They brought Gavin, a British alpine cross Toggenburg, over from Christchurch.<\/p>\n
Then the training started.<\/p>\n
They took Gavin on walks and fired guns while bottle-feeding him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe full two years we\u2019ve been training him, just taking him on little wee walks with us when we\u2019re hunting, and the walks have gotten bigger and bigger,\u201d Tomasi said.<\/p>\n
He had also started joining her morning runs to prepare himself for carrying a pack.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s like, \u2018What the hell, why are we running? Do we have to run?\u2019 But if you\u2019re running, he\u2019ll follow,\u201d Tomasi said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s funny. I have the dog on the lead and not him because he\u2019s more well-behaved than the dog at staying beside me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eventually, she said Gavin would be able to carry between 20-to-30kg of gear.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re hoping to do multi-day trips with him into tops or up river beds, hunting,\u201d Tomasi said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith him being able to carry weight in for us, it\u2019s really game-changing, so we can take more food and more supplies or more meat out.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not just his ability to carry that has been handy on the hunt.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve come across goats in the wild with him, and he\u2019ll go up to them and say hello. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut he\u2019s been such a good Judas goat because they\u2019ll start following us.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s actually really good bait. The deer get really confused. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey just stand there and look at him, and they\u2019re like \u2018what is this?\u2019 and we seem to get quite a few extra seconds away.\u201d<\/p>\n
He snacked away while she got him ready for a walk, putting on his prototype pack that they made for him.<\/p>\n
But they planned to make him a new one better suited to handle the gnarly West Coast bush and hills.<\/p>\n
Setting off, Gavin followed closely on her heels.<\/p>\n
\u201cGavin\u2019s always up for an adventure,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he just loves exploring, really, he just loves going for a walk.\u201d<\/p>\n
They have already taken him on an overnight trip up the tops – he sleeps outside as he is not tent-trained – and long walks up hills and along river beds.<\/p>\n
It could be a bit scary when he went right to the edge of bluffs, but Tomasi said he loved to look at the view.<\/p>\n
Hunters and trampers they met were often shocked to find a pet goat joining the hunt, but people loved him and wanted photos of him, she said.<\/p>\n
They are allowed on private land, but also sought special permission from the Department of Conservation.<\/p>\n
They had to show they could mitigate his risks – he could not reproduce, and he carried his own food to limit his browsing, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cGavin\u2019s actually the first ever goat in New Zealand to have a DoC [pack goat] permit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Armed with his permit, he could now join hunts on stewardship land between Hokitika and South Westland.<\/p>\n
And soon she hoped to have a new addition to their hunting party.<\/p>\n
They recently bought Gavin\u2019s three-month-old nephew, Kevin, who is being trained up to join his uncle on their hunting adventures.<\/p>\n
As for life outside the hunt, the \u201cdouble-trouble\u201d liked to get up to mischief, headbutting their houses, dancing around and moving buckets around the paddock, she said.<\/p>\n
Gavin was an escape artist who used to treat her veggie garden as his salad bar before they put a deer fence around his paddock, Tomasi said.<\/p>\n
– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They brought Gavin, a British alpine cross Toggenburg, over from Christchurch. Then the training started. They took Gavin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6796,11586,44661,17215,42,44660,32655,19755,43,9769,6795,61,40,38,41,39,30727,15401,3807],"class_list":["post-51928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-brunton","tag-coast","tag-gavin","tag-goat","tag-headlines","tag-hokitika","tag-hunting","tag-join","tag-news","tag-owners","tag-tess","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-trained","tag-trips","tag-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}