working with Snow’s mind

Snow waiting to ambush the next dog that comes back
Snow waiting to ambush the next dog that comes back

In some of my latest articles I had mentioned that Snow was bailing the other dogs and this was a good behavior on pigs but I had to be careful on how I stopped him from doing this. I had all of the dogs out on the hill the other day with Fog out having a look around when Jeff came back towards me. As soon as Snow saw him he ran up and started bailing him. I had to stop this fast as the last thing that any hunter wants is a dog making a lot of noise when we are trying to be quite. I gave Snow a sound on the collar which he took no notice of so next I gave him a light shock. This stopped him and he walked back to me wondering what he had done wrong. A couple of minutes later Fog came back so Snow went over and started bailing him. As Fog went to run past me with Snow chasing I put my foot out and knocked Snow off balance and at the same time told him off. This was to be the first time that I can remember that Snow had to be sorted out by me. His reaction was to go away from me and sit under a bush. As I walked away he looked at me but did not want to follow as he was not trusting me like he had up until this point. When I was fifty meters away I called Snow, he did not look like he wanted to follow so I gave him a sound on the collar, he still took no notice so I gave him a light shock. He could feel it but did not jump up as he was still a bite unsure so I gave him another one and called him again. This time he got up and walked back to me so I gave him a pat. I wanted him to realize that I was not angry but he just needed to listen some times. Everything was good for a while until the next time that Jeff came back from a look around. This time instead of Snow going and bailing him he slowed as he approached Jeff and I said ( settle down Snow). He behaved well. When I got him home I put Snow and Lightning back into the pig block so that Snow could have some bailing practice.