Snow is now six months old and has shown signs of wanting to get more involved with the bailing also his voice has changed to a deeper tone like a teenager when they go through puberty. Remembering back to the first time that I had Snow bailing he got bored very quickly so now I have stepped the length of time up that he is on a pig for each session. In the last week Snow has had three runs in the main block that have lasted for over an hour each time.
When he first gets into the block he just loves chasing and bailing the boar with which ever other dog is in with him. For the first twenty minutes he is sticking with the boar and not coming back but then he starts to get bored and returns to me. At this point I am trying to teach Snow to go to the boar by saying where’s the pig Snow. Now how I say this is very important because I am trying to teach Snow something I don’t want to sound angry or excited I want to sound calm when I say where’s the pig Snow the other thing that I don’t want to do is repeat myself so I only repeat myself if I think that Snow has not heard me. When Snow does not respond straight away by going to the bail I just ignore him and within the next minute or so he goes back and joins the other dogs. Each time that I repeat this he is remembering the last thing that I said to him and over time he will associate my command with going to catch a pig. Know if I was to keep on repeating the command where’s the pig, then Snow would start to get annoyed with me that would cause a negative effect to the stage that he would not listen to me as well. I have watched a lot of people that try to get their dogs worked up by sounding worked up themselves and saying get him kiskis. The last thing I would want to do is become worked up myself when I am around the pigs this way my dog also stays relaxed. A dog that is worked up is a lot harder to control than a relaxed dog.