Hogs and Cows

I was asked by a guy at my church if I would go out to his farm and remove a wild boar. I was just getting into the hog dogging, so I jumped all over the opportunity. The first day, I drove by to basically find the place, to get a feel for the land. It was like 20-25 acres. Mostly low grass, with a deep hole (dried pond), and a lot of dog fennel. I saw some horses, cows, and domestic hogs in the pasture. It was completely surrounded by barbed wire. Well, the next day, my wife, Noah, and I load the dogs up, and head over to see if we can spot this boar that is supposed to be messing with his big domestic sows. As we get to where we can see the livestock, I see this 350-400 # black heifer going nuts. As we get closer, I realize that she is trying to get something off her rear end. Now, I'm really looking hard, to try to figure this out. My wife said to me, "Is that a hog on that cows back?". After she said it, I realized that yes the little black boar was trying his darndest to get the job done on this poor little thing. She was wanting no part of it. Well, as luck would have it, I used to be very nieve, and would vest one of my bay dogs. Well, as I'm vesting him up, Noah turns two of his dogs into the pasture. The chase is on. The dang boar went throught the fence and disappeared into thin air. There was nothing but blackberry bushes around. My dogs never saw him. They kept looking at me like, "What are you expecting us to do?". We ended up going home empty handed. The next trip, we decided to get some more proven hog dogs involved. Noah brought 2, I brought 2, Will brought 3, and Blake brought the bulldog. As we pulled up to the gate, the boar was standing in the middle of the field. He broke into a run, as we hopped out of the trucks. He then, stood directly in front of the bulls face. The bull flung him about 15' into the air spinning head over tail. When he hit the ground, he was off to the races. What took place next, reminded me of the beginning of the movie "Gladiator". Of course the movie had one dog named "Hell". Here we had 7 bay dogs fanned out accross the pasture sight chasing this solid black boar. Not being hunted around such places before, two of the dogs got clothslined by the barbed wire. The others proceeded into the blackberries again. After about 10 minutes of silence, my hank dog (hound) smelled or winded him. As he began to tell us of his crouched location, the other dogs got in there. We turned the bulldog in to the bay. In all, 8 dogs battled that boar. We tied him up, carried him out, and I kept him at my house for a long time. He was mean from the word go. I bet he only weighed 115 pounds the day we tied him. We were so new into the sport, we did not realize that we overdogged him. Looking back, it was pathetic. Of course looking back, so was my personal pack of "hog dogs". I've since gone to a better suited line, and have really learned a lot. Oh well, we have to start somewhere. I'm sure Noah will agree, Ellie or just about any of his other dogs, could have done it by themselves today. I would like to think my dogs of today, would have caught him before he ever got out of the fence.

On a side note, I fed that boar left over fried chicken from a local resturaunt for some time. He put on some serious weight. His teeth grew very fast on that diet. He was a trophy when he left my place.