This is a very hard article to write. We as humans are lucky that we get to live so much longer than our dogs. This leaves us with the very hard decision, to make that hard call when to put one of our best mates down.
This decision has come to me twice as hard as I have been putting things off for a long time. Fog who was born on the 2/12/2011.
He has been deaf for a long time but has enjoyed his retirement for the last couple of years. I always told myself when he is too old to jump up into his kennel I would think of getting him put down.
Fog in his prime.
He is now at the stage where he is completely deaf so when I put the dogs away I have to pat him to wake him up so that he follows me up to the dog kennels.
Fog on his last day at home. I Know I will miss him.
The thing that has motivated me to getting him put down is one of my other dogs Rastus who was born on the 28/12/17.
Rastus on his 1st time in my training block.
Rastus was born at home out of my previous possum dog Jeff. I breed Rastus to take over from him on the possums however when he was about 8 months old I acquired Tig and watching these two dogs work together it became obvious that Tig showed far more enthusiasm in catching possums where as Rastus preferred chasing pigs. This is something that all hunters will see in their dogs, it’s like farmers understand the difference between a heading dog and a huntaway. To try and train a dog against its natural instinct is very hard.
When I think back I can remember Rastus bailing a 176 lb boar before he was a year old. Over the years I had noticed that Rastus was a lazy dog on the find but once a dog barked he would go and stick with that pig.
One hunt that sticks in my mind was when Bro, Tig and Rastus had a boar bailed in the native face above my cattle yards, when the boar broke I was so focused on Bro and Tig on the GPS running around when the pig broke that I thought I was going to get a shot at the pig as it broke across the track when Rastus’s collar beeped 20 barks per minute 800 meters away down on the road.
Because Rastus was a fine build he could get through the thick scrub quickly.
Over the past 7 years Rastus would have caught more than 700 pigs as well as being a mentor in my training block for many other dogs.
Back on the 23rd of March the dogs caught a 116 lb boar which I had Tig ,Gus, Bro and Rastus on. At the time the dogs seemed ok. It wasn’t until a couple of days later that I noticed Rastus was not his normal self. He was having trouble lifting his head and if another dog ran into him he would wince in pain.
The 116 lb boar that hurt Rastus.
Over the past couple of months I expected him to get better but instead he has got worse so I have had to make the hard call to put him down.
Rastus on his last hunt.
I Know what it is like to have a broken neck and a broken back and a lot of recovery is in the mind but obviously, with Rastus, he has been injured more than I could see. Dogs are normally very tough animals, so he was obviously in a bad way so this is why I have had to make the hard call to put him down.
Some people think pig hunters are tough people, but in reality, this is one of my harder decisions in my life where it gets all of those emotions going.
So long Rastus you were a good all round dog.
Luckily time can heal and I know going forward I will get the next young pup to fill the gap.
My last pup was Gus who is now two and half years old from John lockley who is an exceptional pig dog however I like to see the many different pigs dogs. Over the years I have seen some great beardie collie’s come through my training block. One three year old beardie bitch that came in was from a working dog team and was brought in to help train the hunters younger dog. That bitch found and bailed a boar with no pressure and was impressive to watch how she could read any movement from the boar so quick that she kept the boar calm rather than stirring it up.
If you have a pup from hunting parents that has a lot of beardie in the breeding please contact me. I also want to train my next dog up on sheep as Rastus was my sheep dog as well as pig dog.