Both Harrison and Hayden have been in before so knew what to expect. They also had a pup each out of the same litter as my pup Snow, Harrison’s a bitch Sam and Hayden’s a dog King. Before we got started with any training both of my son’s Sloan and Bryce turned up with their mates Corey and Ram and a bloody good boar. It weighed up at 192 pounds, they had done well and were enjoying a well earned beer. It was great to see their enthusiasm and the fact that they had all been involved in a memorable experience that they will remember for a very long time Congratulations boys you deserve it.
Once they left Hayden, Harrison and myself took our three pups down to the pigs while I gave the pigs a feed. One thing that stood out straight away was the size of Snow compared to the others. He looked like a huge dog compared to his siblings. When we took them into the pig block we did not have any other dogs with us as I wanted these pups to get used to the pigs and not try to attack them so we were not going to try and get them worked up. They are only about twelve weeks old at this point. It was good to watch them playing and enjoying themselves. They had the odd sniff at the pigs but did not show to much interest in them but they did try and find an old bone to play with.
Once we put the pups away we came back down with Ruby and Rox, it was clear to see that these two bitches together were a bit to hard on these pigs as they wanted to get right into there faces. If it was not for the muzzles I would have had pigs breaking out and all sorts of mayhem.
We went and put Ruby away and let out Fog, instantly we could see a different scenario playing out as Rox was standing back a bit more. For some reason Fog just did not want to work the pig with Rox and was just standing back so I put him back into his kennel and swapped him for Lightning. For this run I wanted to get the white boar to get Rox to show a bit more respect to the pig. We had an excellent bail going for ages as the two dogs bailed down in the creek. Beside this bail was Digger eating a dead cow and not even worried about the dogs and beside us was the sow and young pigs having a rest. This was a great situation to be in at peace with the animals and yet having a good boar bailed right beside you. To create a situation like this is not that easy because if it was then everyone would be doing it. I have had to work a long time with these pigs for them to understand that I am not a threat to them and all I ask for in return is that they help me to play the game of let the dog bark at me. The sow and younger pigs do not need to worry about the dogs as I stop any dog very fast that thinks it is going to rip into a small pig or the sow. All of my dogs know the rules of the game. The number one rule that we try to work by is that no one gets hurt. By the end of this workout Rox was ready to have a rest in the dog box.
Our next run was to take Ruby back in with the black and white boar. Even though Lightning had been working on the white boar for the past two hours he was still looking rather fresh so I just used him again, also I thought this will make Fog think about being slack on his job earlier on. The dogs only chased the boar for a short time before he managed to push past my and force his way back into his sleeping shelter. Ruby was working better than she had earlier which was a direct result of running her with a different dog. At one stage young Snow came walking down to the action to see what was going on. I did not want to encourage him as he is still far to young and does not yet understand the magnitude of the situation that he is in. It was almost dark when we stopped training, bugger these shorter days.