the feed station at the bottom of the block so we started heading that way. As soon as we got down the hill a bit Cam’s two dogs tracked off with Storm tracking 370 meters down past the feed station and up onto the other face to bail the main boar in the block on his own and he stayed there until the other dogs arrived. After 30 minutes of bailing here I suggested that we call the dogs off and give the boar some time to try and get away before putting the dogs back on him. This worked a treat with Fog bailing him the first time. Second time we tried this all three dogs were after him as he broke down through the open pines until he got down unto the creek and bailed again. After this run we took the dogs to the top of the hill to see how they reacted around the sheep and cows which turned out good.
On our last run we took Lightning and it only took a minute in the block for the dogs to find and bail the black boar up which was a good pig to finish our runs on.
When Cam arrived he thought his dogs where a bit hard on the pigs but got to discover that they were only hard because they had been hunting with hard dogs, on their own they where more inclined to stand back and bail
Cam went away very happy with his dogs.