We started Soph by having her tied to the fence, you can see how she wants to dive in on the pigs but not bark.
Dan came from Christchurch with one of his dogs, a three year old bitch (Soph). Dan described her as a finder that liked to bite a pig on the back end but was not keen on barking so he was hoping that I could help out and try to get her to bark at a pig on the bail. One of the biggest problems with working with an older dog is that they are set in their ways. A three year old dog would be equivalent to a thirty year old person. If you were to try and tell a person of that age that they were not doing their job right, something that they had been working at for a long time they would be hard to convince to try and do something a different way. To tell a person to do something a different way will not get very far but if you could show them a different way so they they could see the results then it is a lot easier to get them to change. When we are dealing with a dog we also have a disadvantage with the language barrier. I believe that I have one big advantage over all dog owners that come to me and that is that their dog does not know me. I like to work on the theory that first impressions mean a lot. When a child goes into a different environment they try to fit in, if they go to their mates house and they have to put their dishes into the sink when they dirty they do so but when they go back home if they do not have to do this they won’t.
Soph of the rope and helping bail the ginger boar down in the creek.
So with Dan’s dog Soph I am creating an environment where she is seeing a dog bark at a pig rather than going in to fight with the pig. At first Soph just wanted to get in amongst the pigs and was keen on the smaller ones but because she was on the rope and wearing a muzzle she could not get to sink her teeth into any pork. Being so worked up she wore herself out very quickly and when she could not get what she wanted she started to sulk a bit by staying in behind us. By the time we brought her out of the block after almost two hours she had hardly baked at all. We went down to the hut and sat down for a cuppa and to give the dogs a rest. Dan was only in for a couple of hours so we had to give her a lot of work in a short time. After our short break we where back up in amongst the pigs again. This time not long after getting onto the pigs Soph started to give a few barks, this was an encouraging sign. Lightning and Breeze bailed the ginger boar in the real tight stuff that had been all knocked down with the snow and at one point they were not far out of the creek so a decided to let Soph off the rope as this boar is not to bad at looking after himself and I thought that he would be able to give Soph a push back if she got to close. Once that rope was not there to hold her back she was a lot more cautious but did like to try and get around the back end of the pig to try and beak him. We kept the dogs on him for about an hour and Dan got to hear more barks out of Soph than he had heard from her for a long time. We did get one casualty from this run with Breeze getting a small rip in her side, two staples helped to put her back together.
The Ginger boar breaking from the bail.