James came up two years ago with his black dog Bob who is now catching well.The reason for this visit was James had recently aquired a litter mate of Bob”s, Tan. One of James”s mates got got Tan for pig hunitng but just never got into the sport so Tan had still yet to see a pig at three years old.
On out first run in the block Rastus went and found the black and white boar and while Tan was a wee bit standoffish at the start it did not take him long to get the idea of what we wanted of him.
One of the highlights was bailing the sow (Poppy) that I had recently put in the training block. I don’t think Poppy has had dogs on her in the past so she was not scared of them. When the dogs were bailing the boars they were right in there faces but Poppy had the dogs standing meters back and any dog that came too close she did not do a fake charge like a lot of pigs, she kept coming at the dog until she could get a hold of the dog and give them a good shake around in the scrub. Bob got caught out by her a couple of times but as soon as she let him go he was straight back in showing a lot of maturity but bailing from a little more distance this time as Poppy dictated how close the dogs were allowed to come to her. James and I were very pleased with both of his dogs and they left very tired after a 24 hour period of hard out bailing practice.
Now is the time for any hunter wanting to bring a dog in for some extra training as the weather has started to cool down and I have just about finished my hours with Fonterra for the season.