Boars

(photo at the bottom of this page)

We entered in the forest where the drought had let sequel of bones of cows to the flank of the stream in several parts, next to a thick chilcal of a dirty forest, with hard floor, without clear tracks in footpaths, except for some bitten scratches in the trunks, that indicated the presence of a sire in the zone and it affirmed the worker's story of that zone who told us so he saw the sire once.

And there we went with Gustavo Segovia, Matías Tropini and Reinaldo Lorenzón, a veteran of Puma's hunting that wanted to accompany us, excited hoped to see work to the dogos.

We took to FIERRO DEL GUAYRA, or FIERRO I, and to FIERRO II (the problem of the names, was that i raised one in the city and takes the other to the field the other puppy, the chance maked the rest), two already veteran Argentine dogos with wild pigs and wild boars.

Also the Galgo and the collie of Arturo Comas, a sage of the zone, that couldnt accompany to us like so many times, but lent him dogs to us, Also went La Francisca, a sharpshooting dog mixture of dogo, galgo and to pointer.

were the 16:30 and we walked worried because a short time of light that we had(and without lanterns!!) in a field that we didnt know ,with a cloudy sky and a little heat- it was October -, we lowered the truck's light and we began to walk, the dogs entered and left the forest to the footpath, they followed with us a stretch to replenish forces and soon they continued near of some plants where floor was fully of mature fruits, near of cow's bones that acted of bait. Until La Francisca barked in the chilcal like a one hundred meters, we intuited that it was sire, then we listened to the commotion of the dogs and but it didnt shout, we all ran to there, the branches whipped us in face and the maze stopped our way, the fight was moved far, the dogs could not stop it, was a sire for sure; we arrived right to see it were him jumped to cross a stream's part, returning to fight the dogs, he was caught on FIERRO II and the others around trying to take to him. He was an enormous mixed one, and moved easily in the muddy water, until we finished with him. I started running with medicine kit emergencies looking for FIERRO I, that was not there, i wanted to think that he had been run another pig, and were already returned, so in a while it would be with me. I whistled like so many times, crossing the the fight's place, until I found a drip of fresh blood and in the grass, like a ten meters my dogo dead. By six stabs of the sire. My dog had not relaxed until it could not more, perhaps hoping as other so many times that I saved it of the death, of hurts that i seam with more love than knowledge; but this time could not be, the sire had sectioned him arteries, impossible to heal, a transfusion. My dog was quiet like never.

FIERRO DEL GUAYRA died in his law, in his Dogo Argentino's destiny , by an enemy who surpassed several times in size, he put all his courage fighting until the death.

I wanted to bury that place, in the forest that so many times he saw, walking this footpaths in the joy of the hunting.

They weighed to the pig in the ranch, emptiness weighed 160 kg. For the memory the photos and the absence of FIERRO.

By Néstor D. Boaglio (Entre Ríos, Argentina)

Translation into english: Ignacio Señorans

*a "Chilcal" is a gully or ravine (A deep ditch or channel cut in the earth by running water after a prolonged downpour.