Chris travelled up from Gore to give his dogs a run through the training block. He did not arrive until 10 pm so it was a late night by the time we had a couple of beers and a good yarn. After a short sleep we were up and ready to get the dogs going. The first dog was a quite solid looking dog called Bear, so he was kept under good control with both the muzzle and the rope. As we entered the block Breeze took off up the hill after one of the pigs and Bear went mental on the end of the rope as he just wanted to get in their and grab a pig. At this point I had to quieten Bear down a bit so I grabbed him and put him on the ground as I held both his neck and his rump with my knee on top of him and I let him know in my angriest voice that he had better settle down now. Once I let him back up he was a lot quieter and easier to handle. By this time the boar that Breeze was on was still moving higher up the block and I could see another boar down by the gate so I whistled Breeze back down the bottom as it is a lot easier to train a dog through the first stages on clearer flat ground. As Breeze went in and bailed these two boars together, Bear was keen to get in their and was really making Chris work hard to hold him back. My first thoughts were that this dog is going to take a long time to settle down. But after five minutes I could see that he was starting to tire so I said to Chris to let bear get a bit closer to the pigs so that he could try and have a go at one of them as I new that either one of these pigs would just throw him out. Because he was wearing the muzzle he could not hold so he got thrown back a couple of times before he clicked that it was a lot easier to stand back and bark. In under ten minutes we managed to take the rope off him and watch him bail well. This surprised even me after my initial thought of how hard he was. Next we let Kate in with Bear as he did not even look like going in any more. Kate was off the rope in under two minutes, as I could tell that she would stand back and bail. The dogs would have had two hours before we took them out of the block for a break.
Next run we took Lightning and both Bear and Kate. We made it just about to the top of the block before Lightning tracked off over to the opposite face and bailed the black boar. Chris and I waited back to see what Bear and Kate would do when they arrived. Bear went in to close and got thrown over top of the scrub and turned and headed back to us followed by Kate. We could not encourage them back across to the opposite face 150 meters away so we went across ourselves. Once we were across there the dogs got back in on the action and bailed here for quite some time before they managed to break the boar but he only made fifty meters before he bailed again in the tight stuff so that no dogs could get in behind him. By the time we called the dogs off they where ready for another break.
For our last run we took Fog, Bear and Kate, the three dogs bailed up four boars together and these boars did not want to break away from each other as they must have thought there was safety in numbers. After giving the dogs some time on this bail I got in amongst them and forced the boars to break. Fog took off after one boar while Bear and Kate followed another one. It was good to her Bear and Kate pull their boar up and their bail was that good that fog came down to join in. by the time we called the dogs out of the block Bear was totally spent. He would defiantly sleep well that night.