In October last year I was starting to get a bit desperate about the pig hunting, or lack of it. I had 3 young dogs at the time and had recently moved to Southland from the Waikato, where I had done just over 2 seasons with the Tokoroa pig hunting club. The dogs at this stage had been on a few pigs, mainly under 100lb type stuff and had caught smaller pigs individually, and I thought at the time they were doing ‘ok’. Since moving south however, they hadn’t really had enough time in the hills to keep the momentum going and I still wasn’t sure I was doing what I could in order to get the most out of my dogs. About this time I acquired a greyhound cattle cross pup from assured breeding lines, and I was determined that I was going to give this pup the most opportunities to become the mainstay of my pack.
So after spending some time perusing the internet I came across Bill Westwood’s site, and decided he was a man I needed to talk to! And by the time I’d hung up the phone after talking to the man behind Mainland Boar Hunting, I was on the way to spending a couple of days over the Christmas period with one of the most experienced and knowledgeable pig hunters I’ve come across. This was to be one of my better decisions in my pig hunting career!
Finally the time came for me to get to Bill’s place, and after introductions was taken down the road to Bill’s future pig dog training facility, (looks to be bloody promising by the time its finished!!), and also a couple of ‘quiet ones’ while I tried to suck in as much information on everything to do with pig hunting that my tiny brain could handle! Once this brainstorming session was over it was back to Bill’s place to see what my hounds were going to do with Mr Pig…
Apart from the pup I had, the rest of the pack consisted of a 3 year heading dog type bitch and 2 of her pups who’re about 2 years old, with the pups father being half mastiff, albeit still on the small side considering. With the pups one had the bitch’s traits; a little shy on the bite, but the other one had grabbed the first pig he had seen (80lb sow) and hadn’t looked back since. The main concern with these dogs at the time was that none of these dogs had come across anything of size, and I was I bit unsure what would happen when they did come across something that was much bigger and stauncher then they are, one more reason to see what would happen on Mr Pig in a semi-controlled situation where you could watch what they were doing.
First the bitch when in, and after some encouragement, was barking happily away at the pig, but wasn’t really putting any pressure on him and he was still moving about a fair bit, but it was a start. Then the first of her pups was sent in, initially he was more interested in pissing around the place, typical of him and a bit embarrassing when there’s a bloody big boar not far away!! So Bill let Cloud out to encourage him a bit, which got him barking, but again not putting any pressure on Mr Pig and doing as much barking at Cloud as at the pig! I think it’s important at this stage to point out the effort Bill has put into training not only his dogs but also Mr Pig, there were dozens of opportunities for my dog to get wasted by bouncing around in front of this big boar and not paying attention to him, due to a lack of respect amongst other things, but Mr Pig seemed to ignore him and concentrate on Cloud more professional bailing!! So finally the third dog was put in, the one that grabs pigs ASAP, as per the other hounds he initially ignored Mr Pig so Bill let wee Breeze out. What happened next was one of the reasons I wanted to see Bill, due to my dog not having come across a pig he couldn’t handle by himself as soon as he saw that Breeze was ‘allowed’ to have a go at this really big pig he flew straight in and grabbed a hold.
That’s when things went wrong for my boy Flip. I wasn’t in the right position to see exactly what happened but there was a grunt and slight yelp then Flip came wobbling back to me after loosing, badly, his first scrap with a pig. Again it’s important to point out that in the wild this boar would have possibly continued to do the deed on my dog, but Bill straight away called Mr Pig off, put Breeze away and after a quick check of the wound was on the phone to the vet and we were away. I have no doubt in my mind that this exact situation was going to happen sooner rather than later in the bush, and if that was the case my dog would not have been coming home that day.
I realise it is still going to be a lot of work turning a hard holder into a bailing dog, but if anyone can help me to do this, it’s going to be Bill.
The next day was an early start, and of to the hills for hunt. For this we took my 2 able bodied dogs and Cloud. Having done most of my hunting with holding type dogs and country with moderate pig numbers at best, this was going to be real eye opener of a day!! Once we had crossed the paddock to the block we were going to be hunting Cloud was gone, my dogs were still hanging around casually sniffing, pissing and shitting as they do, not really in hunting mode yet… within five minutes Cloud had his first pig bailed my dogs took off to it and ran straight into all the small pigs that Cloud had ignored! Bugger! So the pig Cloud had bailed broke, probably because he came off to see what the noise was about, and my dogs had killed their first pig for the day, not ideal being a small one.
So after calling my dogs back and carrying on after about 10 minutes this time Cloud had another one bailed! So my dogs take off then come back because they can’t here him once they got in the bush, then the dog goes back in and the bitch runs up the road before going in. the dog, Patch, again grabs another little pig, kills it then carries on, the bitch ‘Spice’ gets to the bail in time to give voice before Patch gets there and goes for a hold, pig breaks, chase bail, chase bail, pig gone! Bugger, again! This happens a couple more times with pigs running in front of us, behind us, almost through us, my dog patch killing another couple of young ones, Basically Cloud (18 months old), spending a couple of hours making a fool out of my dogs!! The thing was, each time Cloud had pig bailed if spice got there first she would bail as well but with patch, possibly due to the breeding (?) with the first couple of pigs he tried to grab straight away, then the next one there was a couple of barks the one after that more barking then catching it a couple more times with barking, then there was one with a proper bail going for a few minutes with all 3 dogs before they lost it.
Finally, after getting Spice back we heard what we thought was a pig about 20 down the hill from us amongst the thick stuff, so I sent her in a couple of times and each time she came back, so when Patch came back I tried again-same result. So we waited for Cloud, who came straight up to us from the bottom of the hill then started bailing right below us! Guessing he had trailed the pig up the hill, so my dogs thrashed their way to the bail and joined in, then for whatever reason the pig broke with the dogs giving chase all the way to the bottom, naturally, then as they get further away we heard the second pig that was in the same spot sneak away, cunning bugger! So after smashing our way down to the creek bed all 3 dogs were still bailing in the same spot, they would have been there for at least 15 minutes too!, so it seems by this stage that my 2 dogs were slowly but surely progressing towards becoming bailing dogs! In no small thanks to Cloud the machine…
We decided to take this pig (82lb) as I was hanging out for some pork and I was really stoked for the dogs and thought they would appreciate having break from trying to keep up with Cloud!! Later that day, Bill processed the pig for me. Over the years I have cut up a number of pigs and quite a few deer and didn’t consider myself to be a slouch with knife, but, as with the dogs, I was shit compared to what Bill showed me that day. The speed, proficiency and the final product were miles better than anything I’ve produced over the years!!
So after that little escapade I’ve realised how much both my dogs and myself have got to learn, and that Bill certainly knows his stuff and is keen to teach anyone willing to listen, and I have just booked myself for a 5 day session with Bill, this time without the run to the vets! I couldn’t recommend Bill strongly enough to anyone wanting to either train their dogs from scratch or just to give their dogs a ‘touch up’, Also I have his first couple of DVD’s and even watching these has been a great help and well worth getting hold of!
Cheers,
Michael Nickerson
Southland