When I was in my early teens I'd run Rabbits in an open Alfalfa field until they ran out of oxygen and collapsed. Later I had Dogs to do the running for me. Rabbits don't have teeth that can crush bone.

Ninety nine times out of a hundred all that Hog is thinking about is escape. It's that one time in a hundred you have to worry about.

My dogs are trained to turn the Hogs and run them back in my direction so I can shoot. Sometimes it is a long wait and/or a long run through the brush and brambles. I hope you and your boyfriend are in good shape, marathon runners?

I periodically go into thickets looking for wounded Hogs. Ideally I have my slug shotgun with a bayonet, my 44 Special revolver and thick pants on. I've never been bitten, but have had them run past me with their jaws clacking shut loud enough to be heard over the sound of breaking brush.

Going after one with just a knife takes bigger cojones than I've got. Or maybe just somebody with a distinct lack of imagination. And/or not enough brains cells to imagine what can go wrong. And/or somebody with little experience with Murphy's law, "anything that go wrong will go wrong".

The wild Hog's in the U.S. are anywhere from one to many generations removed from being domesticated. The more generations they have been running wild the meaner they get. You can kind of think of them as a pack of wild dogs, dogs that can weigh in at two to three times the size of any Dog you've likely ever seen. Like I said, they tend to want to escape, but the potential is there for them to turn into a 100-300 pound Pit Bull.

If I were you I'd sit in a tree with a rifle, use my boy friend as live bait and see how things went.

My basic philosophy is. if they aren't running from me, I'm running from them.