At this time of the year the sows will have young with them so I have started hunting two of my dogs with muzzles. Also part of the reason for this is that I am starting to get to much dog pressure on the pigs. With two dogs they will tend to stand back and bail better, once that third dog gets on the scene they tend to put on too much pressure and force the pig to try and break. All this does is ends up with the dogs wanting to hold the pig that would have otherwise stood for the dogs. So on my recent hunt both Fog and Lightning tracked away down below me in the tall pines. I knew that they were onto something but could not locate it. Lightning ended up coming back to me while Fog tracked down into the native. I could see on the tracker that Fog had stopped less than 100 meters below me and he stayed stationary for over one minute before he gave his first bark. I have seen him do this so many times now that I knew that he would have had a pig. This is a trait that the best dog that I have had Leroy used to do, settle the pig down before barking. When Lightning and Thunder arrived they tried to grab the pig but could not. As I closed in on them I could see from back through the scrub, Fog was standing back watching the other two getting to close to the pig and he knew what was going to happen to them. The electric collar soon had these two standing back bailing the fifty pound boar that they had. This young pig was in real good condition and I was pleased that the dogs were wearing those muzzles. If a dog got to close he would try and have a go at them as this was a natural survival instinct that pigs have. When I called the dogs off he just stood there not believing his luck.
The next pig that I got onto Lightning air scented it off the motor bike and the three dogs had a good bail going by the time I arrived. This pig was a sow of around the 80 – 90 pound mark that was obviously feeding young, so another pig that I did not want to kill. I let the dogs bail her for five minutes before calling them off. This sow did not waste any time making her break for freedom as soon as the dogs walked away from her.