Clouds journey ends

There will be a lot of hunters throughout New Zealand and some in other countries that would have watched my 2nd DVD (Clouds Journey) .

On the 13/1/2013 Cloud has just reached the far end of that journey at only seven years old, which is a lot earlier than I would have like to seen him go. It was not a pig that got him in the end, it was a result of some of the injuries that he had sustained over the years. Cloud had a thing for going over cliffs.

When he was only nine months old I walked up to the edge of a big drop off to look over and Cloud walked up beside me in the bracken and stepped out into no man’s land, it took a few seconds before he hit the rocks at the bottom. I had to go down stream to find a way down to him and when we caught up he was limping on his front leg.

Ten minutes later he was showing no sings of his fall. This was to be the first of a number of times he had gone over large drop off’s. Another time I was looking across a large gully as Cloud was tracking through the pines about eight hundred meters away when I heard a yelp as I saw him jump over a hundred meter high bank at about thirty meters down he managed to land on a bit of ground and run around the face back onto some safe ground before he would have dropped another seventy meters. Right beside where he had landed I could see from eight hundred meters away where another animal had obviously just jumped off before he got there but he was that determined to follow that pig that he risked his life that day.

Another day I had a client out for a hunt when Cloud had tracked out over one km away and was heading into the neighbours so I whistled him back, the problem was that he did not track back the way that he had gone instead heading straight to where I had whistled from. Between him and I there was a large gully about fifty meters deep and only ten meters across. Cloud got thirty meters down his side and became stuck on a ledge. The client that I had with me this day did not want to go all the way down into this gully from where we were so I had left him four hundred meters up the hill from where I was. I walked four meters both up and down stream trying to find a way into that stream so that I could get Cloud back out but could not find any way in. while I was contemplating my next move Clouds tracking collar run out of battery life so I only had one option to try and climb down the side I was on and up his side . This would have to be one of the most scariest things that I have ever done, with no ropes I climbed from ledge to ledge down fifty meters on my side then up twenty meters on the other side to Cloud. Climbing up Cloud side I only had places big enough to get my fingertips into to hold onto as I hugged that rock face. Getting back down into the stream with Cloud wedged in between my stomach and the rock face was not easy. Climbing back out some of the ledges where six feet up so I tied a piece of bailing twine around Clouds collar and wedged him into the ledge while I pulled myself up to the next ledge, once I felt that I had a good hold I pulled Cloud up onto the next ledge. When I finally got us both out of that gully I was totally spent and I found many bruises over my body over the next few days that I did not realise at the time because I was so pumped with adrenaline.

The day Cloud really hurt himself was in the winter of 2012, I had two clients out from Denmark wanting to catch a pig. The hunt started off good with Cloud and Lightning catching a 130 pound boar then we headed over into the back gully where I had climbed through the gully with Cloud the year before. Cloud had a bail going right on the edge of the drop off and as we started heading into that direction it all went quiet. At this part of the gully I new of a game trail leading down onto the stream so we followed this in and found the two dogs holding a sixty pounder which Mathias got to stick. While we where gutting this pig Lightning had tracked away again and had another pig before we got this one out. As we approached this next pig the dogs once again grabbed the pig and again went over a twenty meter drop. Pete got to stick this one and both Pete and Mathias wanted to carry their pigs out so it was easy for me to walk out. I did not notice at the time how bad Cloud was as he carried on like normal but over the next couple of weeks he just got worse. I spent $700 on him getting X-rays and was told that he was doing well just to be walking as his back end was quite smashed up. I put him on a course of injections that did help him to get around but he was not the dog he used to be. It was sad to watch him come out of his kennel in the mornings in pain from trying to get moving. The last straw for me was just prior to Christmas my young dog Fog easily out found Cloud and all that Cloud was doing was trail barking the pig in frustration. Luckily Fog managed to pull the pig up on his own until Cloud caught up.

So now you have got a nice resting spot under a fruit tree up above the hut. Every time I go past that tree now I will be thinking not of the cliffs you went over but of the good times we had caught on the hill together, like the day you bailed the 180 pound boar that won the Omarau comp or the time that we where training another dog and you where bailing Mr Pig and the other dog grabbed you by the scruff of the neck and you did not stop bailing even when that same dog done it again you did not take your mind off the job you where doing.

You will always be remembered as my boar dog as you always preferred a good boar over a sow and you could read my body language as well as I could read yours you where a good mate. Rest in peace.