Pig hunting with muzzles on dogs

I got up at 6 am with the wife on the plans of going for a hunt as one of the guys at worked asked if I could get some wild pork for him. As I got out of the shower I could hear the rain starting to fall onto the roof and it just got heavier. So back to bed for a bit more sleep as I had a bit of catch up to do from the last three days driving a truck. Next time I woke up it was nine am and the rain had eased. By the time I had got ready to go the rain had stopped and was looking like a good time to go for a hunt. For this hunt I wanted to try going out with the dogs wearing muzzles.

I have been using muzzles on my dogs long enough now in the training block that I did not think that they would hunt any different out in the wild. For this hunt I had three dog Lightning, he was wearing a muzzle and a tracking collar just in case he got tangled up. Next dog was Fog who was also wearing a muzzle and a tracking collar and Breeze who was not wearing a muzzle or collar as she is only a second dog. I rode the 4 wheeler out the gate and traveled about 1.5 km to where I wanted to get the two dogs to go and find a pig. Both Lightning and Fog tracked off not far from the bike and I walked up the creek with breeze. Three hundred meters up the creek Fog came down to me but Lightning had carried on up another couple of hundred meters when he let out a bark. The pig was instantly on the run and I got to see him going through the scrub above me with Lightning hot on his heels. As luck would have it Lightning managed to pull the young boar up right on the four wheel drive track and it was not long before Breeze arrived and joined in on the bail. When Fog arrived things changed from a bail to a hold so I quickly ran in to see what was happening. The plastic muzzle the Fog was wearing had broken at the bottom so Fog could get a mouth full of ear. Lightning had also managed to pull his muzzle off his face and was holding the other ear while Breeze was standing around barking. Because it was on the track I decided to stick it where it was rather than risk it getting down into the creek. As soon as the boar kicked his last Lightning was gone, by the time that I had the boar gutted Lightning was stationary 730 meters away up near the top of the hill. Seventy meters above him was another four wheel drive track so I decided to ride the bike up the hill and get above him. As I was getting along at the top of the hill Lightning must have heard the bike and came off his pig and he still had his muzzle on so I sent him back in. Fog went with him and he was not wearing a muzzle this time. At 225 meters down in the soaking wet Douglas firs Lightning once again started bailing. As the other two dogs arrived they kept on bailing. Over top of the barking I could hear the pig doing a lot of grunting and from where I was standing I could tell that they had a sow bailed up and she sounded like she was trying to protect her young as I have heard this sound so many times before in my training block. So from up on the track I felt that there was no use in me going all the way down there to get soaking wet just too let the pig go. So with a couple of whistles and telling the dogs to get outside they came off her very easily, just as they would have done in the training block. Just before I got back to the hut the skies opened up once again and I got real wet. This made me appreciate the shower in the hut as it felt good to be alive.