Shaun is from Seddon where he has a vineyard. He had came in for 48 hours training with his two 18 month old dogs, they are predominantly Lab / collie cross. They where both quite large dogs so I thought that they may have been reasonably hard but was surprised that they where not to bad. A credit to Shaun they where both
well behaved and willing to listen. For our first run we took Breeze and King who we had on a rope as well as wearing a muzzle. The pigs must have been hungry as they came down to the fence to meet us so I first gave them a feed and kept the dogs outside. When I thought the pigs had enough to eat I let the dogs in. King was on a lead so he could not go to far and he was also wearing a muzzle. As breeze went though the gate 4 pigs
broke, the sow, wee pig and the black boar went up the creek and the ginger boar went up the hill on the left hand side so I sent breeze after the ginger boar. King was not to sure what was going on at first because as he walked through the gate he was meet by three large grey boars. Shaun lead him around them and up to were Breeze was bailing. As King was closing in he was very cautious until he saw the boar then he tried to go straight in, which broke the pig straight away. Because King was on the lead Shaun kept him in and lead him to where Breeze had the boar
bailed again. King broke this boar three times before he joined up with the other grey boars down in the gully. With the four boars now together and the ground was a lot more open King was more than happy to stand back and bail. We gave the two an hour on the pigs before going back to the hut for a break. For the next run I knew that the pigs would be well gone as they had a good feed so would be up in the block
somewhere. For this reason I decided to take Lightning as he will go and find the pigs wherever they are. Also we had King along this time on a lead. Lightning only took a couple of minutes to put up a bail 150 meters away up the gully. Because Lightning had the black boar bailed in some tight stuff I said to Shaun that we would let King off the lead and see what happened because if the boar broke he would come down to us. King was quite happy to join in on the bail so Shaun and I went up the
opposite face where we could look back across at the action. Both dogs bailed well for a while all though. The boar finally decided that he had enough of this game and broke the bail only to make it down to the bottom fence. At this stage I decided to call the dogs off and get Lightning to go and find another pig. Five minutes later we could hear Lightning bailing 400 meters away up on top of the hill. This time he had the ginger boar , as we closed in on the bail King stayed with us until we
where about 50 meters away then he went in and had a bark. As Shaun and I arrived this boar decided he had had enough and broke the bail down into the creek where both dogs stuck with him well. We got down there to find quite a bit of blood around so I called the dogs off to find that Lightning had copped a small poke in the bottom of his jaw that was bleeding well so I called the dogs off for the night. Next morning we took Elfie up with Fog, because both dogs are young I wanted them to try and do some finding rather than us walk them onto the pigs. We walked slowly up through the gully stopping regularly to try and send the dogs away on any of the pig crossings. We ended up making it right up to the middle of the block where there is a good place to sit down and look over the open ground to see weather any thing is moving about. We where sitting down for about10 minutes before Fog put up a bark 100 meters away, up above us. The two dogs bailed this black boar for a short time before he broke down into the creek. While both dogs took of after him Elfie returned as soon as it was stopped. He did go back down with us and join in again in one of the worst spots in the block. We had to force our way to them through matagouri and bush lawyer. They both had a good bail going here so we left them at it for the next hour before taken them out of the block. Second run for the morning was with Breeze and King. This was an easy run because the pigs must have been getting hungry again and where waiting on us. King started bailing well and did not try and break the pigs so after 20 minutes I got Shaun to go and get Elfie so we could get both of his dogs working together. Once Shaun left the block King started trying to get out and follow him and just did not want any thing to do with the pigs even with Breeze still bailing. As Shaun came back into the block King got back into it but Elfie was keeping his distance and bailing from a couple of meters back. Over the next hour his confidence started getting better as he got in a lot closer. We even managed to take the muzzles off both dogs as they where bailing well. Our third run of the day was with Breeze, King and Elfie. We got the black boar bailed this time but after a short bail I called the dogs off and kept them in heel while we watched the boar try and sneak off. Once he had a small head start I got Shaun to send his dogs after the pig. At first they got confused on the scent and came back but Shaun put them away again and this time they went up into the pines and started bailing. I kept Breeze in heel the whole time giving Shaun’s dogs a chance to do all of the work on their own. The boar did finally break the bail so I sent Breeze away after it to keep the other two dogs with it as they all bailed him in the creek. The only thing was that by this stage the dogs where getting keener and wanting to try and go in for the hold but because they where wearing the muzzles it kept the boar from getting hurt. If the dogs where able to get in and hold that would just teach them a bad habbit and would work the pig up where he would just try and keep running which is the reason that some dogs keep chasing pigs and not stopping them. At one point this boar hit me between the legs as I was trying to get the dogs to back of and I got dragged about 5 meters on top of the dogs and boar before I got back on my feet again. Luckily I only received a bruised shin. By the time we called the dogs off they had been bailing for quite some time and Shaun and I where very happy with their progress as we returned to the hut for a well deserved beer and yarn about how the dogs had done so far.
For our last run in the block for the night, rather than taken any of my dogs we took just King and Elfie with the intentions of trying to get them to go away and find a pig. We made it half way up the guuly before it started getting dark. The dogs did not go away far enough to find a pig but the where getting tired as they had been balling for over three hours that day.
Next morning we took Fog and both of Shaun’s dogs, Fog bailed up two of the grey boars together where they were sleeping. The dogs ended up putting to much pressure on them which caused them to break so I got the dogs to focus on the main boar from the block. As their bail kept going I took the muzzles off the dogs and they bailed well for over 90 minutes before we took them out of the block for a rest.
The last run we had was with Breeze , King and Elfie. Again it was the main boar that Breeze and King found up towards the top of the block as we approached he broke down into the creek where Breeze had him bailed. Elfie had come back quite quick and then King returned as well but Breeze kept on bailing right at the top of the block where the creek runs in. As we got closer the other two dogs joined in again. We left the dogs bailing for an hour before calling them off and retreating up the hill while we waited for the boar to take off. At this stage we had the muzzle’s off the dogs and when the boar heard them coming he was off, he ran the whole length of the block about 600 meters down through the scrub with us in hot pursuit. As we where closing in King came back to us as he had followed all the way but came off early and five minutes later Elfie turned up as he had back tracked us. We gave them a couple more minutes bailing before calling the dogs out for the final time.
The training from now on will be up to Shaun to get his dogs out into the hill in an area that has a pig. Both dogs will bail with another dog and will bail while Shaun is around but they still need more time on pigs. King is the harder of the two dogs and more likely to go further, But if Elfie starts getting a few pigs he could be ready to step up. Once they have had a few days in their kennels to recover they will be keen as to get out there in amongst it.