Hey there Terry,
I guess I forgot to tell you about the circumstances involved with the Eurasian Wild Boar which is pictured here.

We kept seeing him from time to time but could not get close enough to allow the dogs to catch him so that we could remove that danged bright yellow ear tag as he would brush up very quickly and out of sight. And there has also been a bumper crop of piglets out at that ranch this year so we could not risk the dogs snapping up a piglet (dogs are not discriminate about size).

Then, an opportunity presented itself one morning as we were driving the ranch down by the "Solar Panel Pond" when the guys driving behind us radioed that the Boar with the yellow ear tag had placed himself between them and the pond and would not let them pass. (they were in a Polaris Ranger) and this vehicle was not large enough to take on a 350 lb. and challenging Eurasian Wild Boar. Did I mention the fact that the 36 chromosome Eurasian Boar has a smaller brain than its domestic and feral cousins and is a much, much more aggressive hog than any other swine on this planet?

Anyway, we cut the bay hounds loose and they quickly bayed up the hog which had by now, jumped into the pond and was tossing dogs like so much debris shaken from its wet and woolly coat. This maneuver had smartly created a disturbing dynamic to our plans to remove the ear tag from this prehistoric beast because now, his tail and legs were slippery with the oily pond mud and would make it quite difficult, if nearly impossible to grasp this neanderthal with our hands in order to subdue him. I then hollered up to my new guy Sam to release the catch dogs (the pit bull dogs) to catch the hog by the ears and slow him down enough to try and throw him over and onto his side.

When the catch dogs arrived they promptly attached themselves to both ears of the animal and this further enraged the big black beast. He then turned his attentions towards me (rightly so, wouldn't you be mad if someone was grabbing you by the tail while you were engaged in a heated battle with your enemy) he then comes up and out of the water along with me riding him from the front end with my hands firmly placed upon his flat thick skull and my legs kicking in the air and loudly screaming. This is not the end of the animal which I had intended to be connected with but luckily enough all I received was a 10" grazing cut to the left forearm.

Sam jumps down and into the foray and gets a firm grip on the hind legs, I then take over at this point (thank goodness for young help) and we proceed to take hair samples (genetic testing) and then finally, we pull out that cussed bright yellow ear tag! We pull all of the dogs away and let the Boar up, he looks at us as though he would like to eat us but looks at the dogs which are all on lead now, and turns up and disappears into parts unknown to nurse his sore ears.

The picture was taken seconds before all of this happened and the photographer photo shopped out the ear tag for our advertisements.

Yer Cuz,
T. Michael Riddle