By Frog Dogs Australia
Here’s a bit of an intro into our hunting life here at Frogdogs Australia. I started out as a born and bred Victorian (f*#?ing Mexican haha) loved hunting in all forms duck, rabbit, fox, quail from a young age. It wasn’t until I was 15 when I got my first dog an Airedale x and got invited to hunt on a place between Lake Cargelligo and Mt Hope. We shot a few pigs and put the dogs on a couple after this I was hooked. Had always loved hunting with dogs ( foxes, rabbits ) but as any reader will know there’s that extra adrenaline about pigs. After that first trip, I ended up hunting on properties all over NSW and just over the border into QLD. I completed my butcher's trade-in Victoria and as soon as I was done, I headed to Mossgiel in NSW to work/hunt on a property than from there to Tilpa for 12 months hunting/working.
In Tilpa was where I learnt a heap about hunting especially Ute finding, I met some people there who taught me a lot about dogs. After my stint there I decided to head up north at the age of 21 to Cairns FNQ which as everyone knows is the Mecca for pig hunting. It wasn’t long after moving there I took a job out Georgetown running the butcher shop. Through work, I got to know a few local station owners who trusted me enough to hunt their blocks. I ended up boxing pigs there for a month or so after the work at the shop finished then headed to Burke and wills roadhouse with a couple of mates and boxed pigs out of there for the rest of the year on stations between Burke and wills and Gregory downs. We Boxed over 800 pigs the 1st year and I went back the next year on my own for 600 pigs. I never made millions but I was doing what I loved.
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It was out there where the FrogDogs line began-out of a couple of the more exceptional dogs I had mixes of - Wolfhound/Staghound/Mastiff and Bully/Collie/Pitbull cross, add any other breed you can think. They were mongrels but could handle the heat and handle the rigorous hunting day and night continuously for months on end. After I finished my full-time hunting stint in the Gulf, I landed a linesman apprenticeship in Normanton, spent the next six years there and met my wife Denicka. We boxed hundreds of pigs in Normanton from various properties in the Gulf every year (was some of the best times in our lives still miss it to this day ) It was during this time I got called about a dog who had been through 4 different hunters in Cairns that couldn’t handle him. Mates had bred him - Bully/ Mastiff x Arab - we were his last chance so I took him on gave him a shit ton of work, day and night, he had had no limits. Still to this day, Squid was one of the toughest and best dogs I’ve seen.