Jerry and John had travelled over from Wesport to get their three dogs onto some pigs. One of the dogs Ben was a big powerful dog that had a bit of an attitude problem. Because he has only had a bitch around he has not learnt to interact with other male dogs and just wants to become aggressive towards them. Because he was wearing a muzzle a lot of the time he could be controlled using the electric collar. I was pleased to see that my dogs did not try and fight back.
For our first run we just took Ben and Bess into Mr Pigs area. We had trouble getting these two dogs to bark so I went and let Fog out. Even with Fog in there the dogs were not that keen, I think it was still just a bit to hot. Later on when it finally started to cool down I put Lightning into the block and got him to chase the white boar. This got both Fern and Bess keen and we had a good run until it became to dark to see what was happening. When we got back down to the hut we noticed that Fern was limping on her right front leg and by next morning there was no way that we could put her back into the block.
We walked up the gully for our first run of the day with Fog Bess and Ben. We had Ben on a rope to keep him under control but once Fog and Bess were bailing Jerry was just about getting his arm pulled off as Ben really wanted to get to that pig. Finally I said that he could let Ben go as he was wearing a muzzle and it was Boris that the other two dogs had. Ben was very full on but because of the muzzle no one was getting hurt. Boris just would not stand still with the amount of pressure that he had on him but this was good to keep the dogs sticking with him.
At one stage I had called Fog into heel and left the other two dogs on Boris until they lost interest in him and let him walk away. At this point I sent Fog away again to go and bail him up. Boris had run up the fence line past the house and then back into the creek high up where Fog bailed him again. Bess did make it down and join in but Ben stayed with us 100 meters away. After Fog had bailed for a couple of minutes I called the dogs off as they had been on Boris for about an hour. As the dogs were coming back Digger decide to come and visit Ben so we got us another quick bail before giving the dogs a well earned break.
On our last run I got Lightning to single out the white boar again and he made it look so easy even with the white sow running with him for a start. This was a great run with Bess and Ben getting right into the bailing and showing plenty of respect the the white boar. By the time we called the dogs out of this run they had been on him for over 90 minutes and Ben was really focused on his job, he did not try going in for a hold but showed the boar a lot of respect and really excelled on this run. When we were finished with the pigs we took the dogs for a run beside the ute to the top of the hill so that they could see some sheep and they showed no interest in them.