Bird Hog

[Turpentine21]

Fellows my wife and I ate at a local gas station turned restaurant last night. I've eaten there many times but by the table where we were seated was an older picture of a man standing there with his shotgun with a large hog at heel. Not perfectly but angled enough that he could see the hunter plainly. I thought well that's funny enough and forgot about it. When we were walking out we stopped and talked to the owner of the restaurant and his friend who is pretty much a local legend. During the conversation I told them I shot a good bit and set up sporting clays courses at different plantations every month and was an instructor. So he asked us if we saw the picture I'm referring to above. We said yes sir that's pretty unique and funny.
The owner and friend both told us that the man lived on a nearby plantation and they had hunted with him a lot and the guy always carried that hog when he went dove hunting. That he had started training the hog when it was very young. I'm thinking that's peculiar. Turns out that hog retrieves doves. No way! Both of those guys swore it was the truth. The wife asked if the hog had a soft mouth or if he chewed the bird up bad. Nope, he delivers the bird to hand and barely ruffles a feather.
I just don't know. I know pigs are very intelligent. If it is true it's one of the coolest things I've heard in a while.

 

[M77Fan]

Interesting. I'll bet it is true. I wonder if he chose a sow to train. A lot of people have pet pigs, so that is not much of a stretch. On the scale of things, pigs are believed to be smarter than dogs, and are reportedly quite trainable. If you made sure the pig wasn't hungry, I could see it delivering the birds to the hunter. Certainly with their wonderful noses, they ought to be able to find fallen doves anywhere, and much easier that a hunter looking in the tall brush. With their bulk and tendency to root, they would probably be just pushing their nose along and parting the brush following the scent. Certainly there are plenty of hard mouth dogs that don't deliver game intact. A friend had a Brittany who was a wizard on quail, and could find and pin them where other dogs totally missed them. Normally she would retrieve flawlessly, but now and again when a bird was really shot up, she would claim it. No way you were getting that bird back, it was gone in a couple gulps. (I have seen much worse hunting dog behavior.) Toll for all her hard work, I guess. So maybe with a pig you could expect to give up a certain percentage of the take as "pay"? Maybe one day you can seek the guy out and find out.