Dog training dates updated

Tig
Some dogs are just ment to belong to certain people and Tig was ment to be with me. Four years ago I was at a meeting with the South Canterbury pig hunting club, SCPHC and talking to Glen Ralston. In the previous month I had two of my dogs shoot while bailing a pig by a neighbor who was feed up with people poaching his property. This neighbor would never have shoot them if he knew they were mine as he would let me hunt on his place. Anyhow talking to Glen at this meeting he mentioned a black dog that he had breed (Tig). Tig belonged to another member in our club Allan Young. Glen said that if Allan gave up hunting this would be the dog to get, little did I know at the time just how important that conversation would be. Not long after Glen was on the hill hunting when he suffered a major heart attack leaving behind his wife Kerry, son Bailey and daughter     . His funeral was a very big one as Glen was very well liked. Our SCPHC now has a memorial hunt for Glen each year in remembrance of a top guy.

Not too long after Glen’s passing Allan put a post up on our club page that he was going to have a break from hunting so asking any members if they would be keen on his young dog Tig. This was the very dog that Glen and I had our last conversation about. I was very quick to call Allan and say that I would take the dog. Allan and I also have some history as Allan saved my life the year before when I fell 18 meters and broke 19 bones. At the time I was about to jump off the Te Moana waterfall and slipped resulting in a shattered scapula bone 15 broken ribs a broken neck and two breaks in my back. Allan pulled me out and helped to get me onto a chopper destined for Christchurch hospital. Obviously I survived and are forever grateful to Allan for this. So as you can see Tig was ment to be with me. When Allan dropped Tig off he mentioned that he doesn’t always come up when called but doesn’t run away so is easy to approach. I had not had Tig for long when we were both sitting in the shed out of the rain one day. As I was looking at Tig our eyes meet, after a short steer Tig looked away so I looked the same way with keeping an eye on him out of the corner of my eye. As tig looked back so did I steering at each other then Tig looked up and so did I. We played this game for a wee bit and I could see Tig thinking that he was teaching me something and a special bond was being formed.

I have now had Tig for four years and he is one of the most intelligent dogs that I have been lucky enough to encounter. When dealing with a dog because they speak differently just like people that speak different languages we need to focus more on the tone of the voice rather than the actual words that are said. Tig now sleeps in the shed with Fog who is retired so he can roam at any time during the night but never leaves home without me. Because we live very secluded with no neighbors Tig will always let me know when anything different happens, ie if a vehicle comes into the driveway 500 meters away from the house he will know. He only barks load enough to get my attention and then he will steer at what he is trying to tell me. Tis does not bark all the time but when he does he normally has a good reason and between us I have managed to work out what he is barking at simply by listening to the urgency in his voice. While I got him solely for pig hunting we have adapted due to his nature. One of my other dogs Rastus was breed by me for possuming however he isn’t that keen on the possums like his father Jeff yet Tig has shown an interest in them so I have allowed him to also catch possums. Because live in the back of a forestry I don’t want to see any 1080 dropped around me so it makes sense to keep the possum numbers down. Rather than trying to encourage Rastus on the possums when he would rather catch a pig makes sense to let Tig catch the possums. It’s like trying to train a heading dog to do a huntaways job or the other way around. Tig on the possums never barks at them in a tree, if they get up one a low tree hee will climb and a tall tree he walks away looking for an easier one. Now for the big thing with Tig is the Pigs over my many years of hunting I have only seen one other bitch that would not catch smaller Pigs or scrag Pigs, that bicth was also called Tig and belonged to my good mate Keith Garaway.
When I’m hunting Rastus and Bro will be out looking for Pigs while Tig will be doing his own thing and he knows if there is a pig around and he also knows by the smell if it’s a good boar or not. If Rastus and Bro bail a sow or a pig under 80 pounds Tig will normally go to the bail then return to me and walk in with me without showing too much interest in the pig. Rastus likes catching the boars around the 80 – 100 pound mark where the boars over 100 pounds are normally found by Tig.
Now that I have explained a bit about my dogs I will write about two particular hunts. Both hunt were for the Glen Ralston memorial trophy. Two years ago I teamed up with another member of our club for a hunt Dave McGill who has very good dogs and is also very passionate about his hunting. On this hunt it was Tig that found us a 135 pound boar that gave us a good run around. It was Dave’s two bitchs Suzie and Indy that stuck well on this boar right out across a large gully for about 45 minutes before we got there to take the boar. It was a good feeling winning that trophy knowing that it was Tig that found that boar.
Two years later to this year and I was hunting with Tony Scoles who I work with at Fonterra. We had my three dogs and it was Bro who caught the first pig which was a 70 pound sow. When Bro barked Tig shot up there then returned to us so just in case we went right to the pig to make sure it wasn’t a boar, as soon as I could see what sex it was I called Bro and Rastus into heal and we headed around into the next gully. Tony counted 8 possums scuttling up the pine trees but I did not have the 22 and it was a good boar that we wanted. A bit further on I noticed bro and Tig tracking off together and knew straight away this was going to be a good boar as Rastus was standing at my side. We could see on the Garmin GPS as the two were 180 meters away and they quickly split by 30 meters then came the first bark. Rastus took off but before he arrived the boarmade a break. Lucky for us he headed down hill to within 100 meters of the road to where the three dogs had him bailed. As we approached the boar spotted us and made another break for about 70 meters but as he tried to get up out of the gully the dogs got his attention to get him to stop and a beautiful bail it was. Tony managed to get this bail on my camera and the moment that I shot this 150 pound boar. I only had to have one carry to get him out to the road. This boar managed to win Glen’s memorial trophy back again.