As I was sitting at the hut waiting for Shane to turn up the weather just kept getting worse, for a start it was pouring with rain, then it started snowing quite heavily but just before Shane pulled up the snow stopped so we could get up unto the block and get some real good photos of Shane’s dogs on pigs in the snow.
Denny was an older dog between five to six years old of mixed breeding but looked to have a lot of Beardie. Cash was of similar breeding but only one year old.
For our first run I opted to take Breeze and Denny as I thought that he would have been the harder of the two. When we first let him into the block Breeze was bailing two of the grey boars and Denny did not seem to worried about going straight in so we took the rope off him straight away. When Denny did go in he wanted to be right in the pigs face and putting to much pressure to keep a steady bail so we had to tell him off a couple of times at which he seemed to listen.
Once I thought he was OK I decided to go and get Cash and bring him in as well. Just as I left the block I heard the two boars break the bail and by the time I got to the dog kennels I could hear one of the boars getting a hard time from the dogs. By the time that I had got back up to the gate Shane was back with the two dogs waiting on me. Because Breeze did not have a muzzle on and the boar was trying to break she was biting him on the back leg and Denny was trying to grab the boar by the face but could not because of the
muzzle so he called the dogs off the boar. With this in mind I decided to swap Breeze for Fog with a muzzle on as now I would have to have a dog that can go and find a pig. Once Fog was in the block he went and bailed the same boar from earlier and we were having a similar problem, the dogs were just putting to much pressure on the pig for him to want to stop as the dogs where right in his face. I could see that even my dog Fog was getting in to close as well which was teaching him a bad habit so we called the dogs off this boar hoping to find another one that would force the dogs to stand back a bit more.
What we struck next was the two grey boars that we had not been on and the ginger boar together, at this bail both Denny and Cash were not to keen to get in to close. I think they felt like they were out numbered and it was mainly Fog that was doing most of the bailing. After quite some time the boars broke the bail, this got the other dogs keen again until one grey boar and the ginger boar bailed together again then the job was left to Fog again. Because it was not long before dark I decided to get the boars to break again so I went in and put some pressure on them, this got the other dogs keen again. By the time we walked out it was getting pretty dark under the pine trees.
Next morning we only took one of Shane’s dogs, Cash up with Fog and Lightning thinking that this would get him to work better without Denny their. We got onto the light grey boar first and when Cash did go in he was still wanting to go so close to the head making it hard for the boar to settle down. Normally what I can do in this situation is give the dog a shock on the electric collar but I could also see that if I did do this the dog would just sulk and not want to do anything. Another thing that I was seeing at this point is that the pigs were obviously very cold from the snow and not having as much fight in them as they would normally have. This will be why it is so much easier to catch pigs in the cold weather.
For our last run we took Denny Lightning and Breeze. This was to be the first time that Breeze would have worn a muzzle as she is normally very safe with the pigs and does not touch the small ones but after seeing her grabbing one of the boars yesterday she would have to wear the muzzle today. As we entered the block the skies opened up with another good down pour that quickly washed away the last signs of snow. The first boar they bailed was the black boar who can normally put up a good fight and it was Breeze and Lightning who bailed him and we got to see Denny try and go in and get thrown out a number of times before the boar broke down into the creek. Even when I called my dogs out we could see that Denny was still trying to put on to much pressure so we called the dogs off and went to find another boar. At the next bail we had the two dark grey boars together but Denny was not to keen to join in so we sat back for a while until they broke the bail. This got Denny keen again but again he wanted to get into the pigs face and like Cash I did not want to give him a shock. Normally this boar has got enough fight in him to give a dog a tune up but I think he to was felling the cold and just did not have his usual fight in him. As we left the block for the last time I to was starting to feel the affects of the cold and was looking forward to a nice hot shower.