For the people that read the Hooked on Boars Magazine they would know that I was breading a future litter of potential hunting dogs. The father of the litter is our handy dog Jeff. Jeff is now ten years old so I wanted to bring on a new pup as a replacement for him before he gets to old. Jeff is the sort of dog that I can get to do almost any job from bailing boars to working sheep or cows to catching killing and retrieving small game such as rabbits, Hares and possums. I don’t use Jeff for going out hunting pigs very often unless I have another dog injured and he is needed. The main reason that he does not get as much hunting as the other dogs is I already have four other dogs catching pigs.
The mother of these pups is Sassy, she has only been with me for less than a year but reminds me of a lot of the traits that Jeff has so I had been waiting for her to come into season so that I could cross these two. Sassy hunts well and loves going out looking. When I got her she had not done much apart from being stuck in a kennel. The previous owner was going to put her down because he did not think she was going to make it as a pig dog. It is a bit sad in a way that there are a lot of dogs out there that just don’t get the opportunities to excel. All Sassy needed was a bit of encouragement and some opportunities and I can see that she will make a good finder bailer. On top of this I am going to train her up like Jeff so that I can work sheep and cows with her.
On the 1st of November Sassy had come into season so I had to keep all of the other dogs away from her and just let Sassy and Jeff get on with the job of making puppies. At first it took Jeff a while to work out that he was allowed to mate with her as he is usually told off for showing to much interest in the girls. At ten years old this was to be his first time mating but once he worked out what to do he made up for lost time with every time they were off together over the next week they were knotted. Normally a bitch takes a week of coming into season a week on heat and a week coming back off. I did notice with Sassy maybe because she became pregnant she had a week coming into season her week of being on heat and then she came off heat over night once she was pregnant she would not let the other dogs mate with her. From the time of conception to the time of having the litter of pup is nine weeks or 63 days. On Saturday the 30th of November 58 days after Sassy was first mated I could tell that she was getting close to having the pups so I let her out of her kennel and let her sleep at the back door to the house so that I could keep any eye on her. That evening I cranked up the outdoor bath and had a soak with Janice for about two hours. When I got out of the bath I noticed that Sassy was no longer at the back door so I started calling her with no response.
After a couple of minutes of calling with no sign of her I started the motorbike and road down the drive to the hut where Sassy caught up with me. I bought her back up to the house and got her to sit down at the back door so that I could keep a close eye on her. I did notice a wee bit of blood around her back end but she did not seem to want to go looking for anything. Half an hour later and Janice noticed that Sassy had just had a pup so we sat down inside the back door and watched as she pushed out a second pup. When we got up in the morning there was a third pup there. When I went down the back to let the other dogs out for a run Fog wandered off down into the gully below the dog kennels so I walked down to investigate. Once down towards the scrub all of the dogs including Sassy went down and on closer inspection I could see Sassy three meters away in a tight patch of scrub and I could just make out the faint sounds of a pup. So I went around the outside of the scrub until I could get close to the sound and I forced my way through the bush lawyer getting scratch to bits in the process. There was not only one but two female pups that were cold as and a wee bit stiff after their first night with no mum, luckily it was not too cold during the night. I put the pups down my top and walked back up to the house where I put them with the other pups. Within a short time these two wee pups warmed up and started drinking off their mother. I was a bit lucky with that one. So now we have two dogs and three bitch pups. I will be keeping one of the dogs and letting the rest go to new homes. My preference is to see these pups go to young teenagers who want a dog that they can go exploring with as they will be good fast little hunters that you could get to hunt many different animals. When my two sons Sloan and Bryce were teenagers was when we got Jeff and to see the fun that they had together catching possums, rabbits and hares every day after school. They learnt to pluck the possums to make money.
Anyone interested in one of these pups contact me.
Since writing this article one of the male pups would not drink off his mother and is now no longer. the other male has grown bigger that the others.