Thank you to all those people that have been following my articles about Gus over his 1st year.
Looking back over the last year I have written 38 articles about Gus’s first year of life and in that time he has caught 35 wild pigs and spent a bit of time bailing one of my training boars. In this time Gus has learnt a lot. He has never got lost on the hill as his ability to track has meant that he can work out how to find his way back to me. When I look at my whole team of dogs over the last year it is Bro that has stepped up so much. Bro has shown me how lazy Rastus has been as he was Bro’s mentor so when Rastus would track off and catch a pig Bro would be with him. When I acquired Gus, Bro was the young dog. Because Bro now has a younger dog under him he has matured into a very good pig dog. Now Rastus can be hanging around with me while Bro and Gus are out looking for Pigs. While Rastus is still a reasonable pig dog he likes to know that there is a pig there before he goes off looking. Once Rastus is on a pig he is very fast and a great bailer. People that have been following the articles will have noticed that I am regularly hunting the dogs with muzzles on now. This is to reduce the amount of pressure they put onto the pigs and it makes the dogs think about what they are doing rather than going in on a frenzied attack. For the people that think a dog can’t stop a pig with a muzzle on try this. Next time you want to talk to someone try punching them first and see where your conversation goes. This will cause the person to go into the (fight or flight mode). Animals have the ability to think and it was a dog (Leroy) that showed me how taking the pressure off a pig and giving them the chance to think they are in control he could bail pigs easily. I used to think if I could take Leroys brain and put it into a younger dog I would have the perfect dog but obviously we can’t do that but what he has taught me is what I want to install into my future dogs.
Recent hunt.
On this hunt I had all four dogs so I had put Muzzles on three of the dogs only having Tig without a muzzle as he can’t catch and retrieve possums to me with a muzzle on. I left the bike wanting to have a walk and let the dogs work. Tig caught one possum on the way in and one on the way out which means the possum numbers are not too high as Tig has taken a toll on them. It was a couple of km from the bike that Bro and Gus tracked off up the gully a couple of hundred meters then over through the next gully and carried on over into a big native gully that would make hard work getting a good pig out of. It was in this gully that Gus lost the scent of the boar in the creek. I’m guessing that it jumped down a waterfall yet Bro managed to track it down a hundred meters before tracking back into the creek junction below me where he opened up with a good solo bail. At the sound of barking Tig and Rastus who were above me made a beline to the action. Gus at this stage was 180 meters above Bro but heard him and headed down. There was a nice bail until Tig arrived and decided to grab an ear. Where Bro had finally stopped this 91 lb boar was an easy 500 meter carry down to the 4wd track then a couple of km back around to the motorbike.
Summing up! I can see that Gus is well on his way to becoming a main dog. All he needs now is time and experience.
