woof’s 1st pig hunt

I have been doing a lot with Woof to get him to the stage where I could take him hunting. He knows how to get up onto the motorbike and also run along behind the bike. We have also done a lot of work on tracking by taking Woof around my farm. He is happy to have a look around and knows how to backtrack.
One of his favorite things to do is bail the chickens. He has learnt how to put on just enough pressure to move them towards me while keeping them all together.

On the pigs at home he still barks more at the other dogs rather than a pig.

Woof is now 22 weeks old and ready to experience his first hunt.
His two mentors on this hunt are Bro and Gus. when I look back at my articles on my website, Bro got to experience his first hunt at nineteen weeks old back on the 4/1/2021 which makes him coming up to six years old.
Gus was twenty three weeks old when he got to experience his first hunt back on the 23/9/2023 which means Gus is over three years old. The bonus about writing these articles is that I can go back and read exactly how my other dogs performed on their first hunts.
For this hunt I was planning on riding the bike 2.5 km then start walking untill the dogs catch a pig then head back to the bike. When the dogs finally caught up with a pig I had walked over nine km. Bro found a sow in some matagouri. Gus was quick join in. As I was moving towards the action the pig charged the dogs out to the edge of the matagouri and under the Douglas firs. Woof followed me in staying back from the pig. When I saw the pig for the first time I had the gun up ready to shoot but once I got a good look at her she was a skinny sow about 70lb she must have had the goodness sucked out of her by piglets. She should have been 100lb if she was in good condition. Also she was missing her right ear, a sign that she had a run in with dogs previously.

I got my phone out as I wanted to film Woof’s reaction to the pig. As I started filming my phone came up with insufficient data so I had to quickly scroll through some old footage and start deleting. Once I had done this my phone still would not work as I had to empty the rubbish bin. Finally I got to film Woof with his first wild pig.

While he did give a couple of barks he was more interested in hiding behind me.

I left Bro and Gus bailing this pig for 45 minutes and near the end Woof wanted to go to sleep until I called the dogs off to leave her for another day when she’s In better condition.

I enjoyed watching how well Bro and Gus controlled this pig as they were both wearing muzzles so she did not get bitten once and there was no way she could have gotten away from those dogs untill I called them off.
Woof will sleep we tonight as he covered 16km while I walked 13km.