Troy first came to train a dog with me quite some time back and had kept in touch since. Troy has a different mind-set than a lot of other people that I have meet, he can see how work can become a trap for a lot of people so they just don’t have the time to do the things in life that they want to do. He is a very keen pig hunter with a lot of experience, his other passion is his son Reuben, young Reuben is only four years old and loves doing things with his father. Troy is a very good shearer and had offered to come and shear my sheep for me in
return to be able to stay in my hut and do a bit of dog training. Once I got to know Troy I learnt that it was not only shearing that he was good at as he liked working with animals so once the sheep were sorted we went out to the forestry to try and round up one of my young cows that had escaped. We spent three hours using one of Troys fathers dogs Trip to try and get this highland cow home but there was no way she was going to come home so we had to resort to plan B. I had brought my SKS along just in case this happened, Troy was happy to do the deed so she was shot where we could get her onto the trailer to bring home to be processed. Toy has worked in the freezing works for a while so he knows how to skin and gut an animal in quick time. The next job for Troy was to help muster some of my sheep that were over the boundary fence with the help of Trip and Jeff. We got twelve sheep into the yards with three extras going mad and breaking out on us.
I think one went into the pig block and have not seen it since with two others jumping the fence into the native block. Jeff and Trip managed to catch one of them down in the creek and there was no way we could get this bugger out.
He was a two year old ram that was probably the father of my lambs this year as they had come early which meant I lost a lot of lambs so it was an easy decision to cut his throat and leave him there. We did not find the other sheep that broke through with him and still have not seen any sign of it. Out of the twelve sheep in the yards we killed eleven of them and I let one go back on my place as she was normally a friendly sheep.
When ever I bone out sheep I always take all of the bones out so that they do not take up any freezer space. Troy’s way is to use the saw and chop the sheep down the middle then chop it up into chops.
Next job was to drench and ear tag the cows. one particular bull proved to be hard work as we did not have a crush so we had to reach over the rail in the yards to work with them and this bull would almost climb up on top of the others.
On one of Troy’s visits he brought his son
Reuben to spend some time with him. For being only four years old he is a switched on young boy and very inquisitive. It is great to watch a father and son interacting, older teaching the younger some of the things in life that will help him. At one time we were out on the motorbikes with the dogs and we got off for a short walk Reuben was on Troy’s shoulder when he went to sleep as we walked along.Troy brought one of his older bitches along, Cloud she is nine years old holds pigs and not been ripped until now. Cloud was very hard and did not like any pig getting away from her. Because she was wearing a muzzle she could not hold. At one point while I was following them I was focusing on the camera when I tripped up on a rock and was lucky not to arse over. When they got to a face opposite us we saw Cloud get thrown though the air with a lot of force she was keen to get straight back in and was hard to call off as she does not like to leave a pig behind. She did get two small pokes in her neck but did not require stitching. For the guys who like holding dogs she would defiantly be a top dog.
