Finally back into the dog training and just loving my job. To think that through my work I get to meet such nice people like Kelly and Michael. They travelled down from Nelson for a 24 hour session with two of their bitches, Pip who is already going on pigs at four years old and their younger dog Tan who they have not seen enough of her on pigs yet so were hoping to get to see how she went. When they arrived it was fair pouring down, by the next morning we had 47 mils of rain. While sitting out the worst of the weather, having a cuppa and a catch up we finally decided to get into the pig block and get wet. I had Fog for our first run and he went up and put up the black boar.
Once Pip and Tan arrived they stuck to that pig like glue. After a while Fog came back to me so I took him away and came back with Lightning. The whole time Pip and Tan bailed away well. The black boar does not like to sit still for long so the dogs had to work out how to keep him stationary. The dogs had about three hours on him before we called them out as they had earnt a good feed and a rest for the night. After I had feed my dogs I went to feed the pigs and there was black boar looking no worse for wear and waiting for a feed.
Next morning we were only going to take Pip and Tan for a session but once they bailed up Digger my dog Jeff turned up as he had obviously escaped from his kennel again. Jeff did not have a collar or muzzle on but at eight years old he knows what I expect of him so he was no trouble. While the dogs were bailing Digger we got to see how Tan liked to go around the side of him to try and nip as she wanted the boar to break and run as this is a lot more fun for a dog. Digger is a very relaxed boar at the bail but it was interesting watching him as he just stood there until a dog looked away for a split second then he would charge getting the dog worked up again. Pip really impressed me she is a bob tailed Smithfield and a very nice bitch on pigs. After we had Digger bailed for about an hour he moved off down into the trees. When he was about thirty meters below us he seemed to move off a bit faster down through the creek and up the other side so we followed on. Linda first spotted Digger hiding in the pine trees so he had been cunning enough to take the dogs to another boar and get the dogs to follow that. As it turned out it was again the black boar and he gave the dogs another good run around. We followed him around for another hour before heading back to the house for a cuppa and something to eat.
While we were in the house I could see on the GPS that the dogs and boar were 300 meters away bailing quite happily on the other side of the gully. Just as we had finished our drinks I looked at the GPS and could see the action heading back across the gully towards us so we walked out just at the right time as the boar and dogs came down on the other side of the fence from us. We only had to call them off as they came past from another three hour session. Even at the end of this big workout I think that both of these bitches would have been keen to keep going. They are both very fit healthy dogs that were not wasting their energy.
Loving life? I have available dates for dog training on my bookings page so this is the time for anyone who has been wanting to give their dog some extra work, contact me now.