Muzzles

This article has been a long time coming so there is alot to explain.
A bit about myself, I started pig hunting in 1989 and have been hunting ever since.
In 1993 my wife Janice and I moved to central Otago where I took on a job as a rural truck driver which introduced me to a lot of landowners. When we left in 2000 I had 43 different blocks of land to hunt on. This is where I got to learn a lot about animal behavior. I could see pigs before the dogs so got to see the many different ways a dog can find and stop a pig.
In 2007 Janice and I purchased a 135 acre block of land in the back of a forestry. I have set this block up to help hunters to train their dogs.
It was one particular dog, Leroy that taught me so much about how best to control a pig.
This is done by using the least amount of pressure possible. The amount of pressure is the action taken by the dog. As people we know that we react differently to how a dog approaches us. If a dog comes at us aggressively we will either fight, flight or freeze.
On the other hand if a dog approaches us looking happy and calm we may not even take notice of the dog.
Now that I have explained how we react to a dog the pig also reacts in a similar way. If a dog is going to run straight at a pig with the intentions of biting that pig of course the pig is going to react the same as a human either fight, flight or freeze. When an experienced finder bailer finds a pig they will approach cautiously so as not to spook the pig. I learnt by watching Leroy approach good boars and calmly watch, until the boar is not quite sure weather to run or not. Leroy could take up to a minute before his first calm bark to slowly call the boss in.
Then we have the other scenario that the pig is onto the dog and bolting for the far away ridge. What maters most here is speed,  the dog tracking, needs to be on their game. When the dog catches up with the pig it’s the same scenario as the dog approaching us. The way I like to explain this is if you were talking to someone and they threw punch or kick at you, you would react differently the moment their demeanor changed.
I see a pigs mind set to be like a drunk person, very unpredictable. When the dog catches up with a pig that has just had a good head start, that pig will not be in the same mindset as before he started running. Just like a person hitting a punch bag for a minute, they think differently because they are exhausted so when the dog catches up to the boar most likely the boar will be getting exhausted  so knowing he cant outrun the dog he will have a go at the dog. I good fit pig dog just needs to avoid getting ripped at this point. The boar will quickly workout that the dog is just to quick if he tries to charge him and like two boxers in the ring they don’t throw a punch until they are close enough to hit. It won’t take long for a boar to workout that not only is the dog faster than him running, he’s also faster at getting out of his way when he chargers. So his next option is to think and calm down.  As long as the dog doesn’t try and bit him.
This brings me to the muzzles twelve years ago I tried my first muzzle which was a cheap plastic one from the vets, it lasted about 30 seconds at the first encounter.  From this a freind Richard Hand made a couple of muzzles for me and I was very surprised at how good they work. Muzzles are not for all dogs, no point in putting a muzzle on a dog that is not bruising pork.
Because the muzzles went so well in my training block I started using them on my dogs while out hunting.  Lightning and Fog were the first two dogs I started hunting with muzzles on, about thirteen years ago. Lightning was very hard on the Pigs front shoulder which bruised a lot of pork. Once Lightning started wearing the muzzle I stopped getting bruised pork and he was still stopping the pigs.
Currently I have six year old Bro and three year old Gus who both hunt with the muzzle on. Bruce is a six year old Kelpie who loves to bail so never has a muzzle. 

I get to see a lot of different dogs and owners in my job as a pig dog trainer/hunting guide. Watching how dogs interact with a pig is what I am looking for. In my earlier years of dog training when I didn’t have the muzzles. I could see dogs learning a bad habit of wanting to fight the pig. I tried putting a dog on a rope, but that does not work as well as the muzzles. A dog with a muzzle on that tries to attack a pig will get thrown back by the boar and will quickly workout that its a lot safer and easier to stand back and bark. When a sheep farmer works his sheep he doesn’t want a dog biting them. Some sheep dogs cut a sheep out of a mob and hassle them. This is the mindset I see with a lot of pig dogs, by putting too much pressure on the animal.
My dogs get to see a 200lb boar every day and bark at it, but not bite it.
Some people think that pigs run at the slightest sound but I know that when a good boar hears a stick break he will first try and work out what it is because, it could be a hogging sow looking for a boyfriend in which case he isn’t going to be running away.
Janice and I have lived off grid in the back of the hills for the past fourteen years so I have had a lot of time to interact and learn with the wild life.
I hope this has explained a bit about why I use the muzzles.
I have seen a lot of comments from people who don’t understand the concept of a dog stopping pigs without harming them. So many hunters think a dog has got to bite a pig to stop it. If that is what you see then that is what you believe. 
I know there are pigs in different areas that can run better than others or fight better than others but this comes down to the environment they are living in. We can see with people around the world how different we act in different countries. Someone living in the Gaza strip will be a nervous worried person compared to some walking down the street in Christchurch.
Doing most of my hunting on farm land I got to see how changing the hunting pressure changes the animals. At lambing time most farmers didn’t want a dog walking around their place because it only takes a fright for a ewe to run away and leave a newborn lamb. So with farms shut up for a couple of months the pigs would settle down and for an experienced dog it was like bailing sheep. As the pressure goes back on them they try and become scarce.
Now for areas that have hard dogs going into them the pigs will become very educated at running and if they have the terrain in their favor then they have a good chance of getting away from most dogs with or without a muzzle.
The biggest advantages of my dogs wearing muzzles are.
I don’t get bruised pork.
The dogs calm the pigs down.
My dogs sustain less injuries. 
The dog has to think a bit more rather than just fly in on a pig and I have discovered that they still catch a lot of pork.
Over the past few years I have had the odd time when my dogs have got onto pigs without their muzzles on and I normally end up regretting it. A dog without a muzzle can kill or harm a pig yet with the muzzle on I get to decide that pigs fate. Any hunter that thinks a pig gets away from a dog because of the muzzle have never used Muzzles so their argument is without fact.
There was a time when the earth was considered flat. It took Christopher Columbus to prove people wrong. 
I’m Not about to travel to every part of New Zealand to show people what I have learnt but I’m happy to explain and show people how the muzzles work for me. 

When putting Muzzles onto your dog always thread the muzzles leather collar through the dogs collar. This way if you haven’t got the muzzle on tight enough and it comes off the dog you won’t lose your muzzle.