Phillip drove down from Masterton with his three young dogs for two days of full on dog training. Dot was twenty months old and had seen a couple of smaller pigs. Chase was twelve months old and had not been on pigs yet and Jack was only six months old and yet to see his first pig.
At the start all of the dogs were a bit standoffish at the bail and took a wee bit of encouragement to get them to join in and it was Dot that first started bailing and as the tempo picked up young Jack started barking at his first ever pig. I could see early on that Jack did not need to have the muzzle on so he went the whole rest of his training without a muzzle. we did have a lot of trouble getting Chase to even want to join in. It was Phillip that worked out what could be wrong with Chase. When Phillip first got Chase he would bark too much so Phillip put a bark collar on him to stop his excessive barking. What we could see was Chase going towards the bail and being to scared to bark so he would just come back and sit down and ignore the bail. When Phillip took the tracking collar off Chase it was like a switch had been flicked in his head. Without the collar he went up to the bail and was very hesitant at first to bark for the fear of getting a shock. Once he discovered that he was not getting shocked for barking he was like a different dog. Once we had him bailing properly I put the collar back on him while he was at the bail and he had come right.
Big lesson for any hunters putting a bark collar on a dog that they want to bail be careful. If Chase did not have the opportunity to have pigs in front of him like this he could have taken a long time to get him right and would have been another one of those dogs that most hunters would have given up on.
Too tell the difference in which dogs are which Dot has both a collar and a muzzle, Chase is only wearing a muzzle and young Jack has no muzzle.
Because Phillip had come so far with his dogs we planned a hunt on the last day. We took six dogs with us in the trailer on the four wheeler and at first just had two of my dogs Tig and Rastus out running. When they did put a bail up it was down in the real tight stuff and was giving the dogs a good run around even when we let the other dogs out this pig managed to give the dogs the slip. Next pigs we hit one white sow ran across the road with Dot and Rastus giving chase. Phillip was impressed with how fast this sixty pound sow was running as she looked like she hardly touched the ground as she was moving so fast. While these two dogs were chasing this sow down into the tight stuff the other dogs were on the opposite side of the road after a pig in the more open large trees. We got to see Tig flick this ninty pound sow around and start bailing with Chase and Jack close by. This sow must have just been wallowing before we got onto her as she was covered in mud. Phillip got to stick this pig and carry it seventy meters out to the track. By this time Dot and Rastus had returned to us so they had lost their pig down in the tight stuff.
The next pig was a good find from my three dogs and Dot stuck all the way with them. As Phillip went in to stick this 84 pounder it grabbed Dot on the bottom jaw and she did not like it. The pig did not let go until it was dead. Thirty meter drag to the track for this one.
Phillip was rapped with how far his dogs had come in just three days. I am expecting to see some photos in the future from Phillip of some of the pigs his dogs will be catching. I love seeing how just three days earlier these dogs would have struggled to catch a pig to now going away with a whole new feel of confidence.