Whenever Woof is off and the pigs are around he will bail them for hours. It was interesting to watch how Bruce the Kelpie will join in even when Woof is barking at the smaller pigs whereas Bro and Gus would rather sit on the deck and relax. As soon as the big boar turns up things change quickly with Bro and Gus as they love bailing the big boar but have learnt to avoid the smaller pigs.
Another hunt with all four of my dogs. Bro and Gus that tracked off up into a tight native gully to put up a bail 280 meters up above me. Bruce and Woof were quick to take off at the first bark. As I was watching the GPS I could see the moment they arrived and the pig broke the bail. As soon as I realized they were coming my way I put a bullet into the 44 so I was ready. Things could not have worked better as this pig came out onto the track not far from me running straight towards me, it was an easy shot between the eyes. Woof turned up just as this pig was kicking its last. Another good learning experience for Woof.
At this time of the year I have lambs running around and I was not going to feed any lambs this year however one little ewe lamb that had been abandoned tempted me to buy another bag of milk powder.
Lucy has been good for Woof as he can get to interact with another animal without trying to hassle them. Also lambs are much more playful than sheep and that for a young dog can be very tempting. So as Woof grows older so do the lambs and by having them interacting with each other they will learn together how there actions have a huge impact on how the other animal reacts.
One morning when I was heading out the gate for a hunt with Josh Norris I spotted a hogget that was having trouble lambing. I did not have Woof with me as I was only taking Bro and Gus on this hunt with Josh’s 2 dogs Stan and Chip. As we tried to get this hogget into the yards she just would not go so I decided to catch her with my dogs. Josh put his two dogs into his dog box as this is not the normal thing to do with pig dogs. Bro impressed me as he was quick to work out which ewe in the mob I was after and helped to single her out from the other sheep into the corner of the paddock where having both Bro and Gus aswell as myself cutting off the exits for this ewe I could walk right up and catch her without my two dogs trying to grab her. The lamb had one of its front legs back so it took a little bit of pulling to get it out. As we headed away on the bikes I was hoping the ewe would stay with the lamb but instead she got up and took off as we were heading out the gate for a hunt.
We did catch a 103 lb boar on this hunt and as we returned the lamb was lying down without it’s mother.
I managed to put the hogget and lamb into yards and it did take a bit to get the mother to take this lamb as it had a club foot where the front foot was tucked back. For the first two days I had to hold the mother in a shearing position so the lamb could lay on its side and get that colostrum feed that all lambs need.
When I was doing this all of my dogs were on the outside of the yards so they could see how the hogget and lamb reacted, also how I reacted so they could understand that there is no threat from this animal and they could stay calm.
Woof also had a couple of runs through the training block this week.
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